This is my first Young Adult Book. I read the genre all the time but for some reason never considered writing one before. A friend of mine sort of dared me into creating this. “Write what you know,” she said. I thought about that.
What exactly did I know? Medicine. As a nurse for nearly thirty years yeah, I know medicine, but somehow that didn’t click. I have medicine in some aspect in my other books. I was looking for something new.
Okay, well I thought to myself, what about horses? Ah ha! Horse I know. As an owner of five, that qualifies. Well they think they own me, but I digress. So I started writing about a boy and his horse and before I knew it my sweet little story had morphed into something dark. I think I’m incapable of writing sweet. I took a messed up abused boy and paired him with a messed up abused horse named Storm and they sort of healed each other. And of course it wasn’t that easy.
My main character, Dodge is emotionally numb and cynical after spending his entire life bouncing around inside the foster care system of the 1970’s. He doesn’t think he’s worthy of anyone’s love. But when he meets Kate, he learns through her functionally dysfunctional family that love can sometimes be messy and you don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of it.
As Storm learns to trust Dodge, Dodge learns to trust Kate and her family. Years later, as an adult it is a lesson Dodge desperately wants to share with his own adopted son, Chris. On a five hour car ride to say goodbye to a dying Storm, Dodge tries to break through years of abuse and neglect and indifference. He knows that sometimes you need to push something until it breaks so that you can fix it. But he fears Chris may be broken beyond repair.
But Dodge isn’t ready to give up on his son, because sometimes facing the things you run from can either free you or snap the fragile tether that keeps you tethered in the center of the storm. (Yeah, I snuck my blurb in there-clever of me, huh?)
I’m rather proud of this story, I am thrilled with my new publisher – MUSA, they did a fantastic job editing it and created a rocking cover as well. I hope you give this small town girl a try. Many thanks to Apryl for having me here. I hope to hear from you and hope you stop by my web site to see my other books!
You can find Ann here:
annsimko.com
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