STEALAWAY

When Nicky’s mother Pearl takes a job as a horse trainer at a remote Scottish castle, Nicky expects discomfort and desolation—but not 70-year-old magic ponies, legends of border wars, or ghosts. Bloodybow’s bloody past centers on the theft of a stallion 500 years ago, and the resulting feud that left a child dead. Now Nicky and her new friend Jed find Bloodybow’s new stallion under attack. Peyton’s usual economy and directness serve the supernatural well, yet the short tale doesn’t hang together believably. What do the ghosts want? Who was Rowan, the magic pony, in the past, and why can she move between past and present when the other ghosts can’t? In the end, Bloodybow’s stables are consumed by fire, but the new stallion survives, and it’s not clear why the danger is now over. The slimness of the book will attract readers to young for the plot. (Fiction. 7-11)