Well, since I've read (almost) all of Maggie Stiefvater's other books, it's about time I got around to this one. 
 THE SCORPIO RACES is a novel that is hard to describe. It's a stand-alone about the small island of Thisby, famed for its killer water horses and the annual Scorpio Races. If I had to categorize it, I'm not sure exactly where I would put it. It's more about the events leading up to the race than the actual race itself, but I wasn't bothered by that. In fact, I liked getting to know Sean and Puck and all the other characters. And, to me, the fact that the race itself was only ten pages mirrored the fact that in the world of THE SCORPIO RACES, the actual race only lasts five minutes. All that preparation, all that build-up, for a race that means so much and yet is over so quickly. The entire course of the story felt drawn out, but not in a bad way. The characters were well-developed and Stiefvater gives you a privileged peek into their lives in a way that couldn't have been done if the timeline of the story was longer. To me, this wasn't a fast read (or listen); it was evenly paced, and I liked it all the more for that.