I loved the writing style and the way the author wrote their characters. However, the plot fell flat for me, and I had a hard time going back to the book when I put down, I was hoping for more spookiness in this read. But since, I loved the writing style I will be checking out more from this author in the future. The narrator of this audiobook did a great job as well! thank you for the early copy!

2.5 stars, but rounding up.

This was a decent book, but not at all what I was expecting. It's marketed as a horror novel and I went into it expecting a super dark eerie "new-wave" horror novel. It's honestly not really horror... at all. It's a paranormal mystery through and through. It's by no means a bad book at all, but I always hate when books are incorrectly marketed or tagged since it fucks up expectations going into it. I don't think I would have been as disappointed had I never been told it was horror.

REGARDLESS, it's a decent book. I enjoyed the mystery elements, learning more about Indigenous history and culture, and I found the writing/voice really nice. I did, however, dislike the MC, found the plot to be incoherent and all over the place, and feel if you took out the dead friend and cousin's husband elements, this could make a sick novella.

Not bad, but not what I expected or wanted. A really nice literary fiction-esque mystery though.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an audio advanced copy. Thank you to Flatiron Books for a physical ARC. All thoughts and opinions are, as always, my very own.

My book club read this as our November pick, and everyone enjoyed it. The narrator's voice was calming and kept me engaged. I loved the mystery aspect, and the horror was on point. As a debut novel, this one was really good, and I'll look forward to anything this author writes next. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a light, spooky mystery.

Personal entertainment value 4⭐️. I audiobooked this one and enjoyed it quite a bit. I love stories where secrets start peeling away to revel truths, same with character driven narratives, this hit the spot on both counts over two cold Georgia mornings

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* This certainly was a horror book, i don't think it was a bad one but just not one for me. I have found this type of horror book before and i think it's just too "paranormal/ghost" than horror for me? Would recommend to ppl who liked that stuff though.

Part horror, part mystery and an ode to the city of Denver and Colorado as a whole, I enjoyed this sometimes scary, always poignant tale. The glimpses of old Denver were especially nostalgic, as the city locals know slowly slips away, adding dimension to the story.

Reviewed for Library Journal, this book is an Indigenous ghost story set in modern Denver and full of unique characters.

3.5/5!

White Horse is what I would categorize as lighter horror meets mystery meets thriller with a splash of supernatural. In other words, this book has the ability to span multiple genres and appeal to a wide range of readers.

In Wurth’s debut we find a slower-paced and methodically plotted story focused on Kari James’ past and present. I loved how Wurth was able to not only provide an intriguing and suspenseful story, but also include a lot of moments that pulled on the reader’s heartstrings. This writing style made it easy for me to bond with Kari and become invested in her journey. This isn’t a gory horror story, but there is a large amount of vivid imagery that serves to hit the unsettling mark.

What was my favorite part of this book? All the nods and connections to Stephen King and one of my favorite books by him!

🎧: If you’re looking for a fabulous audiobook narrator then this is the book for you! I had the best time listening to this one!

WHITE HORSE has been on my highly anticipated reads list for 2022, and I was so excited at the chance to read and listen to the audiobook copy.

Kari James spends most of her time at her favorite Denver spot, the White Horse. Her cousin Debby discovers an old family bracelet that once belonged to Kari's mother, making Kari confront the past and search for what happened to her mother.

I loved the indigenous culture references woven through the story, that was heavy on family tradition. There were definitely strained relationships and I thought the toxic relationship between Kari and Debby was filled with secrets and lies, and I really enjoyed the narration of the audiobook which added the emotion to the story.

*many thanks to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for the gifted copy for review

White horse is one of my top reads of 2022.

This was a risk, heading out of my normal genre preferences and picking up a mystery- but it was so worth it! The mystery was genuinely thrilling and layered in a way that made each little twist carry through to the next. There wasn’t a dull moment and everything was perfectly engineered.

More than the mystery, I loved the themes of generational connection that carried the book to a new level. It wasn’t one mystery to be solved, but an interconnected web of lies, secrets, trauma, and emotions that touched each character in a different way. The examination of how the main character related to her family and her history added so much nuance to what could have been just fine as a mystery or a ghost story- but that made it great.

I strongly encourage you to pick up this book, or the audiobook which was extremely well-produced. It was a wild ride that had me laughing and crying and wanting to hang out in that bar.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

4/5⭐️

This was a fast-paced, unique, horror story that was full of insight and folklore about American Indian heritage, specifically the Apache and Chickasaw tribes.

