Paint the Wind by Pam Munoz Ryan

Maya has been raised by a controlling grandmother who would not talk about Maya's mother. When the grandmother dies, Maya is scared to be sent to her mother's relatives in the Wyoming wilderness. In time, she starts to love the horses there and she learns to deal with her difficult cousin, her great aunt, and the challenges of making her own decisions.

I wanted to like this more, since there is always a demand for horse books. However, the horse references are scattered and take a back seat to the damily drama that unfolds. There are some exciting scenes at the very end when Maya is caught and injured in an earthquake while looking for a wild horse her mother loved, but this did not make up for the fact that I did not like Maya. She was unpleasant at the beginning, and while she improved a bit, I still didn't like this. This would be good for larger collections. This author's Esperanza Rising was much more to my liking. Reading this did give me the idea to recommend Seredy's The Good Master to one of my horse fans!