Spirit Horses
A western horse romance that doesn't quite go where you'd think. And written by a guy no less. Storywise, I'd be surprised if the author isn't a big fan of the movie Thunderheart or the events behind it. Writingwise, it starts out a bit shaky (the rather unnecessary prologue is possibly the worst bit of the whole book), but it improves rapidly.
The riding stuff is certainly handled better than most of this kind of book manage, and while it's hard to say from an outsider perspective, the cultural meeting is handled respectfully. The characters are strong but not caricatures, and it's dangerously easy territory to wander off into caricature land. In fact, the main villain is a bit paper thin, but this is not "white man bad, red man good" nor vice versa - both cultures end up on both sides of this conflict.
A decent easy reader, for a girl like me who used to be a horse mad teenager, and never entirely grew out of it.
