Recommendations

Books Like Scorpio Races

Every November on the island of Thisby, water horses rise from the sea — and the best riders in the world try to race them to the finish

Maggie Stiefvater's The Scorpio Races opens in November on the island of Thisby, where every year the capaill uisce — water horses, predatory creatures the size of war horses — emerge from the Atlantic. And every year, riders compete to race them along the beach. The race kills multiple riders. Sean Kendrick has won four times. Puck Connolly is about to become the first woman to enter, because her family is going to lose everything if she doesn't win the prize money. The novel alternates between their perspectives across the weeks of preparation before the race. If the island as a character, the two quiet protagonists who are more capable than they appear, the Celtic water-horse mythology, the slow-burn romance between two people who understand each other's relationship with danger, and Stiefvater's prose gripped you, these eight picks go to the same place.