"The Road to Balinor," by Mary Stanton, is number 1 in the Unicorns of Balinor series. This is a fantasy tale about a race of intelligent unicorns who live in a realm apart from, but connected to, Earth. As the story opens we discover that one of the unicorns and his human companion have both been injured and are in a precarious situation in the human world.

Overall I enjoyed the story. Stanton is especially effective in her presentation of interspecies relationships in a fantasy setting. There is also an intriguing villain.

At times I found the language a little too corny and New Age-y for my tastes. I also didn't like the fact that the book really doesn't hold up as a stand-alone story; the cliffhanger ending seems to lead directly into volume 2. But the imaginative story, together with some clever touches along the way, make it a solid fantasy effort.

In balinor land of the unicorns Sunchaser the great unicorn and Princess Arianna of Balinor leave Balinor to earth becase the Shifter is in Balinor trying to get the princess . But when they get there Ari has broken legs and Retrograde amnesia , Chase is a horse and has lost his horn, Ann and frank are foster parents to Ari and one day a dog named Lincoln comes to see her he has around his neck a ruby-colored jewel and Ari takes it then Ann and frank take both girl and dog home to Glacier River Farm where Aris dear horse chase is, for over a month she is taken care of by Dr. Bohnes and her days are filled with docter vists, and X rays, and casts. Soon Ari and chase ride and Ari loves to be on chase , but her foster parents lease chase to Lori Carmichael a spoiled girl who wants chase to herself , she even wants chase to leave the farm . Ari is upset that chase is Loris now Frank makes her a farm hand and Ari helps him but she wants chase more then anything also they wont let Ari off the farm not to the mall or even the movies , then Ari runs off with her horse and both girl and horse leave the farm to a cave , Ari had explored the trails before when she had broken legs, now both girl and horse must find there way back to Balinor. This is a story of a brave unicorn and a 13 teen year girl who risk there lifes to find who they are and Ari must get back to being a royal princess Arianna of Balinor .

This book explains a lot about how the whole series began, and has a great plot with loads of suspense, happiness, and suspicion! There are so many parts in each book of this series where I go, "Oh, NO, that person should not be trusted, they're going to take the JEWEL! Stay away from them!", etc, as it's all very suspenseful with so many twists, and I love it! Sure, some parts can be quite scary, while others can be really cool and make you wish you could have a unicorn or that the Balinor land really does exist, but this book is awesome! I, individually, am very sensative to scary things, yet the frightening scenes in here are good, not the kind of scary where I can't sleep at night, the kind of good scary where I am fearful only at the moment the scene is occuring, then I switch back to being my normal self.

This is one GREAT book any horse or unicorn lover would have a fabulous time reading!