FLIGHT by Natalie Keller Reinert

Set in the Maryland autumnal season of competitive two and three-day eventing, the final book of the Eventing series wraps up the traumatic and exciting story of Jules and Pete. FLIGHT is a change from their usual home of Florida, but readers will be delighted with the familiarity of the horses, Barsuk and Danger Mouse, stable name Mickey.

Having had a quiet beach wedding with family, during the previous book Home, the young couple are raising their baby, Jack, with the capable aid of Pete’s English cousin Gemma. Jules Thornton-Morrison, as she is now known, is working hard during her comeback season. Having a baby is hard on the figure, fitness and stamina, none of which ever concerned Jules previously. The Chesapeake Three-Day Event is their ultimate goal, but a dedicated team is running lessons back at Briar Hill Farm. We just checked in there by phone, keeping all the attention on Maryland. Where, believe it or not, there is another farm, another dotty woman, and another prospective jumper for sale.

Mimi Pulaski, whose collarbone is currently looking like a jigsaw, is the former rider/trainer of two horses Pete has been hired to train. Pete and Jules are younger, sponsored and successful, and jealous Mimi wants to get the rides back on India and Prince. When she’s well. The thing is, this is the third time she’s been seriously injured, and people stop bouncing so well after a certain age. Mimi’s non-horsey wife would love her to slow down and think of their marriage and maybe retirement. But Mimi doesn’t feel she has any other identity outside the horse world.

I found this a salutary lesson that sports people need a second career, maybe a side income that they can turn into a main income. For instance, the author of these books, Natalie Keller Reinert, turned from riding to writing, and it has made her probably more popular than ever in the horse world. Certainly, she is better known outside America than she would have been. She has several book series out by this point, and I can see when she blends them, because a new set of characters will be introduced for no immediate reason, and we spend a lot of time with these super-cute couples. In this case, Jules and Pete spend almost more time with people from the Catoctin Creek series than with their baby. And given that the folks run a bakery, it makes no sense. I would be fine with a cameo of a few paragraphs, but this feels like padding. We do get some eventing competitions, so FLIGHT will delight fans who can’t get enough riding over large obstacles across country.

In Natalie Keller Reinert’s beloved eight-book Eventing Series, we follow Jules and her friends through the joys and heartbreaks of the competitive eventing circuit, as they work their way into elite echelons—and into one another’s lives and hearts. Utterly immersive and propulsive, this series is an unforgettable journey for anyone who has ever fallen in love with horses, or humans.

Ten months after giving birth to her son, Jules is back on top. Or, she’s ready to be. She and Pete have traveled to Maryland in prep for the Chesapeake Three-Day Event, one of America’s toughest events, for the first time. A big win could be the perfect cap to her comeback season. Jules is where she belongs competition-wise, but there’s one problem: she’s in the wrong state. Because the fact is, Jules just hates Maryland.

With Lindsay and Lacey holding down the fort back in Florida, Jules knows her farm is in safe hands, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling homesick. And life on the road with a baby and his nanny is difficult and distracting. Jules has six weeks to prove that she can survive at the top of her sport, while being the wife and mother she wants to be. Can she put up with snooty Hunt Country eventers, an old-school trainer who isn’t ready to give up her horses to Jules and Pete, and way too little sunshine? And what will Jules’ future look like, now that horses are no longer the most important thing in her life?