Jo Grant, the fictional storyteller (a woman architect, running her family’s Thoroughbred breeding farm) writes in Breeding Ground’s preface: “. . . And the horses we’ve got here, I’ve got to tell about them. The ones that run our lives, and get planned and pampered and brutalized by us too, for the best and the strangest and the worst of reasons. I’ve been pondering it all for a lifetime and more, and I had to write it down.”
Families, horses, and conflicts
The tale Sally Wright tells in Breeding Ground grows out of the conflicts in three Lexington families, all involved in high-stakes horse businesses.
The tale she tells in Breeding Ground grows out of the conflicts in three Lexington families, all involved in high-stakes horse businesses – Jo’s hands-on Thoroughbred farm, a horse van manufacturer, and an equine pharmaceutical company.
The novel is set in 1962 when wounds from WWII still haunt vets and their families, as they struggle too with death and loss, and the strains that complicate family business.
Jo Grant recounts what happened from outside the action, looking at herself like any other character, setting the stage and describing the players in events much larger than her personal drama, which started with the death of her brother, an ex-WWII OSS Operative addicted to risk long after the war. Anger, fear, illness and self-obsession, an inability to let go of the past drive the conflict that leads to murder, and nearly kill Jo. Those who’ve learned to turn and forgive, though - who care about honor, and the horses in their charge – they change the way the world looks to those who stop and watch.
Breeding Ground
PRAISE FOR BREEDING GROUND:
“To borrow a beautiful phrase from her own work, Sally Wright’s Breeding Ground is a story that is as small as a wren’s nest and as wide as the world. There’s murder along the way, but Breeding Ground aims at a larger target and hits home remarkably well. It’s a tale of families and the ghosts that haunt them, of heroes and horses, of the age-old battle between those who value honor and those who do not. The prose is gorgeous, and the setting – the stunning horse country of Kentucky – has never been more beautifully rendered. This is a book you will absolutely be glad you’ve read.”
William Kent Krueger – NY Times Best Selling Author
Winner of two Anthony Awards - Best First Novel, Best Novel
“. . . Breeding Ground intertwines the lives and stories of wounded World War II vets, colorful horse people, a family business and the family who owns it . . . [with] horses and settings spun together in a most unpredictable mystery. Horse lovers and non-horsey folk alike will enjoy the vivid descriptions of the countryside and homes surrounding Lexington . . . Sally Wright has spent a life involved in her own family business, and [with her] personal experiences as a horsewoman, it makes the story all a bit too real at times. A captivating mystery interspersed with wisdom and keen observations of human character that will lead readers to an unexpected conclusion.
Perry Brown, Centered Riding instructor, co-founder of Anatomy In Motion
PRAISE FOR SALLY WRIGHT’S BEN REESE MYSTERIES:
“There’s an art to the academic mystery, and Sally S. Wright has it pretty much mastered in her Ben Reese series.”
The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio