The Vendetta

Jan Hardy #4

by Jenny Pitman

When trainer Jan Hardy triumphs at Cheltenham, little does she know that the year ahead will be the most traumatic and exciting of her life. Wealthy businessman A.D. O’Hagan wants Jan to train one of his most promising young horses, but the thoroughbred seems impossible to work with—until a young hand new to Jan’s stable discovers his horse-whispering talents. Meanwhile, a violent robbery leads to unexpected tragedy, bringing to a head the intense rivalry between Jan and fellow trainer, Virginia Gilbert. Now, Jan must face an old adversary and a new vendetta.

Genres: Fiction, Horses

356 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2004

Reviews

[Pennie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Plot summary: A horsey lady gets injured in a car accident with mystery clouding the circumstances. There's wealthy businessmen, pleny of horses, wins and losses, trainers, owners and jockeys and of course, violence and murder.

Review: I didn't finish. I didn't even get a quarter into it. I just can't do horsey murder mysteries. I just find them boring and can't relate to the personalities and characters.

[Jenny Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice easy read even if you dont know much about horse racing

[Keith Barraclough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Typical of all these Jenny Pitman books. A story that trots along with a few canters but never really fulfils.

[Stephen Hoffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars.

[Kristine Mika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun to read about horses, horse training, and races in the United Kingdom. Characters sometimes leaned into 2-dimensions, but still a good read.

[Helle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Steady does it. I’m not sure if that would apply to actual horse racing, but that’s how I feel about the Jane Hardy series. They’re hardly rocking my world, but I enjoy reading them nonetheless. Slight advantage of The Vendetta is that it is a decent ~350 pages, as opposed to the 550 average of the previous novels, thus for me really qualifying as a quick read. However, this may, directly or indirectly, also be the reason for the biggest disappointment: the end is very rushed, felt like 100 pages being squeezed into 20.

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

As you would expect the information about stories and racing was excellent. It had a slightly odd plot in that it seemed to be a continuation of the story from a previous book. It took me some time to realise this and the insertion of sudden back plot information in various places sat rather oddly. Overall, a good read.

[Lady Domino · Rating 4 out of 5]

enjoyable