Barbara's Meanderings

Yay!! Cue the fireworks and sound the drums the official Book Launch Party for A Horse Called Trouble by C.K.Volnek has begun!!!!

I am so excited to be able to host this party for her, because she is such a giving person and a wonderful author. Her first book, Ghost Dog of Roanoke Island got excellent reviews and not content to enjoy this success she has come out with another book for children.

Oh, I see our guest of honor has arrived. I'll let her tell you all about herself first:


Author Bio:

Greetings. Thanks for allowing me to visit your blog today, Barbara. It is such a treat to be able to visit and I’m so excited to be here and announce my newest tween novel, A Horse Called Trouble! Today I am celebrating its Book Birthday! And I would also love to offer a FREE copy of my e-book to one lucky reader who leaves me a comment! (I hope you love free stuff as much as I do.)






A Horse Called Trouble

Abandoned by her mother at a young age, Tara Cummings has been passed from foster home to foster home; not wanted anywhere by anyone. At thirteen she’s skeptic and suspicious, with no family, and no friends. 

Horse therapy “will teach trust, perseverance, respect, and the value of teamwork,” or so says the program’s instructor. Tara is unconvinced. Trust only broke her heart, perseverance meant more failures, and no one respects or wants to team up with the misfit foster kid. 

At the farm, Tara meets Trouble, an angry and defiant horse, bent on destroying everything and everyone around him. Tara is frightened of the enraged horse, until she realizes Trouble is as misunderstood and untrusting as she is. Pushing aside her fear, a special bond is formed, much to the surprise of everyone at the farm. Trouble trusts Tara, and Tara in turn finds hope and acceptance as well as the will to love and trust again herself. 

But, Tara’s confidence is shaken as an even greater challenge looms ahead. Trouble’s mean and manipulative owner is the one and only Alissa, Tara’s nemesis. Can Tara overcome her own limitations and fight to save the horse who freed her heart and gave her life value and meaning? Or will Alissa destroy them both?




Thank you for being here and I'm thrilled to be sharing this special day with you. I have some questions, though.

Q) What inspired you to write this story?

I have always loved horses. Such marvelous creatures they are. Proud, elegant, powerful yet gentle and compassionate. I was so fortunate to be able to call several of these wonderful creatures my friend and confidant as I grew up.

I knew I wanted to immortalize some of my treasured equine friends but I never expected to write the story of Trouble in such a fashion as I did. It was after visiting a horse farm that also entertained a horse therapy program for troubled youth that the story sky-rocketed. Tara came to life and shared her entire sad story with me and I couldn’t help but oblige and put it down on paper. And Trouble? He’s a mix of several of the horses I knew. Full of spunk, spirit, trust and devotion. It’s a horse story, full of conflict, with antagonists you’ll love seeing get what they deserve.

Q) Tell us about your characters?

A Horse Called Trouble has many characters my readers will be able to identify with, from those who are picked on and put down, to the bullies and followers. And I hope my readers will discover one thing from my story—not to judge people before they really know them.

My main character, Tara Cummings is a bright girl, but due to her situation—her abusive mother abandoning her and throwing her into foster care—Tara is left vulnerable, picked on and put down. She tries to become invisible, staying under the radar of the bullies and teachers, doing only enough to survive.

Accused of a crime she didn’t commit, Tara is placed in alternative school and forced to enter a horse therapy program. There she meets Trouble. Trouble is exactly her opposite. He is defiant and spirited. He refuses to be broken and will not succumb to the cruel treatment used to try and force him into submission. He is strong and willful, yet Tara sees his vulnerable side, knowing the inner conflict only too well.

Trouble is a book about growing and believing in oneself to overcome what the world presumes of you. It’s easy to feel put down and unaccepted by the standards set by society today. But by believing in and staying true to oneself, the future can only offer the stars as the limit.

I love that message and it is so important these days when so many kids who are a little different are being bullied. Bullying has many effects and I'm so happy you have written about the ways that horses can help in therapy. I have seen horses used to help kids who have physical disabilities and it's wonderful that they can help those who are mentally disturbed. Tara sounds like so many kids who have been caught up in a world not of their own making.

Q) What can readers expect from you in the future?

My first tween novel, Ghost Dog of Roanoke Island made its debut in September and is available in both print and e-book versions now. It is a tween ghost story with a twist of Native American folklore and based on the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island.

