The story of a horse and the woman who loves her—a lively first novel of not-daughters and non-mothers; animals and animal bodies; and how we find freedom, care, and community in unexpected places.

For a long time, a woman lives with her husband and their dog. She teaches writing courses, plods away at a book of her own, and doesn’t think much about not having a child. Then the dog dies, and a doctor’s visit reveals her body can’t have children even if she wanted to. Out of these conditions, a sudden, strangely familiar thought prevails: horses.

When she hears about a mare whose owner needs help part-time, it seems like an ideal arrangement—and perhaps something to help with the emptiness, diagnosable and otherwise, that she’s begun to feel. She has no problem sharing; she shares a garden with the children next door and chores with her husband. The horse will be something to care for, just two days a week, without getting in too deep.

But as she takes up riding lessons and medical treatments, walks and brushes and dreams of the horse, her affection develops into obsession—forcing her to confront what it means to love a being who does not belong to her. Moving with grace, humor, and probing insight, Emily Haworth-Booth’s Mare pulses with life and feeling and introduces an irresistible literary voice.