Chase Your Dreams West: A Ginnie West Adventure (Book 5) Celebrate Lit Tour {book review and giveaway}

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.

My Thoughts

Chase Your Dreams West is book five of a series, written for upper-middle-grades. It's the first of the series that I've read; I would definitely recommend reading books 1-4 first, so it's easier to follow the various relationships.

I found it an enjoyable read anyway. It does cover some fairly heavy topics: death of a parent, blending families, and the return of an absentee father. I find the characters relatable. 

If you have a young horse-lover in your family, this series would be ideal. Maybe add it to your Christmas gift list.

I received a complimentary copy through Celebrate Lit and these opinions are my own.

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.

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

Comments

  1. Thank you for featuring "Chase Your Dreams West" on your blog today. I am glad you enjoyed it. It took longer to write than I wanted, but I am happy people are liking it. It's been 10 years since Book 4 was published. Book 6 comes out Dec. 5, 2024--so the wait for All Together West will be short. Thanks again and have a lovely day. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. This should be a very enjoyable read. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Replies
    1. Thank you, Nancy. The girls on the cover are the daughters of 2 little boys I used to babysit for. The girls are cousins and the blonde lives in the farmhouse I write about in the story. ;) I spent a lot of time on the farm as a teen.

      Delete

Post a Comment

I love hearing from you! Please leave a comment. Thanks!