A romantic thriller set in the world of horse racing. It begins when Kelsey Byden discovers her mother--supposedly dead for 20 years--is in jail for killing her lover. The mother owns a racing stable in Virginia whose neighbor is handsome Gabe Slater. Kelsey and Gabe's meeting leads to rivalry, love and murder.--

"Kathryn Scanlan's Kick the Latch vividly captures the arc of one woman's life at the racetrack-the flat land and ramshackle backstretch; the bad feelings and friction; the winner's circle and the racetrack bar; the fancy suits and fancy boots; and the "particular language" of "grooms, jockeys, trainers, racing secretaries, stewards, pony people, hotwalkers, everybody"-with economy and integrity. Based on transcribed interviews with Sonia, a horse...

"Hellsmouth, a willful thoroughbred filly with the blood of Triple Crown winners flowing through her veins, has the legacy of the Forges riding on her. One of the oldest and proudest families in Kentucky, the Forge family is as mythic as the history of the South itself. Descended from one of the first settlers to brave the Gap, Henry Forge, through an act of naked ambition, is attempting to blaze a new path, breeding horses on the family's crop farm....