Nicholas Evans: The horse whisperer

The novel starts in upstate New York where a teenage girl, Grace Maclean, and her friend, Judith, go riding on their horses, Pilgrim and Gulliver, on a snowy morning. As they ride up an icy slope, Gulliver slips and hits Pilgrim. Both horses fall, dragging the girls into a road and a collision with a tractor-trailer. Judith and Gulliver are killed, while Grace and Pilgrim are severely injured. Grace left with a partially amputated right leg, is bitter and withdrawn. Grace’s mother, Annie, is a workaholic magazine editor, and her father, Robert, is a lawyer. The different approaches taken by each of Grace’s parents in dealing with the accident strain relationships within the family.