The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle

The Blessings of the Animals (Harper Perennial paperback original, $14.95) is on our August Staff Pick list, and all of our customers who know me well probably know why. Just look at that cover! It makes me want to drive out to my favorite barn and hug a horse.

This is a wonderful story about a woman named Cami Anderson who is a veterinarian with her own animal hospital, an animal rescue volunteer with the Humane Society, the mother of a teenage daughter, and the wife of a moody restaurateur. The very day Cami gets a call to rescue some severely neglected horses (she brings home the most damaged one, a handsome but angry kicker) her husband tells her "I don't want to be married anymore." Cami has to learn what is worth rescuing, and what isn't.


I was enthralled with every single passage about Moonshot the wounded horse. He had painful abscesses in his hooves, but responded to Epsom salt soaks and Cami's slow, gentle efforts to untangle the bird nests in his tail. By the time Cami is able to saddle-up Moonshot and sit on him without getting bucked off, you're not really sure who has rescued whom.

This is an enjoyable book that would be appropriate for both women and teen girls. I plan to pass it along to my favorite horse trainer, who is just as gifted with horses as Cami. Maybe I'll even stop out at the barn and brush out a horse's tangled tail, because there's nothing quite like the blessings of animals.