One afternoon at dusk, the spirited racehorse Paras—short for "Perestroika"—finds the door of her stall open and she wanders all the way to the City of Light. There she meets a German shorthaired pointer named Frida, and they keep company with two ducks and an opinionated raven. In this novel by the author of A Thousand Acres, Paras meets a human boy, Etienne, and discovers a new, otherworldly part of Paris. But how long can the boy keep Paras hidden and all to himself?