Kari is somewhere in between having a Peter Pan complex, and the coolest chick ever, possibly both. I love that she is into horror and Stephen king, I felt like I was on an actual tour of the hotel from The Shining at one point. She is into metal music and vinyl, and she's a whiskey girl like myself. She's also traumatized by the loss of her mother and her best friend. She copes by remaining stilted in life, not moving forward, and certainly not confronting her past. Until she is given a family heirloom that her mother once owned and she begins to see things. Kari's visions make this a more approachable and believable ghost story, and the inclusion of The Lofa (a malevolent, ogre-like monster of Chickasaw folklore) added next-level creepiness.

there were certain elements to the writing style that confused me. When she would talk about her past, at times it was told in first-person, present-tense as if she were back in it and having some kind of flashback. But other times it was told in past-tense as if she was telling the reader what happened. The back and forth may have been intentional, but it took me out of the story.

Also, while the audio narrator was good, she had odd inflections that took awhile to get used to. She would lower her pitch with every comma, making it feel like the end of a sentence. Sometimes it worked against the writing, making it difficult to understand.

I loved the character arc that Kari goes through, and I would recommend this for anyone looking for a different type of ghost story.

I read Erika T Wurth's short story collection BUCKSKIN COCAINE and fell in love with her gritty style. WHITE HORSE is no different. The gritty writing style contributes to a dark, mysterious atmosphere and a gripping tale of magical realism. I can see why it's billed as horror, but to me, this is more of a literary thriller than anything else.

I was lucky to get the audio arc of this book a day before it came out in stores. After reading The Fire Keepers Daughter, I opened a door to everything indigenous. I wanted more. This book covers ALL of my favorite genres, fiction, horror and historical fiction- I highly recommend this if you want to learn more about Native Americans now. The writing is absolutely amazing ( Yes. I had to get the print as well)!

This was so scary twisty and thrilling!!! Had me hooked from beginning it gives classic thrilling vibes mixed with old horror. It had horror or mystery elements!

My rating: 3 of 5 stars--

White Horse was an exciting listen that kept me engaged during a cross-country drive. Kari's mother mysteriously disappears mere days after she is born, and shortly after, her father is left mentally disabled after a car accident. Kari blames her mother for her father's condition, as he went on a reckless drive while heartsick over her mother's abandonment. At 30-something, Kari is given a bracelet that was owned by her mother and starts seeing flashbacks from her mother's past. Kari's visions only increase in intensity and frequency as she seeks out answers about her mother's life and disappearance.

White Horse starts a bit slow and focuses on Kari's friendship with her cousin Debby, who is in a somewhat toxic marriage. While I enjoyed Kari and Debby's relationship, this subplot felt at times out of place and like a distraction from Kari's quest to learn about her mother. I would have loved a deeper exploration of some of the events from Kari's mother's life that are revealed without a lot of detail (e.g. her involvement in Native rights protests and investigation by the FBI). Later on, the plot picks up and focuses more on the whodunnit of how and why Kari's mother disappeared.

Many thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Loved this one and audio makes you feel like you are there throughout the ride. Review on insta: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CkXt74hJeqr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

White Horse is such a unique read and I truly loved every page of it.

It's a supernatural ghost story, with only mild horror, but the writing is immersive and the pop culture mixed in, especially the music, was such fun to read.

The main character being Indigenous just made this even better in my opinion. It's dark, gritty, and full of Stephen King references, and the murder/mystery aspect of it was so satisfying.

Great read! Do yourself a favor and read this book.

This book caught me from the beginning and kept hold the entire way through. The main character is a recovering drug addict who works in a bar she should probably just own. Her mom disappeared when she was two days old, and an accident not long after left her father brain damaged. She lost her best friend to drugs and her other best friend/cousin is married to a dude who doesn’t like their relationship.

When something from her mom’s past surfaces, it’ll send her on a journey to find out what really happened to her mother? Is she dead? Was it the feds, threatened by her Indigenous activism? Is she still alive? If so then why is she haunting her daughter?

I enjoy a good mystery that’s not a formulaic whodunnit, and this book brought the intrigue, complex characters, and interesting plot. I’m always looking for solid Indigenous fiction, and this book fit that bill. A little gritty, a complex and at times unlikable main character that you’re rooting for anyway. It was a great read, and I highly recommend it.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the complimentary advance listeners copy of WHITE HORSE by Erika T. Wurth for an honest review.

WHITE HORSE follows Kari James, an Urban Native who is taking care of her disabled father, hanging out with her best friend and cousin Debby, and just living her life. When Debby finds a bracelet that belonged to Kari’s mother, it seems to bring her mother’s ghost to life along with visions of something more monstrous.

