Spring books by Minnestans are coming in fast. Here are three authors launching their fiction and nonfiction in post-Easter appearances.

(Courtesy of the author)

“Horse Lovers: Unpacking the Female Fascination”: by Karin Winegar (Horse Feed Press, $27.95)

Although I know about climate chaos and political apocalypse, and although I woke up feeling creaky and unloved, for now, I feel all is well… All is well as his unshod hooves crush the frozen, short-shorn alfalfa. All is well as we slip into the woods where deer flash among the birches, where woodpeckers dart and bob and a pair of eagles abide.  All is well as we follow the side-by-side prints of a pair of coyotes in a rime of new snow. … Millions of other girls are born this way, and because it never stops, for a while, any while, in the company of horses, for us all is truly well. — from “Horse Lovers”

Karin Winegar (Courtesy of the author)

What is it about horses that keeps girls mucking out barns in dirty clothes, grown women spending money on saddles and equipment they sometimes can’t afford?

After three decades of riding adventures, Karin Winegar tried to get answers to this puzzle as she rode with the top horsewomen in the United States and the United Kingdom. She rode and talked horses in Virginia horse country and in the American West. She talked to carriage drivers and women who did 100-mile endurance races.

Winegar, a former Star Tribune writer, has loved horses since her childhood in Albert Lea when she “rode” her dad’s back and rode bareback on her pony, Molly. She and other “horse girls” were a close community as they did stable work and cared for their horses. She even took her horse with her to Carleton College in Northfield.

“What was the sensation I felt most often then?” she writes of riding. “Aliveness.”

When Winegar was earning her own money, she formed that horse-woman bond with Gabe, her gray Arabian “heart horse.”

Unlike some women, who ride only their own horse in the same place all the time, Winegar was willing to ride any mount she was given during her adventures. Closer to home, she drove carriages in downtown St. Paul, taking kids to proms and others for rides in cold weather.

One of the most elusive parts of Winegar’s quest for information is how males differ from females when it comes to horses. She writes of seeing a change in men when she was about 16, as they looked at her in a different way. Is it that men want power over horses while women listen to the animal?

Written beautifully (as you’d expect from an award-winning journalist), “Horse Lovers” includes chapters about horses in film and books, the heartbreak of losing your “heart horse,” women who give what money they can to stop the killing of wild horses and to rescue good horses sent to kill pens because nobody wants them. (This is a hard but important chapter to read.)

Among the horsewomen Winegar interviewed (often while riding together) are Pulitzer Prize winner Maxine Kumin; author and civil rights activist Rita Mae Brown; Minnesota Jungian analyst and psychologist Mary Lynn Kittelson; author and PBS documentary film maker Ginger Kathrens; and Carole Federighi, lawyer and endurance rider.

In the end, Winegar has no definitive answer to why there is a strong and fascinating bond between women and their horses. But a reader who is unfamiliar with the world of riding may simply say it is inherent love.

If you are a horse girl or even if you have never been near a Thoroughbred, you will enjoy this meditation on some women’s passion written by someone who lives it.

Winegar, who has won awards for investigative and maritime writing, will launch her book at 7 p.m. April 23 at Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S.,  Mpls., in conversation with fellow horse-lover Sarah T. Williams, former Star Tribune books editor. Free; registration at magersandquinn.com.

(Courtesy of the author)

“The Sun”: by Frank Weber (Book Baby, $21)

When Melanie slipped off the edge, I immediately lunged and grabbed her around the shoulders. We fell past twelve feet and were still falling. We were going to die. — from “The Sun”

Frank F. Weber (Courtesy of the author)

Forensic psychologist Weber gives us a sort-of sequel to last year’s “Scandal of Vandals” in his new crime novel populated by am unsavory cast of characters except for Jon Frederick, an investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and profiler and his wife, Serena, a private investigator.

“Scandal for Vandals” is based on the high-profile, real-life case of T. Eugene Thompson, a St. Paul man who went to prison for being behind the contract killing of his wife, Carol. In that book and the new one, the Thompson character is Tug Grant. Tug is in prison and his beautiful attorney and lover, Taytum Hanson, is working on getting him released.

Each chapter of “The Sun” is told from a character’s perspective, and there are so many that the author includes a helpful list of who and what they are. Mostly, they are either Mafia or gang members out to kill one another. There’s Tug, who will do anything to become a millionaire again; convicted murderer Roan, married to Mafia boss Catania; Ricky, convicted killer who is trying to go straight; Melanie Pearson, who wants revenge; and the unnamed Assassin. It’s not surprising there are dead bodies. It takes Jon and pregnant Serena to sort out this inter-connected web of criminals and what they are after.

Besides writing awards, Weber’s professional honors include an Outstanding Achievement award from the MN Psychological Association and the President’s Award from the MN Correctional Association for his forensic work. Weber and his wife, Brenda, are founders of CORE Professional Services, which helps offenders transition back into the community after incarceration.

Weber will be featured guest at Minnesota Mystery Night at 7 p.m. April 21 at Lucky’s 13 Pub in Mendota. He will be in conversation with Minnesotan Betty Brandt Passick, author of three Gangster Series historical mysteries. Her most recent is “The Black Bag of Dr. Wiltse.”

There is a $13 cover charge for the program, for which reservations are available at mnmysterynight.com/reservations. Dinner service begins at 5:30 p.m.

(Courtesy of the author)

“The Flip Side”: by Jason Walz (Rocky Pond Books/Penguin Young Readers, $17.99)

I thought that once I got here everything would make sense. I thought there would be reason for… all this. — from “The Flip Side.”

Jason Walz (Courtesy of the author)

Theo is devastated by the death of his best friend. He doesn’t want sympathy; he doesn’t want to be at the funeral lunch. He just wants to be alone in his depression that no one seems to understand. As his sadness grows into haunting by the shapeshifting manifestation of his depression, the boy is turned upside down to the Flip Side, an alternative reality where he meets Emma, who is haunted by her own twisted creature. Together, they must open up to one another and find a way out.

Walz, who has worked many years as a special-education teacher, infuses his drawings with energy, with Theo free falling, sometimes upside down, in a palette of grays and maroons. He says the book was inspired by a short story, written by his friend before he died of cancer, about a father trying to keep his kids alive in a world where gravity had reversed. “After losing Kris, my world seemed completely upside down and the literal version of that struck me as a powerful metaphor for loss, depression, and loneliness,” he writes. “For the three years it took to create ‘The Flip Side’ it was like Kris and I were nerding out together once again, and it was wonderful.”

“The Flip Side” earned starred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus Reviews, which described it as “Thrilling, inclusive, and unforgettable.”

Walz will introduce his book at 6:30 pm. April 23 at Fresh Eye Gallery, 4238 Nicollet Ave., Mpls.

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