Racing Savannah by Miranda Kenneally

About the book

Racing Savannah is the fourth book in the young adult Hundred Oaks series by Miranda Kenneally. The book was published by Sourcefire Books on 13^th December 2013 and it is 304 pages long. I received an ebook for review through NetGalley.

Synopsis

Savannah is forced to move to Tennessee with her father and pregnant stepmother. The only good part of the move is that her father will be working for a wealthy family and looking after their racehorses. Savannah has always loved to ride and quickly dreams of working with the horses herself, maybe even riding them.

When Savannah sets her sights on Jack, she knows he should be out of bounds as he’s the son of the estate. She’s had enough heartbreak in her sixteen years and doesn’t want anymore. Savannah not only wants happiness in her life but she wants a better life and thinks she deserves better than what’s been on offer in the past. Maybe Jack will be the one to help her realise her dreams.

What I thought

I’m going to begin by saying that although this is the fourth in a series of books, each is actually a stand-alone set within the same place. So, Racing Savannah can either be read as a part of the series or on its own.

Miranda Kenneally is an author who writes about girls I have been dying to read about for years. All of her female protagonists are strong, independent and basically fabulous characters. Savannah is no different. She’s a girl who has had heartbreak in the past due to the loss of her mother but she’s determined to make her proud. Savannah was exactly who she said she was which was another thing I liked about her. She didn’t pretend to be anyone else in order to impress them and she stuck to her guns about what she believed in.

Something else Kenneally manages to do in each of her books in this series is to incorporate some kind of sport. I have always liked this about her books because it puts a female characters right in the middle of that sport. I loved the fact that horseracing was used in this one as it was something I have never seen done before in any young adult book, or any other book for that matter. The idea was interesting and fun and made a really nice change to American football or baseball.

As love interests go, Jack wasn’t my favourite out of all of the Kenneally books I have read so far (which is four). At times he was lovely and sweet towards Savannah but then he turned completely at times. There were times were he was like a completely different person and blanked Savannah completely or treat her like dirt which I didn’t like at all. However, there is quite a lot of chemistry between Jack and Savannah which was a redeeming quality for the book overall.

While Racing Savannah isn’t my favourite of the Hundred Oaks books, I still enjoyed it and it was different from the rest.