White Horses

Written by Rachael Treasure

Narrated by Miranda Nation

From one of Australia's bestselling and much-loved authors comes a sweeping, powerful story of a young woman who has to overcome loss and trauma to find the courage to live life on her terms.

'Treasure writes with true grit, wit and warmth' Australian Women's Weekly

'This isn't classic Rachael Treasure. This is even better.Treasure has produced a polished, heart-wrenching and hopeful novel that will thrill old fans and garner many new ones.' Better Reading

Following the disappearance of her mother when she was a young child, Drift has been raised by her father, growing up to work alongside him as an itinerant cattle drover along the beautiful coastline of remote Western Australia. It's a tough life, but nurtured and taught by two wise women - Wilma, a gentle travelling librarian and straight-talking Charlie, the legendary mobile saddler - Drift grows up to become a confident young woman.

But the world Drift lives in can be confronting. After a frightening assault, Drift meets a handsome young stockman, but he is not all that he seems and she is drawn into a baffling world of lies and mysteries, centring on a lushly beautiful property called The Planet. When she's suddenly left alone in the world, Drift has to find the courage to make her own way. Drawing upon the deep well of wisdom taught her by Charlie and Wilma, Drift has to overcome heartbreak, betrayal, loneliness and pain in order to forge her path, own her truth, and create the kind of world that she wants to live in.

Full of authentic Australian heart and soul, warmth and humour, White Horses isanother classic from the much-loved author of the iconic and bestselling novels Jillaroo and The Farmer's Wife, one that also offers an inspiring vision of a vibrant, thriving rural Australia based on Treasure's own experience and knowledge of regenerative agriculture.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Aug 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781460793794

Rachael Treasure

Rachael Treasure lives in Southern Tasmania/Lutruwita with her two children and their farm animals, including a goat called Barbara Gordon. She is the co-founder of Ripple Farm Landscape Healing Hub and uses regenerative agricultural and natural sequence farming principles to restore farming landscape. Her first novel, Jillaroo, blazed a trail in the Australian publishing industry for other rural women writers and is now considered an iconic work of contemporary Australian fiction. Rachael is a rural business administration graduate of Sydney University's Orange Agricultural College and has a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing and journalism from Charles Sturt University in Bathurst. She has worked as a journalist for Rural Press and ABC Rural Radio. Rachael currently supplies holistic farm product to the online farmer's market, Tasmanian Produce Collective. Milking Time is her eighth novel.

Reviews for White Horses

[shelleyraec · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

When I started making notes to write this review of White Horses by Rachael Treasure, I was disheartened to realise that on balance, the negatives for me outweighed the positives. This has nothing to do with the quality of writing as such, and everything to do with specific elements of the story that I personally didn’t care for.Treasure’s passion for regenerative agriculture, and ethical animal husbandry, something she herself practices on her farm in Tasmania, is admirable and is clearly communicated in White Horses. It’s evident, even to a lay person, that the agricultural industry needs to embrace more sustainable, holistic methods of farming and Treasure doesn’t hesitate to drive this point this point home at every opportunity. ‘The Planet’ does sound inspirational, but there is no denying it has a cultish vibe, especially with the talk of the ‘Waking World’ vs the ‘Sleeping World’.I really wasn’t too keen on the spiritual overtones of the story overall. While I’m all for love and light, compassion and cooperation, I personally found the endless philosophising a bit grating, and I thought the idea of the ‘ghost girl’ was cheesy.I liked Drift (aka Melody Wood) well enough, she is smart, capable, idealistic, and feisty but also insecure and a bit naive. Her unusual upbringing, spent droving with her father, certainly seemed to have had some benefits, especially when it came to her connection with the land and the environment, but I was a little bothered that the author seemed to consider her isolation from her peers and unfamiliarity with technology somehow laudable.The romance between Drift and ‘the stockman’ was okay, and obviously it all turns out fine. I would have preferred we had the opportunity to ‘see’ them spend more time together, instead we really only witness them at two crisis points.*spoiler* One point I feel compelled to make is that the likelihood of ‘the stockman’ being legally allowed to re-enter the country, which leads to the HEA, would be almost nil, and it bugged me.My biggest issue with the book however was the lack of repercussions for the men who assaulted Drift. It appeared that in both instances there were no formal charges laid against any of the men for the attacks on her (though it was hinted that they eventually faced consequences for other crimes). Perhaps I’m mistaken in my interpretation, but it seemed to me that the author implied that Drift was too ‘spiritual’ to require that the men answer for their crimes against her, and I was uncomfortable with that idea.White Horses has received several glowing reviews from readers who were delighted with it, unfortunately I just wasn’t one of them.