Customer Reviews

Phantom Stallion #17: Mountain Mare

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Oooooooo Mountain Mare, and all the other books in the Phantom series are great! If you love horses, this is the series for you! It doesnt matter what kind of riding you do, dressage, barrel racing, endurance....these books are what you gotta read! The Phantom series is funny, suspensful, horse-filled, and real. Ya, there are plenty of horse books on the market, which probobly talk about girls somehow getting the horse of their dreams and living happily ever after, and dont get me wrong- Ill read any horse book you throw at me, but my favorite series is the Phantom, a series that's unique.

I don't know what you guys are talking about I thought this book was great just like the others. Oh and it did say why Jen and Sam were there, you just must have been reading to fast.

But because it was still such an awesome book, I couldn't give it just a 4. It only lasted 2 days, but they were two very exciting awesome days. It starts with Sam and Jen going on the annual Darton Rodeo cattle drive. But an offer on Ace for $3000 -- the same amount her dad needs to fix his truck -- and a mysterious "mountian mare" keeps her mind busy while trying to confince everyone that Linc Slocum is behind the threats.

A vert exciting book, even if the ending was predictable right from the start.

i have to say it was pretty good book. but what really put me off was that i pretty much knew who was the owner of the rocky mountian mare and it rushed alot. but it was a good book i just hope the other books will be a little better.

I really enjoyed this book, as well as all the other Phantom Stallion books. I've recommended these books to almost all of my horse loving friends and those of them who have read them agree this series is the best horse series out there.

Well, The Phantom Stallions Series can officially said to be going downhill a bit. The author just seems to be rushing more and forgetting things left and right from past books, or completely ignoring them.

This books opens with Sam and Jen going on some cattle drive; we are never really told how or why they are part of the cattle drive, just that they are going and will temporarily be part of some well-known group with black horses and teal clothing.

Linc Slocum makes an appearance; ever more cartoonish in his villainy. He has now deteriorated into plain foolishness by saying rude things about Sam around others and "subtly" threatening her to stop being nosy and all that. Not exactly a huge surprise or shocker there since he has been getting that way more and more with each book. Of course, Sam is entirely too eager to blame everything she can on Linc Slocum as well.

In the story, a pretty trick-trained mare suddenly shows up and follows the drive into town. They put her on TV and hope to find her owner. Later in the night, Sam has a "feeling" and goes to check on her, but gets locked in a feed room by an unseen stranger. Unsurprisingly, she is sure Linc Slocum is to blame because he wants the unusually colored mare.

Of course, it is not Linc Slocum. It turns out the mare belonged to a girl who was introduced earlier in the book as having been in an accident with an "empty" horse trailer. Apparently her truck and trailer turned over; however all she got was a few bumps as did the mare. Not very realistic honestly; maybe if the truck had just lost control, but turning over completely and the horse just had some bruises? Anyway the mare is a Rocky Mountain horse with a genetic problem, who was going to apparently be put to sleep by the girl's father's "evil" farm manager, but the girl tries to save her by stealing her. The girl's boyfriend is trying to help her and he is the one who locked Sam in the feed room because he was surprised and could not think of anything else to do.

Well, they all have a talk with the girl and have a laugh, and they drive away with the mare. No one stops them despite the fact the mare is technically a stolen horse; or presses charges because the girl gave false reports or released a domestic horse in the wild. Nothing is every said if the mare was given to the girl or what as apparently she was declared dead by the farm manager. We just have to assume the mare has a happy ending.

A couple of things really bothered me in this book. One was the boyfriend was apparently going to use a "war bridle" to lead the mare away when Sam startled him. They all act like that is a normal thing, but war bridles are NOT nice pieces of equipment; they are actually rather painful and only rarely used on horses. You would NOT use a war bridle to move a horse anywhere; you would use a normal halter or something like that.

Also, Sam just keeps mentally whining and whining about Shy Boots! Every darn time the colt is mentioned she keeps obsessing about how Linc "promised" her the colt. Well, if you read the original book, he never did! He mentioned that he might give it to her if her father approved, nothing else. Ugh, I am just getting tired of the line "she decided not to remind Linc that he had promised her Apache Hotspot's foal". Good grief, give it a rest!

And the Phantom really no longer seems to matter in the stories. oh, he shows up once in a while and looks pretty and majestic and all that. And of course, he shows up to court EVERY mare ever mentioned in the entire series. But other than that, he really does not seem to do anything. He no longer seems to give a fig about Sam or acknowledge her; he just randomly appears to flirt with some mare, then disappears again.

There are several more little things that happen in the book, but I don't want to give away too much. In all, the book was okay but very rushed and easy to predict. It is painfully clear what the plot is going to be and whom the horse will turn out to belong to and all that. I am not saying the book should have been a complex mystery, but I should not be able to figure out everything that is going to happen within the first chapter or two.

I love Terri Farley's writing style and descriptions, but she really needs to work on the plot a little more. I get the feeling she is so worried about getting the books out there as quickly as possibly, like ever couple of months, that she is sacrificing the quality of the story itself.

Ok, I don't want to give away anything about the book, but I have to say that I didn't like it very much. It was rushed. The author could have made this great, suspenseful, exciting mystery out of this book. Instead, she sort of rushed through it. It could have been much longer. Also, on the back cover of the book, it says someone starts threatening Sam. NOT TRUE! The person doesn't threaten Sam at all. In fact, the person doesn't even say one word to her. And you'd think that when the book cover had said someone started threatening her, they would actually say something, and say it more than once. I really thought that this could be a good book, because some of the latest books (14, 15, 16) have been really crappy, short, and rushed. I thought this one was going to be better. The first 13 books were awesome, and I hope Terri Farley gets back to her usual fantastic books.