The Secrets of Wild Hill Lottie's Dream

The Secrets of Wild Hill Lottie’s Dream introduces us to Lottie, a free-spirited girl who loves her pony Patch so much that she deliberately flunks the entrance exam to a fancy private school so that she can live near her granny Annie and her livery yard at the Wild Hill of the title. Unfortunately, her parents, her father in particular, have different ideas and try to figure out how to move her away from the local comprehensive and the life she loves with Patch at Wild Hill. A tentative friendship forms with kind-hearted Felix, grandson of Ralph McCavendish, owners of the adjoining yard and their family’s sworn enemy. With Felix’s encouragement she joins the local Pony Club, her ultimate aim being to compete at Badminton. Meanwhile, her grandad is involved in a serious accident, so her charismatic older brother Harry is called back from his promising riding career in Florida to help out at Wild Hill.  Much to Lottie’s dismay, Harry, like his parents, sees Wild Hill as rundown and a liability and wants to put it on a business footing before a possible sale. With her Pony Club team, Lottie enters a riding competition and brave Patch surprises them all with his spirited performance flying over advanced jumps. Harry meanwhile is drawn into Ralph’s orbit, with the promise of a ride on an elite horse that Ralph owns. Lottie senses that something is terribly wrong – but can she figure out what is going on before it is too late? And what did happen in the past between the two families that now threatens her future?

Lottie is a very relatable character with plenty of energy which drives the plot along at a good pace but also manages to touch on deeper issues – largely ‘absent’ parents, communication issues, aging family members and dealing with unexpected family dramas. There is also a welcome sense of mystery and tension to Wild Hill which also adds more depth to the story: why are the two families so distrustful of each other – is Felix as kind as he appears? can her brother be trusted to run Wild Hill? – but it never gets too heavy in tone for younger readers. Lottie has a resilience and focus – together with a can-do attitude that is really refreshing and all with very little recourse to the dreaded screens. As the book ends with many questions still to be fully answered I imagine Lottie’s Dream is the start of a series – one which I predict is set to be ever more enjoyable as Lottie continues to follow her dreams and those of everyone at Wild Hill.