Wild Horses of the Summer Sun

Debut author Bilski weaves a narrative of horses and friendship in windswept Iceland in this transportive memoir. Bilski, a married mother of two working as a Yale administrator, on a whim joins a trip to a horse farm in northern Iceland in 2004. At first, she and the other eight women at the farm are strangers, but they soon bond over their love of Icelandic horses and, over each of the following 11 years, the group returns to the farm. In an episodic, straightforward narrative, Bilski shares moments of life on the farm, including horse husbandry (“this is an equine love story and we all go gushy”) and being dive-bombed by Arctic terns intent on keeping her away from their nests. Each year in June, the women left behind worries about finances, health scares, children, and parents in declining health for a month of riding along weather-beaten trails in Iceland’s near-constant daylight, where “I am peacefully alone and temporarily lost.” In 2015, Helga, the farm’s owner, announces that she has sold the farm, but Bilski and three of the women travel back for one last nostalgic look at the farm and stay at another horse ranch—but it’s not the same, and it’s unclear whether they’ll return to Iceland. Those with adventurous spirits and healthy amounts of wanderlust will devour this charming memoir.[em] (May)­ [/em]