Windy Creek Stables: Natalie and the Summer of Surprises - Hardcover

by Kaitlyn Sage Patterson (Author)

In Natalie and the Summer of Surprises, Natalie has to discover if she can become the horse girl her mom has always wanted her to be.

Natalie is a city kid who loves indoor activities like reading and watching movies. So spending the summer stuck at her mom's riding school in nowhere, Virginia, is the worst idea she's ever heard. But twelve-year-olds don't get to make the rules, which is why Natalie is at Windy Creek with a parent she barely knows and a bunch of horses she couldn't care less about.

Things go from bad to worse when Natalie realizes her mother actually expects her to ride. Windy Creek is full of horse-obsessed kids Natalie has nothing in common with, and her mom clearly wishes she had one of them for a daughter instead. Natalie would give anything to get out of there and go back to the city, and even more than that, she wishes her mom didn't expect her to be someone she's clearly not.

With no choice but to learn to ride, Natalie begrudgingly participates in Windy Creek's summer horse camp. Alongside her is pretty, stuck-up Harper, who is a million times better with horses than Natalie is and won't let her forget it. Then there's energetic and fun Presley, who is happy to be Natalie's friend, at least. Slowly, Natalie learns that a little perseverance and grit go a long way, and if she gives the riders (and horses) at Windy Creek a chance, they'll give her one, too.

Natalie and the Summer of Surprises is the third book in Kaitlyn Sage Patterson's engaging Windy Creek Stables series.

Author Biography

Kaitlyn Sage Patterson grew up with her nose in a book outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in East Tennessee. She started begging her parents to put her on a horse as soon as she learned to talk. When they finally relented, Kaitlyn was in the barn every chance she got. By the time she was ten, she was working off extra lesson time by mucking stalls and doing barn chores. Kaitlyn never shook the riding bug, and she is currently training her first horse, an off-the-track thoroughbred named Boon, to compete in dressage and eventing. In addition to Boon, her menagerie of adopted animals includes two black trash-can cats, a one-eyed ragdoll kitten, and a rambunctious lurcher puppy. She is the author of the Windy Creek Stables series.