Mace and Hammer

Darby Karchut is a Colorado-based writer of YA novels. And Mace and Hammer is the third in her saga about the Del Toro family fighting ancient monsters in the Sangre de Cristo mountains with the aid of Andalusian war horses. Who can talk.

If this sounds too Disney-cute, it isn’t. There’s no attempt to have the horses talk ‘horsey talk’: they just talk. And they’re all real characters. Turk is cocky and aggressive. Izzy won’t be ignored just because she’s a ‘girl’. And El Cid possesses a gravitas that makes him especially memorable. (His quizzical ‘Really?’ when asked to be extra careful before a fight is a delight.)

Their human counterparts are engaging, but it's the horses that make the series for me. They tease, they complain, they make sarky comments about each other. They act, in fact, just like a group of young adults themselves and it's this that makes them so interesting. And so much fun to read about.

I’m already looking forward to the fourth instalment.