Named a most anticipated novel by Oprah Daily, Vogue, Parade, The Millions, and Electric Lit ⢠A Readerâs Digest Quarantine Book Club Pick ⢠Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
A ârugged and ravishingâ (Oprah Daily) debut novel of desire, betrayal, and loss, centering on three teenage girls, a horse ranch, and the accident that changes everything.
Itâs 1993, and Rory Ramos works as a ranch hand at the stable her stepfather manages in Topanga Canyon, California, a dry, dusty place reliant on horses and hierarchies. There she rides for the rich clientele, including twins June and Wade Fisk. While Rory draws the interest of out-and-proud June, sheâs more intrigued by Vivian Price, the beautiful girl with the movie-star father who lives down the hill. Rory keeps largely separate from the likes of the Pricesâbut, perched on her bedroom windowsill, Rory steals glimpses of Vivian swimming in her pool nearly every night.
After Roryâs stepfather is involved in a tragic car accident, the lives of Rory, June, and Vivian become inextricably bound together. Rory discovers photography, begins riding more competitively, and grows closer to seductive, mercurial Vivian, but despite her newfound sense of self, disaster lurks all around her in this âexquisite exploration of hurt and desireâ (Jeannette Walls): in the parched landscape, in her unruly longings, in her stepfatherâs wrecked body and guilty conscience. One night, as the relationships among these teenagers come to a head, a forest fire tears through the canyon, and Roryâs life is changed forever.
Narrated by Roryâs daughter, Charlie, in 2015, more than twenty years after that fateful fire, Kept Animals is âgorgeous, sensual...an event-packed novel of class, desire, [and] coming-of-ageâ (The New York Times Book Review).