Dark Horse in Aussie Readers

Jan 28, 2013 Shelleyrae at Book'd Out rated it it was amazing

Shelves: arc-are, netgalley-reviews, provided-by-publisher, aussie-author

Having read After the Darkness last year I thought I knew what to expect from Honey Brown and while I was rewarded with a compelling story of psychological suspense, the shocking twist in the tale of Dark Horse took me by surprise.

After a messy divorce and the reluctant sale of her property Sarah Barnard can't face a day of forced celebration with her parents and so just after dawn on Christmas morning, she packs supplies and canters into the bush upon her beloved horse, Tansy. Distracted, Sarah
Having read After the Darkness last year I thought I knew what to expect from Honey Brown and while I was rewarded with a compelling story of psychological suspense, the shocking twist in the tale of Dark Horse took me by surprise.

After a messy divorce and the reluctant sale of her property Sarah Barnard can't face a day of forced celebration with her parents and so just after dawn on Christmas morning, she packs supplies and canters into the bush upon her beloved horse, Tansy. Distracted, Sarah doesn't notice the change in the weather until a torrent of water is rushing towards her. With no way to retreat, Sarah and Tansy are forced to seek higher ground and take refuge at the site of an old bushranger's hut in the midst of being renovated. Resigned to waiting for rescue, Sarah establishes camp, content in her solitude, but then a man calls to her from the darkness, and Sarah is no longer alone.

From the moment Heath whistles to Sarah from the edge of the campsite I believed I knew the path the story would take but the twist in the plot left me breathless, catching me unaware. In hindsight the clues are there in the story, hiding, at times, in plain sight, but Brown masterfully plays on the reader's expectations and with careful, but never obvious, manipulation, subverts the truth.

Sarah's reason for being on the mountain is seemingly clear while Heath is the enigma. He appears untruthful, giving vague answers to even the simplest of questions and as Sarah's suspicion of him grows, so does ours. The tension builds as Sarah battles her intense attraction to Heath, who is young, fit and handsome, even though she suspects him to be dangerous. Brown skillfully develops a relationship between Sarah and Heath that is, if not entirely understandable, feasible, despite the obvious contradictions.

The sense of unease that permeates the narrative comes not only from the situation but is also carefully cultivated by Brown as she creates a disquieting landscape of thick fog, unstable ground and howling winds. Lashed by rain and in danger of flooding, the mountain is a threatening presence. Sarah and Heath's battle against the elements, and their isolation, heightens the suspense whilst enforcing intimacy with the need to keep dry and warm.

Once begun, I found it impossible to put Dark Horse aside. The pace is compelling, the tension superb and the plot veers into a breathtaking twist. Dark Horse is a finely crafted, stunning psychological thriller that I can't recommend strongly enough.

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Jan 30, 2013 Brenda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: arc, 2013-release, thriller, own-read, net-galley, aussie-authors, read-on-kindle, australian-thriller

Tansy was frisky, shying away from the horse float, not wanting to go inside at all. Sarah, light and fine boned, was no match for the big black horse, especially while she was throwing her head around. When Sarah found herself flat on the ground, dazed and bleeding, with a jaw that felt broken, she knew the battle was over. Tansy had won! After putting her beloved horse in the yard, and backing the float into the garage, she went inside to clean up. The hour was still early, but it was Christma Tansy was frisky, shying away from the horse float, not wanting to go inside at all. Sarah, light and fine boned, was no match for the big black horse, especially while she was throwing her head around. When Sarah found herself flat on the ground, dazed and bleeding, with a jaw that felt broken, she knew the battle was over. Tansy had won! After putting her beloved horse in the yard, and backing the float into the garage, she went inside to clean up. The hour was still early, but it was Christmas Day…no way was she going to her Mum and Dad’s for Christmas lunch. The traumas she had just been through, including putting her house on the market, made her want to curl up and hide.

