The horse dancer, by Jojo Moyes

Jojo Moyes reliably delivers an engaging story that is a cross between chick-lit and something with a lot more depth.  She’s a good writer with interesting plots – perfect when you need a break from “serious” literature.  Sarah is a fourteen-year-old living with her grandfather who is raising her in the gritty projects of London.  Her beloved grandmother has recently died.  Despite their apparent poverty, they have a secret – a beautiful and talented horse named “Boo” who is being trained, as is Sarah, to participate in an elite French troupe called Le Cadre Noir.  In his youth, Papa, as Sara calls her grandfather, was a member.  Stabled in a backstreet yard of East London, Boo is exercised in a nearby park.  When Sarah’s grandfather has a stroke, she is set to fall into the hands of social services, but ends up instead living with a lawyer named Natasha, who has also suffered a loss – her marriage has ended.  Full of quirky characters such as Cowboy John, an African-American who runs the stable, and many twists in the story, the ending is, of course, satisfying.  444 pp.