Fortune’s Fool follows Simon O’Shaughnessy who aims to become an eventer and is well on his known with a year’s work placement in a prestigious stables. When Simon buys Fortune, a gelding that needs a lot of work, he has to convince everyone, including himself, that he was right to do.

I really enjoyed this book, and it was definitely the exact kind of story i needed after feeling a bit of a book hangover from my previous read.

Simon is a really interesting character as he seems to have a lot of sides to him. He can be gruff, but professional, he’s extremely smart but also impatient with learning, and he seems cold at times but actually has a heat of gold underneath it all. I love that this book shied away from a lot of other tropes I see in horse books - both Simon and Fortune are already seasoned eventers, and it’s not a ‘Zero to Hero’ kind of plot. Simon knows that he’s probably only able to bring Fortune so far, and that he himself may never be a top eventer due to not really having enough money or opportunity but he’s doing the best he can.

Simon’s sexuality was explored in great ways too. He already knows he’s gay, and is out to the people that matter to him. He doesn’t shout it from the rooftops but nor should he have to. I really loved his relationship with Max and how sweet and normal it was. I also loved that Simon confronted some challenges and annoyances in how some of his female colleagues treated him because he was gay - like how he didn’t ‘count’ when they talked about men, or automatically became the GBF in their mind who loved shopping when he couldn’t be farther from that. I can believe that they may be real irritants to other gay men.

Nothing really happens in this book - like there’s so crazy plot or action. Its more just following Simon as he falls in love, and competes in events with Fortune. I really liked that.

I did miss the bond between rider and horse in this book, which I normally see in other horse novels I read (though that may be because they’re normally YA and this is mature YA/Adult). I didn’t see much of Simon and Fortune’s bonding practice, and while they were fond of each other, I wouldn’t really say they were partners in crime by the end of it.

I also wasn’t too crazy about Simon’s contempt for the people who worked office jobs and only had horses in their lives at weekends. Some people just don’t have those opportunities early in life to pave the way for a job in the horse world, and for many, like myself, the ‘box job’ is the only thing that allows for riding lessons and moments of peace with horse and rider.

But I did love this overall, and I’m 100% reading the next book.