Flambards is the first book in a trilogy of books about a horse loving family in rural England before, and in later books, during World War I. Christina Parsons, a twelve year old orphan, is sent to live with her uncle Russell’s family in the country, forty miles outside London, where the main pastime for the gentry seems to be fox-hunting. Christina is immediately taught to ride and hunt, and her disabled and abusive Uncle Russell expects her to become an expert horsewoman and love the hunt as much as he and her Cousin Mark do. Mark’s young brother Will, however, introduces Christina to his passion, airplanes. Will fears and hates horses and hunting, even as Christina grow to enjoy the sport. But Christina also grows increasingly fond of Will, and she has mixed feelings about Mark, whom she is expected to marry when she grows up.

This trilogy is for older teens and adults. Uncle Russell beats his two sons and exercises autocratic control over the entire household. He is a cruel tyrant. There are also incidents of sexual immorality, greed, self-harm, and violence, not described in detail, but definitely implied or stated plainly. The information about English country life and horse riding and fox hunting and early flight experimentation embedded in the story are interesting, but the heart of the story is Christina’s inner life and growth and how she comes to understand the family and her place in it.

It’s also a classic story of a man with two sons, one of whom shares his interests and the other whom the father doesn’t understand or even like very much. I read this book and its two sequels fifty years ago when I was a teen and remembered it as a good story without remembering much about the plot or the characters. I was right: it is a good story, but darker than I remembered. Still, there is hope at the end of volume one of this three-parter, and I am anxious to read the other two books in the series to see if they hold up as well.