A Run at Love

A Black racehorse owner chases love and success in Shiloh’s spirited follow-up to The Love Script. Piper McKinney has always felt a sense of obligation to her wealthy white adoptive parents, Ian and Jackie McKinney, the owners of a thoroughbred farm, who gave her an idyllic childhood and nurtured her love of the sport. Still, she dreams of striking out on her own to raise a horse good enough to win the Kentucky Derby. Leaving her parents’ horse farm to start her own has its risks, of course, and to complicate things even further, she’s recently fallen for her childhood friend Tucker Hale and doesn’t know how to tell him. Not only is she reluctant to spoil the friendship, Tucker is white, and interracial relationships are rare in their homogenous community of Eastbrook, Ky. As Piper works to get her new farm off the ground, hurdles arise—shady dealings at her parents’ farm, in particular—and Tucker helps her harness her faith to achieve her ambition of becoming the first Black owner of a Derby winner. While the characters sometimes speak in clichés (“Who you are on the inside is what matters most to me”), Piper’s internal battles between familial duty and a desire for independence are sensitively rendered, and readers will cheer her on as she tackles the racial stereotypes baked into the overwhelmingly white world of horse racing. Shiloh’s fans will speed through this sweet, satisfying romance. (May)