Review of Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch

Pony Confidential is a cute story of a bond between a pony and its long-ago owner. It's nominally a mystery, but it's mainly a heartwarming story about determination and honoring old loyalties, and it makes clear that a happy ending is coming.

In Pony Confidential's alternating points of view, Christina Lynch offers a playful story of Penny, an elementary schoolteacher accused of a murder she didn't commit, and the grumpy pony she used to love, who resents Penny's long-ago abandonment of him but knows that the girl he once adored is an innocent woman who needs his help.

Industrious, observant, headstrong Pony finds his hard feelings fading as he develops an elaborate plan to find Penny and save her from her unwarranted imprisonment.

Penny doesn't remember the events around the death for which she's imprisoned, but she recalls other events from her youth, and she revels in her early connection to Pony. We track back in time to her youth as pieces of the mystery are revealed.

Pony's adventurous zigzagging around the country, which makes up the bulk of the book, tired me out. The story is nominally a mystery, but more so a tale of a pony who is thwarted at nearly all of its headstrong, grand, admirable efforts, with a few pivotal successes and a great payoff at the end.

There are funny moments, and this is a cute--at times a little too cute for my taste--tale that always seemed sure to be headed toward a heartwarming ending for both Penny and Pony.

More by Christina Lynch

Christina Lynch is also the author of Sally Brady's Italian Adventure and The Italian Party.