“But there’s other things, too…things a horse can’t understand.”

The first white Dragontales book I read was Pledge of Peril, with a cover image that looks like a Lisa Frank product. “White book” refers to the volumes of the series with female heroes, whereas the black books had male heroes.

Pledge of Peril chronicles the misadventures of Princess Sarah, who is out nuzzling her beloved horse Stardark when her castle is swiftly overtaken by the ogre hordes her father had defeated and exiled years ago. Their leader, Rastik, has the kingdom in the palm of his hand, but he’s also got a terrible gambling problem and easily succumbs to a wager that Sarah can’t ride Stardark to the Garden of Galatea, pick a rose from the garden there, and return with it in three days. If she pulls it off, Rastik leaves forever; otherwise he’s the new king and Sarah will be his bride.

The garden is, of course, a five-day round trip. Oh, and the gardener is a dragon with OCPD who hates visitors. Oh, and Sarah’s family kind of takes it upon themselves to volunteer her for this mission, so she really doesn’t have much say in the matter anyway.

Thus begins our journey across three different biomes, featuring three different male friends/love interests. Take to the deserts and meet the tough, swarthy prince of the nomads; or ride the forest route and flirt with a snarky elven heir; or brave the treacherous swamps and befriend a helpful Huck Finn type. Whatever your dating sim poison, there’s a lot of flavors to choose from.

These guys are all irrelevant in the long run, though, because Sarah’s one true love, the apple of her eye, is Stardark, the horse she’s raised from a foal. Not a chapter goes by when he doesn’t become the subject of narrative or conversation at least twice. His name is the first word of the entire book. The fact that he’s not on the cover is a disservice to our heroine’s equine obsession. Sarah quite literally will not shut up about this horse, and if she could elope with the beast, I get the impression that she totally would. But that’s a subject for another, weirder gamebook series that doesn’t exist yet. I don’t think. Maybe it does.

In fact, if there isn’t already an anime about a girl who’s in love with a horse, I would be shocked, quite frankly. There have already been at least half a dozen about “girl meets dog.”

But I digress.

Seriously, though, she dotes on this horse so much that even I was conditioned to obsess over him. There were times when I actually got worked up over the horse’s fate in one path.

One thing I like about Sarah is that she isn’t a fighter. Modern tropes demand that all female characters be able to kick butt and get things done without breaking a sweat or asking for help from anyone. Sarah is good at riding horses and good at princess stuff like embroidery and castle management, but she’s very new to the adventure gig and struggles with her confidence throughout. What’s impressive about her is that she knows her limitations and keeps her cool anyway, always doing her best to hide her fear and conduct herself with dignity even when faced with an army of ogres or an ornery dragon. No experience fighting on horseback with a stick, but when backed into a corner she’ll try it anyway and hope for the best.

In short, she’s not physically tough, but she’s got moxie. I like her.

Like with all Dragontales books, there are no “game over” endings. Every ending is a logical conclusion to the tale, but some are better than others. I doubt very much that Rastik is a man (ogre?) of his word who would give up his conquered kingdom on a mere bet, hence why he made an impossible wager for Sarah to win in the first place, so I was delighted at one particular path where (spoiler alert!) Sarah sang to the dragon in the Garden of Galatea, and charmed it so much with her song that it agreed to let her fly home on its back. Thus Sarah won the wager with flying colors when she told Rastik, “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE,” from atop a giant, flying, fire-breathing, magic-throwing lizard.

I see a lot of “average” reviews for Pledge of Peril, but I found it to be more memorable than a few others in the series. The overall story does give off “saturday morning girls’ cartoon” vibes, and if you don’t mind that too much, it’s not a bad read, and the different paths to the macguffin give it a lot of replay value. There are definitely edgier books in the series than this one, but I’d still recommend it for young female readers and anyone with an unhealthy horse obsession.

Time for bed. Uncle Mac out.