Grateful to leave her mother and the alternating "stony silences and yelling matches"; that have erupted since the death of her father, Angela goes to Italy expecting an uneventful summer with her uncle in Tuscany.

As described in Ann Chandler's fictional debut Siena Summer, Angela arrives in Siena in time to witness the time-honoured Palio, a highly competitive and often bloody, bareback horse race, staged twice each summer, during which ten riders recklessly circle the Piazza del Campo.

Angela's life becomes complicated when she discovers a dappled horse named Tempesta, awaiting a final journey to the slaughterhouse, and she meets the girl this unpredictable horse threw and trampled. Trouble comes in the form of a broad-shouldered, dark-eyed and devious fantino, or jockey, named Tony.

The Palio evolved from medieval times. Animal rights organizations have frequently protested the mistreatment of horses at the event.

978-1-896580-17-3

[BCBW 2009] "Teenlit"