Cara Varelli is a young circus stuntwoman. She grew up in the circus, raised by her aunt and uncle (who owns the circus), after her father was killed by a circus tiger and her mother died when she was young. As a result, their circus has no wild animals, and Cara knows just about all the stunts – she performs back flips on horseback and the tightrope, leads the miniature ponies, and is a trapeze artist, partnered with Gio who Cara defends but who really is a menacing guy trying to bully Cara into marrying him so he can take over the circus and bring back the wild animals. Anyway, the circus spends each “winter” season (from like October to Christmas or something) at Broadwater Park. But this year when Cara goes to bring a ticket to Lord Broadwater to say thank you she finds Tyler Moncrieffe, the renowned naturalist, who is the new Lord Broadwater – and Tyler doesn't think kindly of circuses!
So Cara feels it's up to her to change his mind and she persuades him to come to the circus – only his presence there affects her so much that she actually misses the landing for her last back flip on the tightrope! Luckily she lands on her feet and the audience thinks it was part of the act. Tyler realizes though and it only seems to encourage him to come up with more and more excuses to see that Cara is stuck with his company – for instance hiring the circus to be the entertainment for the Christmas party he is throwing for the local kids. And Gio is the jealous type...
This is another book I read in French and on that I will just say that it's never a good sign when you have to look up one of the words in the title (écuyère or the bareback stunt rider girl – not exactly a word they teach you in high school), “L'Écuyère qui rêvait”. So my apologies if this book is actually better than I think it is! I found it pretty average – the look at the circus was interesting but not overly detailed. I gotta say the biggest flaw was Cara and her ridiculous loyalty to Gio despite his completely obvious abusive personality. Actually Cara overall I didn't find to be the brightest – towards the end of the book she impulsively decides to give Tyler a pen for Christmas and addresses the package to “Santa, with love” and underlines the “with love” like a little schoolgirl, figuring that he would think that was from the kids! But I did learn lots of new French words!
