The Scorpio Races

Maggie Stiefvater (author)

Scholastic Press, USA: Australian release November 2011

ISBN: 9780545224901

Genres: adventure, fantasy

Issues: family, friendship, identity, love

It is the time of the Scorpio Races, where riders battle wills with the unpredictable water horses, the mythical carnivorous horses that live in the sea. Some riders live; some die; only one can win.

The Scorpio Races: a connection to the sea and the land; a recognition of skill (and stupidity); and a prize that can buy a life full of new possibilities. Sean Kendrick, nineteen, has handled waterhorses since he was a child, trained at his father's knee. Sean is the name the others call when a beast is out of control. He has won the last four Scorpio races but his horse is owned by his boss. Puck Connolly is racing out of desperation. Her parents were killed by water horses when they were out fishing. She and her brothers have practically raised themselves but her oldest brother is leaving for the mainland and they are about to lose their parents' house. Only by winning this year's race can Puck provide for herself and her younger brother – but she refuses to ride the beasts that killed her parents. The men of the island say it's against tradition and fight her every step of the way. But Puck is a fighter too – and it seems she has Sean Kendrick on her side.

Another tense, exciting, dramatic and original narrative from the powerful imagination of Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races is an absorbing and beautifully crafted piece of writing. Stiefvater has many skills as a writer, one of them being her ability to create complex characters that drive her stories forward. Puck/Kate Connolly is at that painful precipice between childhood and adulthood, forced to grow up rapidly due to her circumstances. Sean is already older than his years but Kate's courage and risk-taking challenge him to rethink his own choices and move outside his comfort zones. By shifting the narrative between Sean and Kate's first person recounts, Stiefvater gives the reader tremendous insight into their internal landscapes as well as their perceptions of each other.

Highly cinematic in structure, imagery and pacing, Stiefvater's writing has a poetic clarity and emotional intensity that demands reader involvement with her characters and their causes. Of particular note is the author's use of environment as not merely a backdrop but a character in its own right. What was particularly true of the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy is as relevant to The Scorpio Races. The island – and the Scorpio Sea that surrounds it – looms over the story, influencing every action and reaction of both major and minor characters. How the characters relate to the island affects how they relate to each other, how they live their lives. His connection to the island is why the villagers both respect and resent Sean Kendrick, the man with 'one foot on the land, one in the sea'.

A novel filled with the shifting movements of the sea and the uneasy relationship between the islanders and the water horses, The Scorpio Races is a story to be savoured and reread.

'She is down the beach like an osprey diving for a fish. Breathlessly fast. And always, always conscious of the water, angling towards the sea. And again, that sinuous, slippery movement. She seems far less horse than sea creature to me, even now, even in the deep of October, even on dry land. Even with me whispering in her ear.' (p40)