After a phone call to her father, which didn’t end well, her backpack loaded with some staple foods, and a few other necessities, she saddled Tansy and they headed off…up to the high country, up the Mortimer Ranges to the cabin called Hangman’s Hut she knew was nestled on top of Devil Mountain. Suddenly, only a short while into her ride, the weather changed. Tansy was unsettled, so she knew something was going to happen. And happen it did, with the storm hitting with a fury she hadn’t seen since the bushfires the previous season. Their safety was in jeopardy, but all Sarah could do was hang on, and leave Tansy to take the lead. Her horse knew the way, knew what was safe…but would they escape with their lives? Sarah wasn’t sure when the flash flood hit them, knocking the bridge out…

Drenched to the bone, Sarah and Tansy arrived at the hut to find the workmen’s caravan locked. Sarah needed to find dry clothes and she needed to settle Tansy. So she set about to do just that, and to wait out Christmas alone and isolated in the wilderness. When unexpectedly, an injured bushwalker arrived, seemingly alone, Sarah was suspicious. But Heath seemed genuine, he was definitely injured…so why didn’t his story add up? Sarah couldn’t work out what to do, but they were trapped by the weather, their phones didn’t work, therefore they had to make the most of the situation. But Sarah felt in more danger, she couldn’t work out Heath, and Tansy obviously didn’t like him!

I absolutely loved this book! The explosive twist near the end of the book was something I definitely didn’t expect…it was brilliant! Full on from the beginning, it kept me reading long into the night (clichéd but true!) Aussie author Honey Brown is a relatively new author to me, but I will definitely be reading everything of hers I can lay my hands on!
Highly recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Books for this ARC copy to read and review.
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Apr 29, 2013 Vicki Tyley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: australian-author

“After witnessing last year’s fifty-metre-high rolling fireballs, she’d wondered if the treetops were truly Satan’s home. And God resided in the water. Everything about that fire had smacked of hell.” – Dark Horse

This is my second Honey Brown book. And while I enjoyed After the Darkness, this has to be my favourite read of the year so far. I literally couldn’t put it down.

Dark Horse delivers on all fronts. There is not a moment when something isn't happening. Brown somehow manages to imbue ever ...more

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Apr 28, 2013 Sheree rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reviews, own, suspense-thriller, aussie-author, read-in-2013

I must have been living under a rock? How have I not read Honey Brown before this .... Dark Horse blew my mind.

It's intense, edgy and tight. Dread creeps - pulse quickens - adrenalin pumps - heart sits in throat and you read til 3am because there's just no way you can sleep not knowing and when you figure out where it's going ... sucker punch right in the guts.

The disintegration of her marriage and business hasn't put Sarah in the mood for celebrating, rather than face Christmas Day with her p ...more

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Jan 15, 2015 Kira rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery, aussie-author, library, crime-fiction

I picked up Dark Horse by Honey Brown from the local library. I've been meaning to read more of her work after finishing and loving Red Queen last year.

I find this book really hard to review because I don't want to give away spoilers. The setting of the Australian Bush during a flood at Christmas time is vivid enough for you to smell the mud. This country of ours is under-appreciated for how rough, rugged, and beautiful it really is and shines as a backdrop.

Honey Brown has a fantastic way of dr ...more

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Feb 11, 2013 Bree T rated it it was amazing

Shelves: arc, australian, thriller, suspense, survival, aww2013

It’s Christmas Day and Sarah is lamenting her losses. She tells her parents she won’t be coming to their Christmas Day lunch and then she saddles her beloved black mare Tansy. What she needs is to be up in the mountains, away from everything. She packs a few things and then takes to the trails.

The weather surprises her – the flash flood sneaking up on her and it’s only by the skin of their teeth that she and Tansy avoid some sort of disaster. Sarah heads high up the mountain to the Hangman’s Hut It’s Christmas Day and Sarah is lamenting her losses. She tells her parents she won’t be coming to their Christmas Day lunch and then she saddles her beloved black mare Tansy. What she needs is to be up in the mountains, away from everything. She packs a few things and then takes to the trails.

