“‘You’ve never once had a smile on your face talking about your job or your classes, but Roxie makes you glow. So, what are you going to do? The thing that keeps you smiling? Or the thing that makes you sad?”
― Natalie Keller Reinert: The Jump
Welcome back to book club!
So far this year I have been on a roll with equestrian fiction. A friend of mine is friends with a fantastic author names Natalie Keller Reinert and she recommended I read her books. The first books I’ve read of hers so far were from Natalie’s Eventing Series. I have so far read the first 3 of 8 books (and the review for the first is located here: The Sunday Review: Ambition (The Eventing Series Book 1)).
I still can’t believe I had never previously come across Natalie’s books. She is not only an experienced horseperson (as demonstrated in her writing) but also a prolific writer, with over SEVEN SERIES of novels plus several standalone ones.
This year Natalie released another book called The Jump. The Jump was prepared for release March 24th, 2026. The premise involves Brook Haskell and her horse…and big dreams of living a life as an equestrian in the eventing world. Man, I can relate! Naturally, I preordered the book.
Natalie was also offering some freebies for those who preordered, so I signed up and received a bookmark and a hand-signed book plate to place inside the book’s cover.
On March 25th the book arrived in the mail and I wasted no time opening it up.
“I’d been having fun. Haunted house fun, zip-line-off-a-cliff fun. Nerves tingles up my spine and tickled the nape of my neck. Half-afraid, half-thrilled, all overjoyed-this was cross-country.”
― Natalie Keller Reinert: The Jump
This book is NOT part of the Trafalgar Square publishing group, it is published by Flatiron books.
You can get your copy directly here at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Bookshop!
You can also visit her at her website: https://nataliekreinert.com/
Brooke Haskell is a young woman developing a young thoroughbred mare. She is much younger than I am despite my best efforts to not age; she’s recently finished school. She’s taking classes, working, and training her mare who lives on her aunt’s farm. She’s lucky to have her aunt because she wouldn’t be able to afford board in most other places. She lives rent-free currently in the garage at her parents’ house. Brooke made a deal with her mother to figure out her equestrian dreams within a certain period of time or begin paying rent; and time is running out.
“‘Is it really trying to have it all,’ I asked, ‘if it feels like I’m asking for the bare minimum?’.”
― Natalie Keller Reinert: The Jump
For three years Brooke has been working to develop her mare, Roxie. Three years in, and they have yet to complete a starter level three phase event. (This is starting to sound familiar). As we begin the novel the pair are riding out to begin their next attempt at a show, leaving the cross-country start-box only to run into a refusal. No! Yet another disappointing show in the books as she gets eliminated. More disappointment comes as her friend, and only trailer-ride, decides to quit eventing.
Brooke is lost.
I couldn’t help but get sucked into the book immediately on this first chapter. I have had Stanley three years also…and when this book was released, I was freshly coming off the high of FINALLY completing my first starter level horse trials. Sure, we didn’t have a refusal problem, but we have had MANY problems along the way. Brooke’s feeling of defeat here was palpable.
“She wouldn’t be happy just hanging around at the farm. She told me that every time I didn’t make it out to ride her for a few days, usually by hurting herself while chasing another horse around the pasture, or going off her feed in protest.”
― Natalie Keller Reinert: The Jump
We follow as Brooke navigates complex feelings about a crossroads in her life. Choose a new opportunity and risk it all or stay with her current trajectory where it’s safe?
Brooke takes the Jump…and begins to work for a massive public figure and famous equestrian Eddie O’Neil. She jumps into this new lifestyle and meets new friends along the way. She begins training a new horse in addition to Roxy.
“He was bred to be competitive. He also wanted to understand and be understood, and when I struggled to speak his language, or skipped trying to teach and went straight to trying to make him do something, we had big, dangerous blowups.”
― Natalie Keller Reinert: The Jump
It doesn’t take long for Brooke to suspect that all is not what it seems…and she begins to struggle with her mare Roxy. Her family doesn’t understand her choices and she feels guilt for not being able to take the time for them. Desperate to make her dreams come true she realizes that it may come at a high cost. Is it something she’s willing to work through?
