Review of "Caroline's Lighthouse" by Erica Zaborac

​Score: 93+/100 (9.3+ out of 10)

What if the thing you’ve spent years fighting to get back is no longer what you're meant to do? What if the destination you've long set for yourself is no longer where you're meant to go?

All of us experience something like this in one form or another. Maybe you had your mind set on becoming a pro athlete only to suffer a major injury your senior year. Maybe you had dreams of going on tour with your rock band, but found yourself married and with kids. Maybe you envisioned becoming a doctor only to bomb the MCAT three times.

It's such a familiar and relatable tale. And you know what? It's so interesting how things work out in the end. God always has a plan, whether if it's what we originally envisioned or not. Sometimes, life takes us on these side-quests and detours to show us something or to put us in a situation to learn something or meet someone.

Caroline’s Lighthouse by Erica Zaborac is a heartfelt, uplifting Christian coming-of-age novel set in the world of competitive equestrian sports, with faith, romance, healing, and finding a new purpose at its heart!

Zaborac impressed us with the predecessor to this book, Caroline's Purpose. It took what could have been a fairly familiar story about a young woman returning to horses after tragedy and gave it considerably more emotional weight. Caroline wasn't simply afraid to ride again. She had lost two entire versions of herself: first the gifted young eventer she had been before Beau's fatal accident, then the elite softball pitcher she became afterward when a devastating arm injury ended that dream too. Caroline's Purpose was about grief, identity, faith, and what happens when the things you used to define yourself suddenly disappear.

And faith is a huge part of this series. This is a true cozy Christian series, which is such a welcomed relief and breath of fresh air. There's no attempt to make the story edgy or provocative just for the sake of it. The romance is sweet, the characters pray for and with one another, and faith is treated as an ordinary, meaningful part of their lives rather than something the author seems embarrassed to include.
That doesn't mean everyone is perfect or that faith magically makes all of their problems disappear. Quite the opposite. Caroline struggles with fear, guilt, ambition, disappointment, and figuring out whether the dreams she has been chasing are actually her dreams anymore. Connor genuinely wants what is best for her, but even he sometimes gets it wrong. Holly loves her daughter deeply, yet some of the pressure she puts on Caroline becomes one of the biggest sources of conflict in the book.

And that's one of the things we appreciate about Zaborac's approach to Christian fiction. Faith isn't used to eliminate the struggle. It's used to help the characters make sense of the struggle.

We especially appreciated how patiently that book handled Caroline's recovery. There was no magical horse ride that suddenly fixed everything. Luna, the young filly Caroline was assigned to train, helped her cautiously reconnect with the horse world. Connor became the steady, compassionate presence she desperately needed. And later, Edison, an abused and deeply fearful stallion, became something even more powerful: a reflection of Caroline herself. Both of them were carrying old wounds. Both had learned to expect pain. And both needed someone willing to be patient enough to earn their trust. That made Caroline's Purpose feel like a complete story in its own right.

In the sequel, Caroline Davis has finally returned to the horse world she once thought she had lost forever. She’s riding again. Winning again. Dreaming big again. But as old ambitions begin pulling her forward, Caroline’s Lighthouse asks whether healing means reclaiming the life you had... or having the courage to choose a different one.

That setup gives the sequel an interesting problem to solve, because Caroline's greatest obstacle is no longer simply fear. In fact, Caroline's Lighthouse opens with proof of just how far she's come. Caroline is back at a three-day event with Benji, her mother's experienced Thoroughbred, sitting in first place after dressage and stadium jumping. There is just one problem: fence fifteen on the cross-country course looks painfully similar to the jump where she lost Beau. Caroline knows Benji can handle it. She knows the fence itself is smaller. She even knows, intellectually, that Beau's accident wasn't her fault. Her body hasn't quite gotten that memo yet.

We really like this opening because Zaborac doesn't pretend Caroline's progress in the first book erased years of trauma. She can love horses again and still be afraid. She can know something logically and still struggle to believe it emotionally. Those two things can exist at the same time. Caroline ultimately decides to ride, and when she reaches that dreaded fence, she has to do one of the hardest things imaginable for someone carrying her history: loosen her grip, trust Benji, and let him do his job. They clear it, finish the course, and win.

That should be an uncomplicated triumph, but almost immediately afterward, Caroline's mother, Holly, focuses on the mistakes Caroline made during the round. Instead of celebrating that her daughter just completed her first cross-country course since the accident, Holly points out the poor start and what happened at fence fifteen, then starts talking about Caroline returning to the Young Rider Championships. And there, almost quietly, the sequel's real conflict begins. Caroline has spent years trying to recover the girl she used to be, but now that she finally has a piece of that girl back, everyone seems ready for her to become all of her again. Especially Caroline herself.

That's where Caroline's Lighthouse becomes more interesting than a simple comeback story. Caroline starts setting bigger goals: Training Level, the American Eventing Championships, Young Riders, and maybe even the Olympics someday. On paper, that's exciting. She's talented enough to dream that big, and Benji is certainly capable. But the farther Caroline goes, the more difficult it becomes to tell where healthy ambition ends and the old obsession with achievement begins. We've seen this Caroline before. She has spent much of her life trying to outrun pain by becoming exceptional at something. When horses were taken away, she became an elite softball pitcher. When softball disappeared, she eventually fought her way back to horses. Caroline doesn't just like succeeding. Somewhere along the way, she learned to use success as evidence that she is okay.

That becomes especially complicated because her return to serious competition seems to repair something she desperately wants repaired: her relationship with Holly. The better Caroline rides, the more the two of them start slipping back into their old rhythm. They talk strategy. They analyze competitors. They discuss training plans. Caroline begins feeling like she has her mom back, and that gives all those ribbons, scores, and championship goals an emotional value far beyond the competition itself. Winning is no longer simply about winning. It starts to feel tied to approval, connection, and the hope that Caroline can finally restore the relationship with her mother that she thought she had lost.

This is another really solid novel by Erica Zaborac. We enjoyed and appreciated this book for what it is. We will say, though, that it's quite brief. It's also somewhat linear and predictable, which isn't always a bad thing. We've read a lot of complicated, overly-long books recently that bugged us. There's a middle ground. A Goldilocks zone, so to speak.

It should also be mentioned that, while we appreciated the Christian-faith-aspect of this book, it can come across as a bit excessive and intrusive at times. Characters (especially Caroline and Connor) are constantly stopping to pray and ask God for guidance. If you are buying this book as a Christian romance, you will really love that. If you are buying this book just as a cozy romance, you might find this a bit cloying.

We didn't really have a problem with this. Even Jesus prayed to his dad, so shouldn't his followers? If anything, these characters set such a great example for Christians, especially younger/college-aged ones.

Check it out on Amazon!