The weather surprises her – the flash flood sneaking up on her and it’s only by the skin of their teeth that she and Tansy avoid some sort of disaster. Sarah heads high up the mountain to the Hangman’s Hut, a historical site and where a bushranger met his end. It’s currently undergoing restoration but there’ll be enough shelter there for her and Tansy to wait out the storm.

But then Sarah gets some company.

Heath arrives in the night and Sarah knows that he’s not just an ordinary walker lost his way. Too much of what he says doesn’t add up – the pauses between answers, the way his eyes skitter away from hers. But he’s also got an injured knee and Sarah grudgingly accepts that the two are going to have to wait out the rain, wind and fog together until they can be rescued. But it isn’t long before Sarah starts noticing…things. Why does she feel like Heath is sabotaging their only chance of rescue? Where is his car? What was he doing on the mountain and why won’t he talk about it? Why does he keep a stash of things from her, including some things that are Sarah’s own? And why, despite all of these things, are the two of them growing closer and closer? If Sarah can’t trust him, then why can’t she also stay away from him? She doesn’t know who the real Heath is.

Dark Horse is Australian author Honey Brown’s most recent suspenseful thriller, following up from After The Darkness, The Good Daughter and Red Queen. I’ve read two of her previous novels and love the way that Brown sucks the reader in with a brilliantly written story where everything turns out to be nothing as it seems. So I was extremely excited for this book and I was looking forward to what Brown had created this time.

Sarah has had everything taken away from her at the start of the novel – all she has left is Tansy. She seems intent on going up into the mountains to be away from people, everything. Sarah ran a trailriding business and knows the area extremely well and she copes extraordinarily when the weather turns and a flash flood damages a bridge. It means that Sarah will most likely be trapped on the mountain until the water recedes, something that would panic most people but not her. She makes her way to the Hangman’s Hut and uses what’s left from the workers who are doing the restoration to get herself comfortable.

The arrival of Heath does throw her composure – as it would anyone’s. She’s a woman alone on a mountain, no way of communicating with the outside world when a mysterious man shows up. He has no gear with him, he’s vague about what he’s doing there and avoids answering questions. He hesitates over his own name. Sarah doesn’t want to trust him and it soon looks like she has all the reasons in the world not to. She suspects him of tampering with her possessions, she suspects that he plans to take Tansy and get down off the mountain alone, leaving her up there. Despite these things and the circling conversations they have that are peppered with distrust, she also shares things with Heath. They share things with each other, their close proximity also forming a sort of bond as well as building up suspicion. Sarah seems glimpses of a Heath she can trust and yet at other times she feels as though he’s going to do something terrible.

The atmosphere in this novel is amazing. Despite it being Christmas Day, it’s raining, the fog is heavy, it’s windy and it’s miserable. Sarah and Heath are almost always soaked to the skin, shivering and trying to warm up using the meager supplies that they have. The weather lends an ominous vibe to this book, it’s definitely the sort of weather where you expect bad things to happen. Despite the bleakness of it, there’s also something terribly romantic about the setting as well. A man and a woman, alone with no way of rescue in the foreseeable future, huddling together under blankets, sharing things about themselves. It makes the reader want to believe in Heath, that he is a good guy and that there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for his vagueness, his abrupt changing of subjects, his refusal to share anything other than his first name, which is so obviously a lie.

And then, despite the fact that I have read Honey Brown before, and I know what she’s capable of making you think, this novel still utterly slayed me.

This is a novel that contains, for the most part, only two characters and takes place on a mountain top and it is a masterpiece. The writing is tight and purposeful and the plot is so well executed. Brown perfectly builds the suspense, the unease between Sarah and Heath but yet slips in the hint, the question, of more between them. Brown is gifted at lulling the reader into believing something, into making them think that they might have it figured out. I love the fact that even though I know something will not be as it seems, I never figure out what it is. The reveal is always mindblowing and it makes the book such an amazing experience to read.

If you like a well constructed psychological thriller or you’ve read and liked any of Brown’s previous novels then this one is an absolute must. It’s a delicate exploration of the mind and what can happen as well as what can happen between two people underneath a fragile trust that keeps being broken and knit back together. It ticks all the boxes. ...more

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