*Starred Review* The island of Thisby, somewhere near Britain and replete with cars and electricity, is nevertheless fantastical, the home base of a fierce breed of water horses, the capaill uisce, man-eaters who rise from the autumn seas to terrorize the islanders. They can be captured and somewhat tamed, however, and once a year the island hosts a tourist draw, the Scorpio Races, a beachside contest often fatal to the riders. Sean Kendrick is one of the racers, a four-time champion on his trusty stead. Kat. Puc. Connolly is new to the races and the first woman rider. Due to a loophole in the rules, Kate's riding a regular horse, her beloved Dove, which she trusts to run true against the more frightening contestants. Both riders have deeper personal motives for wanting to win. Filling it with loving descriptions of wet, wind-tossed Thisby as well as exciting equine action, Stiefvater has created a thrilling backdrop for the love story that blooms between Sean and Puck. And in the water horses, based on mostly Celtic legends, she's created scary yet compelling forces of nature. A book appealing to lovers of fantasy, horse stories, romance, and action-adventure alike, this seems to have a shot at being a YA blockbuster.--Cruze, Kare. Copyright 2010 Booklist

MAGGIE STIEFVATER'S violent, stand-out fantasy, "The Scorpio Races," is set on the fictional island of Thisby, in either a near past or a dystopian future where there are cars and radios but no mention of television or the Internet. Here, young men are drawn to the barren beaches of the Scorpio Sea each November to compete in a brutal race astride capaill uisce (CAP-ul ISH-kuh), commonly known as water horses. Stiefvater, most recognized for her "Shiver" werewolf romances, not only steps out of the young adult fantasy box with "The Scorpio Races" but crushes it with pounding hooves. Adapted from Celtic legend, the meat-eating mounts of this inventive, tightly woven tale have the ability to lull their human riders into a stupor whereby the fairy horses can then carry them back to the ocean to be devoured. The two likable and well-realized main characters have been born and raised in this rough and isolated but tightknit island society. Kate Connolly, or Puck, as she is called, has already lost both her parents to the capaill uisce. Now her older brother Gabe is threatening to leave the island, and the only way Puck can keep her impoverished family intact is to enter the Scorpio Races and win the pot. Sean Kendrick, another orphan and locally lauded for his ability to calm the capaill uisce shares Puck's fierce determination. Sean works for the callous owner of Thisby's largest horse yard; he has ridden Malvern stables' champion stallion Corr to victory in the last four races. Now 19-year-old Sean is ready to call his life his own. Two sides of the same coin, their stories told in alternating first-person, Puck and Sean both love Thisby and its horses. Yet Puck embodies forward-looking progress in challenging her beloved islanders' exclusion of women racers, while Sean looks to the ancient pagan traditions surrounding the water horses as a way to preserve what is best in Thisby. This chasm engenders a romance, born of mutual respect. But of course, both riders can't win, and this tension drives the novel to its bloody but satisfying conclusion while leaving the stall door open for further installments. Stiefvater's descriptions of the small island community, from the gossipy butcher shop to the sacred hush of the Malvern stables, are poetically rendered and steeped in a belief system that feels entirely real. The pull between the island's pagan past and it's seemingly Catholic present creates a well-constructed metaphor for teenagers struggling to understand current frictions between religion, politics and pop culture. The islanders' fight to maintain their heritage even as their economy lags behind the mainland's - and of the Americans who show up to watch the races - also feels relevant to those suffering the effects of recent financial upheaval. If "The Scorpio Races" sounds like nothing you've ever read, that's because it is. The capaill uisce are exhilarating, frightening creations, far more fascinating in their quivering, carnivorous rage than lovelorn vampires or angsty fallen angels, the current paranormal darlings of Y.A. literature. Stiefvater has successfully plumbed lesser-known myths and written a complex literary thriller that pumps new blood into a genre suffering from post-"Twilight" burnout. Jennifer Hubert Swan is the middle-school librarian at the Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School. She blogs at Reading Rants.

