subject: The Horse Whisperer Nicholas Evans [print this page] The Horse Whisperer Nicholas Evans The Horse Whisperer Nicholas Evans
The Horse Whisperer
Nicholas Evans
On a tranquil snow-covered morning in upstate New York, a 40-ton truck jack-knifes out of control hitting a young girl out riding her horse. Though horribly injured, both thirteen-year-old Grace Maclean and her horse Pilgrim survive. But in those few terrible seconds a family is shattered; the impact on their lives and on the lives of those who loves them is devastating.
Grace is the only child of prominent New York magazine editor Annie Graves and her lawyer husband Robert. In a way that none of them at first understands, their destiny comes to depend on Pilgrim's recovery. So mutilated and traumatized is the horse that even the vet who saved his life now wishes he hadn't. And yet Annie refuses to have him destroyed, sensing that if she does, something in Grace will die too.
She hears about a man in Montana, a whisperer' who is said to have the gift of healing troubled horses. Abandoning her job, Annie sets off across the continent with Grace and Pilgrim to find him.
The man's name is Tom Booker and he lives on the Rocky Mountain Front, a place of daunting beauty. He is the stuff of legend. His voice can calm wild horses and his touch can heal broken spirits. For secrets uttered softly into pricked and troubled ears, such men were once called whisperers.' Now Tom Booker, the inheritor of this ancient gift, is to meet his greatest challenge.
Annie Graves has travelled across a continent with her daughter Grace and their wounded horse, Pilgrim, to the Booker' ranch in Montana. She has risked everything her career, her marriage, her comfortable life in her desperate belief that the whisperer' can help them. The accident has turned Pilgrim savage. He is now so demented and dangerous that everyone says he should be destroyed. But Annie won't give up on him - she will not let him die - for she feels his fate is inextricably entwined with that of her daughter, who has retreated into a heartrending, hostile silence. Annie knows that if the horse dies, something in Grace will die too.
In the weeks to come, under the massive Montana sky, all their lives including Tom Booker's will be transformed forever in a way none could have foretold. At once an epic love story and a gripping adventure, The Horse Whisperer' weaves an extraordinary tale of healing and redemption. It is a stirring elegy to the power of belief and self-discovery, to hopes lost and found again.
The Horse Whisperer' is now a major motion picture starring Robert Redford and Kristin Scott Thomas.
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The Author
Nicholas Evans, born 26th July 1950 in Broomsgrove, Worcestshire, England, is an English journalist, screenwriter, television and film producer and novelist.
He was educated at Broomsgrove school and before studying at Oxford University, he served in Africa with the charity, Voluntary Service Overseas.' He then studied journalism and worked as a news reporter and television screenwriter.
His first novel, The Horse Whisperer', with 15 million copies sold is on the list of the best-selling books of all time. It was made into an acclaimed motion picture in 1998, with Robert Redford starring and directing, and also featured Kristin Scott Thomas, along with Scarlett Johansson and Sam Neill.
Nicholas Evans has written three other best-selling novels: The Loop' (1998) The Smoke Jumper' (2001) The Divide' (2005)
He has recently agreed an option to make a movie out of his third novel The Smoke Jumper' and is currently working on a new novel. He lives in Devon, England.
