Leave It to Chance

BY SHERRI SANDS
Published by David C Cook

Sierra Montgomery is struggling. A divorced mother of three, she’s lost her job, been evicted from her home, and forced to move in with her busy-body mum. New employment is thin on the ground, her ex-husband is a deadbeat dad, and she’s lost her faith in her God.

Worst of all, she’s been willed a horse.

Chance, a 22 year-old grey gelding, is the epitome of her every fear. Having lost a young friend to an equastrien accident in her youth, the horse symbolises every danger that she is desperately trying to shield her children from. Continually undermined by her mother, efforts to sell the horse are quashed, and she must rely upon the good graces of hunky landscaper Ross Morgan to give the horse stable room. Can she also rely on him to heal her broken heart?

A What? A Blog Book Tour?

HAPPY TO USE THAT UNDERUSED TAG I got a comment which was more of an invitation: would I like to take part in a blog book tour?

I immediately did what came naturally: I followed as many links as I could find to find out exactly what that was.

It’s a good idea, possibly ingenious. The organisers trawl the web for blogs likely to be interested in the tome in question. The bloggers read the book and review it in a post.

This was fine with me. As my own novel is hitting the streets on 4 September, I am happy enough to support an author’s intention to get the book out there in any way, shape or form.

So, in the next few days, I’ll be reviewing Leave It to Chance, by Sherri Sand. A novel, unsurprisingly, that features a horse. And also features quite a lot about Christianity. Which was surprising.

Stay tuned.

Native Speech

THE FLYING CHANGES BOOK CLUB I’ve just read National Velvet for the first time, and I confess to being slightly wigged out.

It’s dark, and I wasn’t expecting that.

Promises, Promises

THE FLYING CHANGES BOOK CLUB The ill-fated book club, it looks like.

Once I started thinking about writing about all the books I’d read, the air went out of the balloon, in a manner of speaking. If only I’d written something out as I’d gone along! Seemed like homework, all of a sudden. Remember book reports? Love reading— hated book reports.

But let’s give it a try. Here’s a selective list of what’s on my shelves:

A Cunning Plan

THINKING ALOUD In the eighth grade, I was voted class bookworm. It makes me sigh, even now.

This was not unjust. One of my earliest, abiding memories is of a long hallway, lined with long tables, piled high with books. I was five, it was kindergarten, I loved books, and I gathered up ten of them, and got a bollicking when they had to paid for. I can see the long hallway now, the journey home on the schoolbus, my copy of a pop-up Twas The Night Before Christmas, which some horrible little creature, older than me, broke.

And here we are in 2007. I have learned my lesson about loaning books to people. Thanks to the magic of the internets, however, we can imagine that I’m virtually lending out my most favoured volumes for your edification. I don’t expect that these posts will be book reviews; as an erstwhile critic, I suppose I’m able for it, but I’d prefer to be sparking a conversation rather than handing down thoughts from on high [although all good criticism should start a conversation rather appear to be finishing it].

My library ranges from practical handbooks to anthologies of the heart-warming sort, and I am the biggest fan of case studies. I would read a 50-volume encyclopedia about other people’s horses. There’s some fiction, too, and I admit, with no chagrin, that I read Black Beauty, for the first time, three months ago.

I can’t promise that every Friday is book club day, and I don’t know for sure when the first one will appear, but I’ve, er, got the bit between my teeth. And we all know what that means.

Talkin’ the Talk

THE FLYING CHANGES BOOK CLUB In this post I mentioned in passing about how I read that holding my pelvis, while in saddle, as if it were full of water, with the intent to prevent the water spilling, would secure my seat. This reference inspired the following comment from a reader:

You mention here about how a book describes it and somewhere else you mention things you’ve picked up from books. Do you have any good recommendations on books that were worthwhile? Especially any with exercises geared towards riders?

Why, thanks for asking. It happens that I do.