Gr 8 Up-On the sea-battered and wind-swept isle of Thisby, fall brings the famed and feared capaill uisce, or water horses, and with them, death. These animals are bigger and faster than their terrestrial cousins, and they are carnivorous and predatory. Many islanders have lost family members to the beasts, including narrators Sean Kendrick and Kate Connely. For them, and others, the annual Scorpio Races are both a celebration and a grotesque spectacle. Island men test their mettle and risk their lives racing the water horses, capping a weeks-long festival. Sean, the island's foremost horse expert, races Corr to win the money to finally buy the horse from his boss, Benjamin Malvern. Kate, aka Puck, races her land horse to save her family home from foreclosure by the same man. Both cannot win, and it is doubtful that both will survive. While there is plenty of action, conflict, excitement, and a heart-stopping climax, it is the slowly developing relationship between Kate and Sean that makes the book remarkable. Though different, they are both products of the island and have an intense love for Thisby that is not shared by all of the residents. Stiefvater makes readers care deeply for them, their desolate island, and even the monstrous water horses. The author takes great liberties with the Celtic myth, but the result is marvelous.-Anthony C. Doyle, Livingston High School, CA (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The bestselling author ofShiver(2009) andLinger(2010) turns the legend of the water horse into a taut, chilling, romantic adventure.Each October on the island of Thisby, thecapaill uisce, or water horses, emerge from the sea. Predatory meat-eaters, they endanger the islandersbut they are also fast, far faster than land horses, and if captured and very carefully handled, with iron and magic, they can be trained. Every first of November, the water horses are raced on the beach of Thisby; winning the Scorpio Races brings fame and fortune, but losing often bringsdeath. Nineteen-year-old Sean Kendrick runs for the right to buy the water-horse stallion Corr; 16-year-old Katherine, called Puck, pits her land mare against the water horses in an attempt to save her home. Gradually, the two of them, both orphaned bycapaill uisceand fighting for the most important object in their lives, become confederates. First-person narration alternates seamlessly between Sean and Puck. The large cast of supporting characters springs to life, particularly Puck's brothers, Finn and Gabe, and Thisby feels like a place you can see and smell. The water horses are breathtakingly well-imagined, glorious anduntamably violent. The final race, with Sean and Puck each protecting each other but both determined to win, comes to a pitch-perfect conclusion.Masterful. Like nothing else out there now.(Fantasy. 13-18)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In her closing notes, Stiefvater (the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy) calls this a book "about killer horses"-terrifying faerie creatures that eat meat and seek to drown humans-and, in virtually the same breath, says that it "isn't really about water horses." She's right on both counts. On the island of Thisby, the Scorpio Races are held every November, when the driven or the crazy ride the beaches on the backs of these mounts. Sean Kendrick does it for love, winning year after year on the stallion Corr; Puck Connolly, pitting her ordinary horse against the killers, does it out of desperation, to win money to keep her home and to earn respect from her older brother, who threatens to desert the family. Stiefvater's narration is as much about atmospherics as it is about event, and the water horses are the environment in which Sean and Puck move, allies and rivals to the end. It's not a feel-good story-dread, loss, and hard choices are the islanders' lot. As a study of courage and loyalty tested, however, it is an utterly compelling read. Ages 13-up. (Oct.)? (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

"It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die." Stiefvater's novel, inspired by Manx, Irish, and Scottish legends of beautiful but deadly fairy horses that emerge from the sea each autumn, begins rivetingly and gets better and better...all the way, in fact, to best. Stiefvater masterfully combines an intimate voice (think I Capture the Castle) with a fully evoked island setting with sensory-rich language (think Margo Lanagan) with a wealth of horse detail with a plot full of danger, intrigue, and romance. The narrative alternates between two first-person voices: Sean Kendrick, more in tune with the magic horses than anyone else on Thisby but tied to his stable job by his love for his employer's valuable water horse, Corr; and Kate "Puck" Connolly, orphaned by the vicious creatures and desperate enough (both for money and to keep her small remaining family together) to enter the famed annual Scorpio Races -- though she quietly intends to ride not a water horse but her beloved land mare, Dove. Both Sean and Puck need to win the race and claim the prize money to achieve their dreams, so the tension builds and holds until the climactic scene: the bloody, intoxicating race along the edge of the ocean, where the perils include not just crazed horses but human villainy. Stiefvater sets not one foot wrong as she takes readers on an intoxicating ride of their own. martha v. parravano (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.