The Sport of Kings

"Is all this too purple, too florid?" C.E. Morgan suddenly, cheekily asks two-thirds of the way through her proudly purple and florid novel. "Do you prefer your tales lean, muscular, and dry?" If you do, you're in the wrong place if you open up The Sport of Kings, but I was hungry for a big and big-hearted novel to settle into, and boy did I get one. It's an epic story of Kentucky breeding, both human and equine, and Morgan takes to it with giant gulps of language, drama, and emotion. The next book I read is likely to feel small and timid by comparison with this thrilling, messy, brilliant yawp of a tale.