Mare

by Emily Haworth-Booth

A tender, profound novel about a horse and a woman, the intricacies of care, and the imaginative new ways we might live and be.

For a long time, a woman lives with her husband and their dog. She teaches writing courses, plods away at a book of her own, and doesn’t think much about not having a child. Then the dog dies, and a doctor’s visit reveals she can’t have children even if she wanted to. Out of these conditions, a sudden, strangely familiar thought horses.

When she hears about a mare whose owner needs help part-time, it seems like an ideal arrangement—and perhaps something to help with the emptiness, diagnosable and otherwise, that she’s begun to feel. She has no problem sharing; she shares a garden with the children next door and chores with her husband. The horse will be something to care for, just two days a week, without getting in too deep.

But as she takes up riding lessons and medical treatments, walks and brushes and dreams of the horse, her affection develops into obsession—forcing her to confront what it means to love a being who does not belong to her. Moving with grace, humor, and probing insight, Emily Haworth-Booth’s Mare pulses with life and feeling and introduces an irresistible literary voice.

288 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication March 12, 2026

About the author

London-born Emily Haworth-Booth is an award-winning author, illustrator and educator who teaches at the Royal Drawing School in London.

Alongside her children’s picture books, Emily is currently working on a long-form graphic memoir for adults. Her short comics have previously appeared in print in the Observer and Vogue and her first children’s book, The King Who Banned the Dark, was shortlisted for numerous awards including the Klaus Flugge Prize and IBW Book
Awards.

Along with her sister, Alice Haworth-Booth, she is an activist with Extinction Rebellion. The sisters are currently collaborating on Protest!, an illustrated history of peaceful protests from around the world – from 1170 BCE to the present day – which will be published by Pavilion Children's Books in spring 2021.

Reviews

[endrju]

I remember that on one of my visits to London, one of the first things I saw when I exited the King’s Cross metro station was an Extinction Rebellion protest. I also recall much of Hackney being covered in Animal Rising’s pink signage. So I was genuinely excited to read Emily Haworth-Booth’s novel, given her involvement in ER. And it is quite an interesting take on motherhood and human reproduction amid the sea of contemporary literature on the topic—precisely because she, however ambivalently, refuses to take part in it. A very welcome change of pace.

The only aspect that left me uneasy was the treatment of animals—horses, specifically—as they’re presented much like horses are elsewhere. Can’t we imagine a different non-relation with the non-human alongside a non-relation with human reproduction? I see a strong conceptual and practical link there, as does Patricia MacCormack in The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene.

[Rose Streamer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I went into Mare thinking it might have a similar dynamic to Yoders 'Nightbitch', a woman, an animal, a metaphor, but this is very much about a literal horse.


Some passages were hard hitting and refreshingly honest, about things women are often under pressure not to admit, “I knew a mother who said, for the first two years you're addicted to the smell of their head. Then the smell goes away, and you're left thinking, What have I done?” 


I wanted to empathise with the narrator and go through the grief, loss of her situation, and the complexity of her attachment to the horse. But I felt strangely apathetic. Being female and having my own experience of fertility battles wasn’t enough to bridge that gap. Perhaps I need to have some understanding of horses themselves to feel more connected (my bond with my cat just didn’t compare to what this book was trying to explore).


For me, Mare was an interesting premise, but emotionally, it didn’t pull me in the way I hoped.

Thank you to NetGalley and Granta Publications for the ARC.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Mare' is a novel deep and reflective novel that explores relationships and cultural expectations from a female perspective. The main character reaches a turning point in her life, and has to deal with the fact that she cannot have children, so instead sets out to put her time and energy into looking after a horse, on a part-time basis with some others. The book deals with complex issues such as possessiveness, jealousy, non-motherhood and a growing close relationship with the horse.

I found the book very fast paced, and very well written, the book seemed to gallop away from me, not giving me the chance to feel what the main character is truly feeling. By this I mean the sentence rhythm, more so than the stories narrative. This could be a purposeful attempt at giving that sense of avoidance and that she is running away from her true feelings, or exploring them; but it felt like I never had little time for empathy.

I found the use of the horse more of a subject of distraction for the main character, and the descriptions of the horse itself, and the day-to-day maintenance and how the character feels while undertaking them is quite literal, despite the book brimming (maybe with overuse) with metaphors and similes.

Another reason I feel that I was unable to connect with the main character is the lack of depth of consequence, impact of feelings of others around her. Her external life outside of the stables seems to be very under described, and despite her husband feeling that he is sharing his wife with the horse, as she is sharing the horse with others - there's very little emotion there from the main character, and it seems very self-centered from the narrators point of view.

The most interesting aspect of the book is the way it deals with non-motherhood, whether through personal choice or for any other reason, and how that void, whether emotional or physical can be filled in other ways. It certainly gave me new insights into societies expectations of women, and especially women of a certain age, having to make important life-changing decisions, long before they feel like they need to be made.

[em]

DFN’d @ 38%
I could not bring myself to finish this novel, I found myself so disconnected from the author and what she was going through. The writing was lovely and flowed well, but that wasn’t enough to make up for the gap I felt as a reader. A very interesting premise, but didn’t pull through emotionally for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. #Mare #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

[tash · Rating 4 out of 5]

thank you to netgalley and grants for providing me with this arc of emily haworth-booth’s mare

4.75 stars

this was so good!! i really liked how it was written, and the premise behind it was really good! really recommend this!

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Easy to read. Flowed well. However, I didn't find it interesting.

[Toni · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Mare' by Emily Haworth-Booth is a novel that will stay with me for a long time. It is a story about horses, life, motherhood, non-motherhood and love for animals.
After the death of her beloved dog the first person narrator's attention moves back to horses and she starts caring for a mare nearby and develops a deep connection with the animal. As she is diagnosed with premature ovarian failure she ponders about motherhood and non-motherhood and what different forms being a mother can take.
This is a gentle book which also very accurately depicts the reality of caring for a horse. The novel is maybe not for everybody. But certainly a horse lover and non-mother will appreciate it and love it like I did.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Granata for giving me the opportunity to read and review this novel.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a lot to like here but unfortunately it was very inconsistent. Some passages I loved the writing and what she captured but there were large sections where I lost interest.

The main character is going through a difficult time of her life and tries to navigate in an unusual way by developing a friendship with a horse. Refreshingly for this kind of book she does seem to have good relationships with her parents and husband so the drama is more internal.

I really like the concept and what she was attempting here, I only wish the execution had been a little better.

Thanks to NetGalley and Granta for the arc.

[Gemma Seltzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh this book! It's extraordinary and daring.

At first glance, Emily Haworth-Booth’s Mare appears to be a portrait of a woman and her horse, told amidst ‘the sweet ferment of dung and hay.’ Yet within it lies everything essential to human existence: love and intimacy, understanding and joy.

Haworth-Booth makes the private, mundane, knotty details of one woman’s days hum with life. In the quiet rituals of care—brushing, feeding, noticing—she finds a rhythm that is both tender and exacting.

This is a novel about how we might express ourselves, if only we allowed ourselves that freedom. About ways of mothering, about friendship, about connecting to both the human and more-than-human world.

“I will never know for sure what love is,” the narrator says, but each clear-sighted sentence draws her, and us, closer to understanding what it might be.

Mare is precise, vital, utterly compelling. I loved it!!!!