An immensely satisfying and emotional journey of longing, loss and the power of nature by Australian psychological suspense author, Honey Brown.

After the betrayal of her husband and the loss of her home and business, Sarah Barnard takes her beloved horse Tansy to spend a solitary Christmas in the Mortimer Ranges. Cut off from the town of Lauriston by a flash flood, her phone saturated by the downpour, Sarah heads higher into the mountains for shelter at Hangman’s Hut; she has some supplies and there she can build a fire and wait out the storm. Then a stranger arrives – injured, charming and clearly lying about why he is there. As the storm worsens, the question becomes not so much who, but what, is the greatest threat to Sarah’s safety.

Dark Horse is quality story-telling. Multi-layered, it can be read as a suspenseful tale where nature is the antagonist, as a page-turning psychological thriller, or as a subtext-rich story thick with symbolism. From the moment Sarah finds the chain cut on the trail to Hangman’s Hut to the time Heath (the stranger) interrupts her solitude, the pages quiver with tension. The question that drives Dark Horse is ‘What is really going on?’. Brown has a light touch and mixes intensity with moments that are almost surreal (fog is used to great effect). There are a couple of scenes where the context is so lightly drawn that the characters’ behaviour, particularly Sarah’s, verges on the inexplicable. Yet it heightens the intrigue. And the truth, when it emerges, is completely unexpected.

I read Dark Horse in one sitting, unable and unwilling to set it aside. Then I read it again, eager to ferret out any clues I might have missed. It is on the second reading that Brown’s skill with subtext can really be appreciated. I’m very much looking forward to reading the forthcoming Through the Cracks.

Dark Horse is the kind of novel that makes you think – about the nature of truth and expectation, and about the delicate threads that pull this story together.