[Review] - The Horsewoman by James Patterson & Mike Lupica

The newest James Patterson branded novel, The Horsewoman, is now available on hardcover and eBook from Little, Brown and Company. As you can probably guess by glancing at the cover, it's a sports drama 'co-written' by veteran sports columnist Mike Lupica.

I almost skipped over The Horsewoman due to one little bitty fact - I don't like sports dramas. Whether it's fictional or a true story, sports dramas are always campy and predictable. Since I'm trying to widen my reading forte, I gave The Horsewoman a shot. 

Don't let the 433-page length fool you - the book is easy to read due to large lettering and short chapters. To be precise, there are 131 chapters. Remember, this is a 'James Patterson' title, so the excess chapters shouldn't be a surprise. If you asked me, that's 100 chapters too many for an adult novel.  

Calling The Horsewoman an adult novel is a bit of a stretch. There are two protagonists - twenty-something Becky McCabe and her mother, Maggie Atwood. The narration, dialogue, and slim descriptions point to a Young Adult (YA) novel.  

The plot is as simple as you can get. The mother gets injured, and the daughter steps in to take her spot in the Equestrian competitions leading to the Paris Olympics. The mother is jealous of her daughter's success. She recovers from her injuries. Then she gets back on a horse and rides against her daughter. Yeah, it sounds like a predictable Hollywood movie- and predictable it is.  

Then there's a side plot about immigration that feels a bit forced upon the readers. It's 2022, so we have to include something political in a book that was clearly written for teenagers - though, without this added drama side plot, the book would lose some character growths. Most of the characters are one to two-dimensional, so any character development is okay with me.  

Final Thoughts

It took me less than two hours to read The Horsewoman, even though I didn't connect with the characters. I know nothing about horse riding, so it's not a shocker that I couldn't get emotionally involved with the characters. The story is fast-paced, though I did get annoyed with the short chapters. Seriously, there should never be 100+ chapters in a single book!

The story is cliched - the mother and daughter characters are underdeveloped. The dialogue is over the top cheesy. There were times when I couldn't tell which character was talking because of their voices alike.

Overall, The Horsewoman is a horse riding melodrama that is neither good nor bad. It feels less like an actual novel and more like a low-budget made-for-Hallmark movie. Despite my nitpicking, I thought The Horsewoman was a decent read. Trust me, it's not the best-written novel in the world, but I've read far worse.