The Ghost Horse of Snowy River by Stef Gemmill

Title: The Ghost Horse of Snowy River

Author: Stef Gemmill

Genre: Contemporary Middle Grade/YA

Publisher: Wombat Books

Published: 3^rd June 2026

Format: Paperback

Pages: 216

Price: $18.99

Synopsis: A year has passed since 12-year-old Georgie Stone had a serious horse-riding accident. Now that she’s back at the cattle station, she tries to overcome her fear of riding. But she’s worried about the herd of wild brumbies led by the Ghost Horse that are being hunted by a local horsewhipper, Goldburn.

Could the Ghost Horse be Georgie’s old horse, Magic?

How can she prove it before Goldburn captures him?

~*~

One year ago whilst riding her beloved horse, Magic, Georgie Stone had an accident that left her with mono-vision. She’s spent a year in the city with her mum in and out of hospitals, having surgery and therapy, and now, she is getting to go back to her family’s High Country cattle station for the summer. She’ll be getting back on a horse for the first time in a year with a new mare, Faith, that her brother Finn has trained for her.

And, she’ll be heading out on a cattle muster with her father, her brother and men from a nearby station, including local horsewhipper Goldburn. She’s also been told to forget about Magic, that he’s lost to the brumbies. Yet a legend of a ghost horse that eerily resembles Magic has reached Georgie. And she is determined to save him and prove he is her horse before Goldburn can catch him and hurt him.

Georgie Stone is the latest in a wonderfully rendered disabled character, and one written with consultation and understanding by Stef Gemmill. She wears an eye patch, and throughout the novel grapples with her disability, and how it has changed her and how she does things. How she has had to adapt and change what she does, or how she can do things, yet also with a determination to keep doing the things she has always done. Even if most people don’t think she can, or that she isn’t ready.

She feels like everything has changed, and her fears, her worries are palpable and relatable, showing what it was like to have her life change so dramatically. She’s also a girl on a mission, determined to find a horse that is as broken as she is, a horse that she knows is hers, but that Goldburn wants to lay a claim to. The muster is her chance to reconnect with Magic, or Ghost as he is also known. To bring him home.

The first half of the story is centred around the muster, and Georgie learning about what to, making mistakes and trying to do the right thing. She’s determined to keep Goldburn from the horse, as is everyone else because they know his reputation. The moments of Georgie taking risks, of doing things that her father and brother don’t want her to do, of her mother trying to keep her in the city drive the tension, and drive the narrative as it moves from the muster back to the station and what comes next for Ghost/Magic.

It’s a a story about healing and finding yourself, discovering new skills and rediscovering what you had lost or what you thought you might never get back. It’s also an important book about finding new skills and seeing where you really belong, where you feel like you fit in and where you want to be. This is Georgie’s story about healing and finding herself, and it is about showing readers that wearing an eye patch or having a deformity or disability does not make someone a villain. It shapes people, and makes people who they are. And this is what I liked about this book. It allowed Georgie to feel like she had changed, to not really like the differences. And yet, it showed that everyone approaches and responds to challenges differently. We’re all human after all, and I am really loving books that are showing disability in a positive, nuanced and realistic light. I love the #OwnVoices books, and I love the ones that do the work and consult with disabled people to get things right.

Georgie’s disability is there throughout the novel, yet only referenced when it needs to be, and let’s face it, she sounds like she has some pretty cool eye patches! I think books like this are important, because they help us understand disability, and I think it is important to see books like this were the disabled person is not there for pity. Where it is not about making the non-disabled character or reader feel better about themselves.

This is a gorgeous book for everyone, that celebrates nature and being yourself, and finding your strength. It reveals something about humanity and how we react to things, how we work with people and what it means when one person’s selfish motives threaten to alter things forever.

Another great book for middle grade readers!