Kari’s mother disappeared when she was just a couple days old and she’s never known why her mother left her behind. The ghost that keeps appearing awakes old questions and leaves Kari wanting answers. She reaches out to her estranged family and many seem to know more than they’re willing to tell.

This was one of our November #SaturdayBookstaClub reads and it made for a great discussion book. In the end I wound up with some mixed feelings about it. There was a lot that I enjoyed and I liked the mystery at the center of the story. Kari is a single woman who is happy to stay single, looking out for those she loves and letting go of a past that doesn’t seem to offer answers until her mother’s ghost demands otherwise.

This book has a couple of sub plots that took up quite a bit of the story – the loss of a friend in Kari’s past and her cousin’s marriage issues. At times I thought these stories, particularly Debby’s subplot, distracted a bit from the real central mystery and perhaps took up too much of the page count.

Still, in the end this came to a satisfying conclusion and I enjoyed the read. The audiobook was well done and I enjoyed the listen!

Erika T. Wurth is a narrative artist for Meow Wolf, which is one of my favorite artsy places in the entire world. I was expecting a wild, weird, wonderful story with, of course, Indigenous influence.

I want to make it clear that the Indigenous history and culture in this story is great. The backstory on the Stanley Hotel, the medicine bag and Geronimo, information about AIM and the FBI. This story about a woman discovering the truth of her missing mother, an MMIW, would have been very close to a five star story...

...If it had cut out about half of the useless and boring subplots that go nowhere. At one point, I was about to start counting the scenes where Kari argues with her cousin Debby about her controlling husband, watches and reads Stephen King repeatedly, makes bologna sandwiches, and talks about buying the titular bar, but then I realized that if those scenes had been cut out, it would have been over half the book. Kari's mother gets so little "screen time" in this story, and for half the book Kari is insisting on believing a woman who had a newborn two days ago would just abandon her family. This would have made more sense if the grandparents had been more involved in her life and raised her to believe this, but not one person in the story ever told Kari her mother abandoned her, so why would this be the assumption of a 35 year old woman?? Then the ending where the learning about her mother is wrapped up into one to two paragraphs, I really wish this had been spread out, discovering how humorous and creative her mother was, discovering who she was outside of simply a statistic.

The characters do not act their age, or anywhere close to their age. Kari is 35 and Debby is 40, and they act like literal teenagers. While it is natural given the level of trauma experienced for them to be stunted in their maturity, it is a little unbelievable they would be this immature in every single interaction they have. At one point, Kari abusively screams at her disabled father after arbitrarily deciding with zero evidence that he killed her mother. In other scenes, Debby's husband repeatedly acts like his wife is going out and cheating on him when she is literally with her blood cousin, while he can go out and drink with his friends whenever he wants. He calls her a bad mother, threatens to take the children, and...well that plot went absolutely nowhere.

The one subplot that holds some actual weight is the discussion of Kari's sobriety and losing her best friend to an overdose and wondering why she lived and why her friend died. However we only ever see her deceased friend in two scenes where she is kind of a horrible person, mocking and insulting Kari's disabled father and fighting with Debby. We are told that Kari's friend was her closest confidant and so supportive, but we don't really get shown it in the longer scenes with her. It is mentioned Kari recovered from harder drugs but she still drinks, and never considers that her drinking is a problem, despite about 75% of the book involving her having a drink (did Budweiser sponsor this book?).

Also, let's talk about the title. White Horse is a bit of a misnomer. If you are expecting the central plot of the mystery of Kari's mother to have anything to do with the titular bar, you are mistaken. It does, however, bear some interesting symbolism. White Horse has multiple Indigenous references, however it is also slang for heroin and cocaine, and throughout the course of the novel, Kari trades the "White Horse" of drugs for the "White Horse" establishment, thus coming full circle from someone drifting through life into a successful business owner, and returning to her Indigenous roots by taking stake in a community business. I really do think this would have been so much better if Kari had been in the middle of achieving sobriety, there would have been so much opportunity for interesting scenes and parallels there.

I want to make it extremely clear that Erika T. Wurth is not a bad author. This story had all the parts of a very good novel about a woman who has become estranged from her family and culture and is able to uncover the mystery of her mother's disappearance. I cannot stress how close this book could have been to a five star read, only to end up as a two star read. I will give Erika T Wurth's writing another try, but White Horse was just not it.

Note: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley. I was not compensated in any other fashion for the review and the opinions reflected below are entirely my own. Special thanks to the publisher and author for providing the copy.