Chase Your Dreams West Kick-Off Package

About the Book

Book: Chase Your Dreams West: A Ginnie West Adventure (Book 5)

Authors:Monique Bucheger and G. L. Rasmussen

Genre:Contemporary Upper Middle -Grade

Release date: November 22, 2024

12-year-old best friends, Ginnie West and Tillie Taylor, navigate changes in their family. Tillie’s long-absent birth father reappears and she has to juggle two dads while Ginnie’s mischievous Uncle Jake escalates their prank war. Meanwhile, Tillie desperately wants a horse of her own while Ginnie is determined to follow her late mother’s equestrian legacy as a trick rider, something her dad has forbidden.

Can Ginnie shape her own destiny and persuade her dad to support her ambitions? Get ready for a heartwarming adventure filled with friendship, family, and the power of chasing your dreams!

Click here to get your copy!

About the Authors

Monique is a bestselling author, a certified Farland Fiction Coach, and an empowerment speaker, dedicated to championing the underdog, in both her writing and real-life adventures.

Having a heart for families in crisis, Monique creates stories that capture the essence of real-life challenges and triumphs, with a touch of humor.

Monique’s upper middle-grade series, ‘The Ginnie West Adventures,’ delves into sensitive and weighty themes such as parental loss, abandonment, and overcoming abuse. She delivers stories not only for tween readers, but for those young at heart.

Drawing from her experiences nurturing a dozen of her own children and fostering over a hundred more, Monique’s experiences shape her books, creating novels in a number of genres, including a historical family saga, contemporary family dramas, a fun picture book, and a middle grade series weaving whimsy and heart into her tales.

A country boy by birth and by choice, Gary spent his youth working on the family farm, for local farmers and ranchers, on horseback or playing sports. Offered scholarships in Agriculture and Advertising Design, he opted for the bright lights and big city. Eight years in the advertising field convinced him that wasn’t where he wanted to be.

Gary freelanced in design and illustration, converted his love of writing for advertising to a newspaper column about the country lifestyle. He has also worked as a ranch manager, cowboy, rancher, and horse trainer. An avid painter and author, Gary shares  his talents through mentoring others, is a past president of the Western Art Guild and Idaho Writers League and is an active member of Western Writers of America.

Gary and his wife, Margie are the parents of four children and ten grandchildren and have traveled extensively throughout Europe, Great Britain and the United States.

More from Monique

Chase Your Dreams West: A Ginnie West Adventure took me too long to finish. I was working on it when one of my sons was killed in a car accident. I paused writing for a few years as our family adjusted to losing Ryan.

An author friend invited me to a writer’s retreat a few years ago, knowing I was stuck and that week unlocked a lot of things for me. Including deciding to change where I placed what is now the first four chapters. I wrote them two books ago thinking they would make a great denouement, but after my son’s death, I realized they would make a better beginning.

This book is a little different from the first four as Ginnie explores horsemanship training with her mare, Calliope–with her dad’s blessing, and perhaps is given a little help from her mom. Ginnie is given back one of her mom’s journals and gets to know the mom she doesn’t really remember and her dad didn’t really talk about… until recently.

Interview with Monique

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

When I was a tween. Then in high school, I had a great creative writing teacher, Mrs. Marion “Jo” Johnson. She encouraged me to become an author, so I made her a character in my 2nd book, Trouble Blows West and dedicated that book to her.

How long does it take you to write a book?

It really depends on the book and how confident I am in the story as I write it. Sometimes life happens and writing gets put on hold  or muddled or other times, I feel compelled to write a book and I find or make the time to finish it–no matter whatever else is going on in my life. The shortest time I took to write a book was 2 months–the longest was nine years, which was this one. My 20 year-old son died in a car accident and left 11 brothers and sisters, his father and I, to figure out how to make life okay without him.

I fully expected to finish this book years ago, but it took a friend asking me 3 ½ years ago to go on a writing retreat with her. Then I asked G.L. to help me write it. Since then, we have written three books, including this one, Chase Your Dreams West: A Ginnie West Adventure. I’ve also written stories for four anthologies and a book in my non-published series as well as a novella.

G.L. is an artist as well as an author, so he has picture books he has illustrated as well as written short stories and a couple other books.

How do you create your main characters?

I love names. Sometimes I hear or see a name and wonder what a person with that name would be like and quite often, they tell me by asking me to share their story.

What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?

That my characters have their own opinions at times and when they feel very strongly about things, I should respect their opinion–it makes for a better story.

Where can readers find out more about you and your books?

My website will have the latest news on the books and will often have the best deals on them, though you can find them at your favorite retailers.

Monique’s website is: https://authormoniquebucheger.com/

If you buy the print books through me, I will sign them for you.

Any current or upcoming projects you’d like to tell us about?

I’m really excited about writing what the West family looked like in 1983 when Uncle Ben, Ginnie’s great-uncle–and the patriarch of this branch of the West Family Tree, is an 11-year-old boy. His parents (known as Oma and Opa in the series) are the parents on the family farm: Heart of the West and are raising their 6 sons. Ginnie and her dad, Todd, won’t be there, but we’ll get to know her grandparents, Vic and Eliza, who passed away when Ginnie’s dad was 11. Vic is one of Uncle Ben’s four older brothers.

Blog Stops

Artistic Nobody, November 18

Life on Chickadee Lane, November 19

Simple Harvest Reads, November 20 (Author Interview)

Guild Master, November 21 (Author Interview)

Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, November 21

Fiction Book Lover, November 22 (Author Interview)

Texas Book-aholic, November 23

Stories By Gina, November 24 (Author Interview)

Happily Managing a Household of Boys, November 24

Locks, Hooks and Books, November 25

Tell Tale Book Reviews, November 26 (Author Interview)

Library lady’s Kid Lit, November 27

Jodie Wolfe – Stories Where Hope and Quirky Meet, November 28 (Author Interview)

Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, November 29

For the Love of Literature, November 30 (Author Interview)

For Him and My Family, December 1

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Monique is giving away the grand prize of a $50 Amazon gift card and an eBook copy of the book!!

Be sure to comment on the blog stops for extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/00adcf54101