Advance Praise

"[Mare's] power is reliant on moments, thoughts, vignettes; on the everyday illuminated by the intensity of once-in-a-lifetime feeling. It is grand and particular; lovably modest and impressively profound."
--Sandra Newman, The Guardian

"There are an awful lot of novels about new -motherhood. There are considerably less about non-motherhood . . . An affecting portrait of love and care in its many forms, written with a calm, incantatory beauty."
--Claire Allfree, The Daily Mail

"The reader becomes immersed in the narrator's internal world that Haworth-Booth conveys so skillfully. The rhythmic, poetic prose, though quiet and meditative, is simultaneously propulsive, such that the reader will grapple with the woman's thoughts along with her . . . Above everything is Haworth-Booth's dramatization of the deep bond we humans share with other animals, which will leave readers pondering the question of what makes a family."
--Lillian Dabney, Booklist

"A marvelous exploration of what it means to be a woman, to live in a woman's body, to contemplate motherhood--and it is equally about the relationships between people and animals, women and girls and horses. Every step of the way, [Emily Haworth-Booth] resists easy answers . . . A lyrical, exquisitely detailed account of one woman's inner and outer worlds."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Gentle and thoughtful... For fans of Maggie Nelson, horses, and those who feel they aren't following the expected path or hitting the expected milestones as they age."
--Adelaide Faith, author of Happiness Forever

"Mare is part love letter, part poetry, part guidebook on how to ride a horse, how to care for others, and how to be a woman in the world. This novel is a tender and refreshing exploration of loving without ownership. Meditative, then marvelously startling in parts. With Emily Haworth-Booth at the reins (sorry), you'll find yourself happy to go along for the ride."
--Katie Yee, author of Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar

"With exquisite grace, warmth, and wisdom, Emily Haworth-Booth has crafted a profound meditation on the human-animal bond that gives these life-changing relationships the gravity they deserve and gently unsettles our assumptions about mothering, intimacy, and care-work. This delightful debut is a timely reminder that life offers many surprising ways to love and be loved, to be remade after loss, and transformed through devotion to another being. Like the creature at its heart, Mare is a gift, and a revelation."
--Madelaine Lucas, author of Thirst for Salt

"The path of love's arrow in Mare is as eccentric as it is intense, decisive and enchanting. Every dappled page reads at once as poetic, persuasive and playful. A wonderful, wonderful novel!"
--Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows A Your Mother Is a Witch

"What a gorgeous writer. The world needs beauty and wit and fearlessness. And a sense of fun. Here they are."
--Peter Heller, author of The Orchard, The Dog Stars, and Burn

"I read Mare voraciously, ignoring my life. Deeply human and profoundly funny, it has the wisdom held by the best prose and the extra insight that comes with sorrow. Emily Haworth-Booth understands that grief is a lonesome, many-chambered thing; that obsessive love can rescript a life; that there is solace in duty and care. An incandescent debut--bare and clean and artful. It enters the soul."
--Claudia Dey, author of Daughter

"Warm and reflective, a novel that exists beautifully outside of human relationships, coming to rest instead on the love of a horse, and the vulnerability and strength of the animal and human body both."
--Amina Cain, author of Indelicacy

"Emily Haworth-Booth writes the heartbreak of a body, of the world, of caring, with immense tenderness and humor. I loved the peripheries of solitude and communion traced in this wild, melancholy, marvelous novel."
--Ayşegül Savaş, author of The Anthropologists and Long Distance

"Emily Haworth-Booth is a stunningly clever writer! A tender, exhilarating and humorous exploration into female subjectivity, the body, animal instinct, and love, essentially, love."
--Rachel Long, author of My Darling from the Lions

"I love Emily Haworth-Booth's funny, honest writing, so deeply particular and still profoundly relatable. She takes the knotty, strange thoughts that our minds catch on, daily, and makes them clear and beautiful."
--Lizzy Stewart, author of Walking Distance

"I drank this novel down in one delicious draught, and found it quenched every thirst; it is immersive, tender, nuanced and radically attentive to the strangeness and wonder of human love--for each other, for a mouse, for a horse. A blissful read."
--Fiona Benson, author of Ephemeron

"A bold, deft, and deeply moving story about what it means to be devoted to another being. With extraordinary suppleness and an arresting lightness of touch, Emily Haworth-Booth travels deep into the mystery and heartache of relationships to reveal a vision of attachment that is startlingly lucid and liberated. A daring book, and a brilliant one--a beautiful challenge for our times."
--Helen Jukes, author of Mother Animal