“I was finally in the right place, and I needed to focus all my attention on making this work. If I looked behind, I might fall back into my old life.”
― Natalie Keller Reinert: The Jump
I don’t want to give too much away, so I will end the synopsis there…but I want to discuss the quality of this book.
Natalie Reinert once again shows us her experience in the horse world through her writing. This fiction novel reads as though it could be non-fiction. The conversations feel real. The advice feels real. The characters all feel like real people.
“But this wasn’t my world, as much as I wanted it to be, and these weren’t my people, as much as I would have loved to join them.”
― Natalie Keller Reinert: The Jump
Even Eddie O’Neil, famous equestrian. I have heard stories about equestrians in the eventing world with training strategies are, let’s put it nicely, less than savory for most of us. Eddie’s smug behavior and secret training may be fiction here but I picture him with a face of some equestrian professionals (I won’t name names) that I have heard about in recent years. It’s a sad truth that each discipline has some rotten eggs…and the vast majority of officials turn a blind eye to it…it becomes an unspoken truth between those who know. Some people get called out on social media but it doesn’t always lead to real repercussions.
Natalie paints us a realistic world in her book but adds a flicker of hope. Perhaps there is also hope in our real world, too.
“I glanced at my workout timer on my watch, feeling beat. Surely we were almost done. It had been twelve minutes.”
― Natalie Keller Reinert: The Jump
But the writing is so realistic she mentions the oddities that many of us equestrians feel and experience but rarely talk much about. Things like when you feel you’re going super fast and then watch a replay you look like you are barely at a canter. Things like how cathartic barn chores can be; I always joke about how 80% of my life choices are made with a pitchfork in my hand.
“Thinking too much about these things could be unsettling, but I also found that barn chores, mucking stalls and grooming horses and sweeping aisles, were the most fertile thinking times I’d ever had.”
― Natalie Keller Reinert: The Jump
Natalie’s world is also realistic with the types of people Brook meets along her journey. A natural horsemanship guru. An Instagram star. The volunteers at a horse show. The competitors and onlookers who oogle at Eddie. The special treatment for the famous equestrian. The romantic interest. The trainers. The horse owners. Each character we meet is a person that I have known in real life in one way or another. Brooke finds herself grateful for everyone she’s met…as am I. The eventing world is small and wonderful and filled with more good people than bad. I fell in love with this community and have also met so many wonderful people because of it.
“my heart rose at the realization that I’d met so many good people in this world.”
― Natalie Keller Reinert: The Jump
Final Word:
The Jump, a novel released by Natalie Keller Reinert in March 2026 is a remarkable work of fiction for the equestrian. Natalie is both skilled at creating an accurate equine world and at writing in a way to captivate and pull you into it. It’s a great story with great accuracy. As a horseperson I appreciate the accuracy because my brain will call out holes and flaws.
Yet despite the fact that Natalie knows the horse world so well she also flawlessly writes in a way that can be inviting to someone who doesn’t know so much about horses. You don’t need to be an expert to enjoy this book, either. If you’re not an avid equestrian the parts of the horse world you NEED to know are explained in enough detail to make sense.
I particularly love this book because I feel seen. There are so many relatable moments inside that I have felt or experienced in one way or another. The dream is always to work with horses full time. I am STILL trying to find my place within the horse world. I was never brave enough to make The Jump into being a working student. Part of me regrets that…but part of me still holds out hope that I can find SOMETHING in this world that is my calling. So far it seems horse jump building may be it, but that is not supporting me full-time.
I would recommend this book for all eventers, horse lovers, and more.
“There were impossible choices, and then there were nonexistent ones, and tonight I seemed stuck with the latter. I couldn’t think of a single escape route that didn’t end with me back in Maryland, Roxie in Aunt Pickels’ barn, me paying rent to my parents, trying desperately to make ends meet so that I didn’t have to sell her after all and render every single moment we’d spent together completely pointless.”
― Natalie Keller Reinert: The Jump
The Green Horseman 
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