A wondrous story of adventure and friendship featuring a group of women who ride Icelandic horses.
Each June, Tory Bilski meets up with fellow women travelers in Reykjavik where they head to northern Iceland, near the Greenland Sea. They escape their ordinary lives to live an extraordinary one at a horse farm perched at the edge of the world. If only for a short while.
When they first came to Thingeryar, these women were strangers to one another. The only thing they had in common was their passion for Icelandic horses. However, over the years, their relationships with each other deepens, growing older together and keeping each other young. Combining the self-discovery Eat, Pray, Love, the sense of place of Under the Tuscan Sun, and the danger of Wild, Wild Horses of the Summer Sun revels in Tory's quest for the "wild" inside her.
These women leave behind the usual troubles at home: affairs, sick parents, troubled teenagers, financial worries and embrace their desire for adventure. Buoyed by their friendships with each other and their growing attachments and bonds with the otherworldly horses they ride, the warmth of Tingeryar's midnight sun carries these women through the rest of the year's trials and travails.
Filled with adventure and fresh humor, as well as an incredible portrait of Iceland and its remarkable equines, Wild Horses of the Summer Sun will enthrall and delight not just horse lovers, but those of us who yearn for a little more wild in everyday life.
Tory Bilski started the blog icelandica.net in late November 2012 after more than a decade of travelling to Iceland. Her short stories have been published in The Kenyon Review, Black Warrior Review, 13th Moon and other literary magazines. She has also received a Pushcart Prize nomination and an Honorable Mention from 92nd Street Y for her short stories. She works at Yale University and lives near New Haven, Connecticut, with her family.
"This charming saga of Icelandic cross-country riding has a little of everything – wild tales of mad gallops, centuries of the island's history and personal stories of redemption and revitalization. Made me want to take my turn there!"
– Wendy Williams, author of The Horse: A Biography of Our Noble Companion