{"product_id":"9780008294007_on-swift-horses","title":"On Swift Horses","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSet in 1950s' America at a time when people stopped looking west and started looking up: a breathtakingly beautiful debut novel of revolution, chance and the gambles we take with the human heart.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eMuriel, newly married and newly orphaned, works as a waitress in a San Diego diner. As she pours coffee and empties ashtrays, she eavesdrops on her customers, the ex-jockeys and trainers of the Del Mar racetrack.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen she begins, secretly, to bet on the horses and, shockingly, to win, she feels strangely unready to share her good luck and its origins with her husband Lee.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInstead it is Lee’s brother, Julius, a thief and Korean War veteran – and someone she has only met once – whom she longs to tell, and who has struck a spark of promise and possibility inside her quietly ordered life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJulius has found himself in Las Vegas, where his gift for gambling leads him to a job patrolling the boards above the casino tables, watching through the cigarette smoke for chancers and cheats. There he meets Henry, a blackjack artist and a man who shares Julius’s passions, and his secrets. As tourists gather on roof tops to watch atomic clouds bloom in the desert, Henry and Julius's love burns in the shadows – until one night Henry is forced to flee.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough the parks and plazas of Tijuana and the bars and beaches of San Diego, \u003cem\u003eOn Swift Horses\u003c\/em\u003e mesmerisingly charts the journeys of Muriel and Julius on their separate quests for freedom, new horizons and love.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shannon Pufahl","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46897456021653,"sku":"9780008294007","price":22.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0484\/3175\/9509\/files\/9780008294007_bec7dfe8-b3f1-4ba9-81b3-0628332f0059.jpg?v=1776992614","url":"https:\/\/harpercollins.com.au\/products\/9780008294007_on-swift-horses","provider":"HarperCollins AU","version":"1.0","type":"link"}