Charlotte and the Starlet Books in Order

The Charlotte and the Starlet books are upbeat middle grade adventures about a horse mad country girl and a Hollywood diva who just happens to be a talking horse. They mix boarding school drama, show jumping thrills and film set chaos, with plenty of comedy aimed at readers around nine to thirteen.

At the start of Charlotte and the Starlet, Charlotte lives on an outback property and dreams of making the Junior Olympic Equestrian Squad. She wins a place at Thornton Downs, an elite riding academy, but quickly discovers that talent is not enough. The head of the school is wary of her, and the glamorous trio known as the Evil Three are determined to see her fail.

Leila is a famous movie horse with a big ego and an even bigger sense of style. After being kidnapped from her comfortable Hollywood life she wakes up at Thornton Downs, far from the cameras and wardrobes she is used to. Her only chance of getting home is to confess her secret to the girl assigned to ride her: Leila can talk. Their uneasy partnership turns into a friendship as they take on bullies, bad behaviour and high stakes competitions.

In A Friend in Need, Charlotte has made it into the Junior Olympic squad and Leila has put her film career on hold to stay by her side. New recruit Hannah becomes a much needed ally, but extra training and strict deportment lessons eat into the time Charlotte can spend with her horse. When Charlotte is sent away and returns to find that Leila has been sold to a dodgy showman, she and her friends must plan a daring rescue.

Hooray for Hollywood sends the pair back to the movie world. Thornton Downs is being sued and faces closure, so Leila agrees to star in a new film to raise money for the academy, with Charlotte along as her rider and minder. On set they meet snobby actors, anxious writers and a crew with their own agendas, then everything stops when Leila’s co star Sarah Jane is kidnapped. Charlotte, Leila and their friends have to untangle sabotage and ransom plots before the production collapses and their school is lost.

Under the jokes and talking horse banter, the series is about loyalty, confidence and staying grounded when adults and institutions let you down. Charlotte wrestles with homesickness, class differences and the pressure to be perfect, while Leila slowly learns there is more to life than red carpets. At heart these books are about a girl, a horse and the idea that ordinary kids can step into extraordinary worlds and still be themselves.