My next novel, The Secret of the Stones is the first of a series called The Lost Diaries of Northumberland and will make its debut in April of 2012. The Stones is a much lighter story and is a Harry Potter meets Merlin the Magician kind of story. A Merlin-loving tween is thrust into magic mayhem when the gift he’s been entrusted to protect turns out to be the enchanted object detailed in a mysterious prophecy.


Q)  Where can readers find you?

My readers can contact me at ckvolnek@yahoo.com.
They can join me on my web page: www.ckvolnek.com, or visit me at my blog: www.ckvolnek.com/blog.html.
They can also find me on Facebook (C.K. Volnek) or Twitter (CKVolnek), Good Reads and Jacket Flap.
My book trailer is on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyJ1J9wESEY
My books are available at the MuseItUp Book Store as well as Amazon and many other fine book locations on-line.

Thanks for allowing me to join you today! And remember everyone… I’m offering a FREE copy of my e-book to one lucky reader who leaves me a comment!

C.K. Volnek

Thank you, C.K. for launching your book on my blog. The party is going to be going on all day and of course all of you want to win a free book, so come down and comment and grab a few goodies. I've baked my own delicious chocolate chip cookies and we have champagne to toast the launch. Besides we have other goodies and perhaps some forbidden ones too!! Bring your friends and come on down. We'll be open all day and partying until we drop!!!

Until the next time, Happy Holidays to all and my next guest will be Michelle Pickett, who has written a very interesting YA paranormal book called Concilium. Her book is not available yet, but authors are always welcome here at any time!

I wanted to mention that my book, If I Could Be Like Jennifer Taylor, is now in print and available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords as well as almost all other book websites including Books A Million. It is an excellent holiday gift for the teen in your life. I have to say, even girls in their twenties are enjoying it according to my latest conversations with them.

On my Blog Talk Radio Show, RRWL Tales from the Pages, I am having my annual Holiday show on Thursday, December 22nd where I invite all the authors who were on the show to come back and read a holiday story. So far we have quite a few and I am looking forward to it very much. I will be posting the link as soon as I can.

Back to the festivities and please leave a comment while you are sipping your champagne and tasting the goodies. There are some savory dishes too. Browse along the table and see what you like. Above all have fun and comment, comment to win a free copy of A Horse Called Trouble.

It's been awhile since I've posted, but real life has been interrupting my days. I'm thinking about the coming of the holidays and hoping that this year will end with some fun. I haven't been too happy about the actions of the people around me. It seems almost every day I hear about someone who has shot another person and lately it's been mostly around traffic violations. As someone who lives in Connecticut where the drivers seem to have no idea of yielding the right of way, it frightens me to see how many people are having difficulty on the road.

There was that shooting at Virginia Tech over a traffic violation and again in LA the person who got out at the intersection of Sunset and Vine and shot someone. Each of these incidents shows that there is only one problem we have in America. There are too many guns!! For years I have advocated that guns be taken away from people and that we need to regulate the sale of them much more. Yet, here we have three separate incidents in two days that show that this is not the case.Until we take guns out of the hands of private citizens there will continue to be this continuance of violence.

As I mentioned earlier the holidays are coming and the stores are buzzing with shoppers. I like to see people out shopping, since it means more money into the economy. I am drawn to stores at holiday time with their decorations and music and I find it difficult to not buy inconsequential items because they are on sale. As I walked into Target there were three rows of items priced at $1.00. When my kids were younger I would have grabbed a lot of these to fill their stockings. I saw lots of people grabbing these items. There were miniature notebooks with familiar characters like Cars and Disney princesses and puzzles and miniature calendars also with the same characters on the front. It brought me back to those days when I ran out to grab anything to throw into my kids' stockings and to find Hanukah presents.

As my daughters got older they started having envy issues, so I devised a grab bag and put all their toys into it with their names on the wrapped packages. We had a ceremony on Hanukah when we would light the candles in the menorah and afterward each girl got to put her hand into the grab bag for their present. This way if the presents were unequal they couldn't do anything about it. Then on Christmas they would way to find a big present and stockings filled to the brim! I always liked to put a stuffed animal peeking out for them.

We never failed to follow this ceremony even when we were away from home one Christmas with my younger daughter and I sick with the flu we had our Christmas morning. My daughter had a high temperature so we had to give her a tepid bath and it wasn't your usual Christmas morning in a hotel. I collapsed afterward and all of us stayed inside the room for the rest of the day. But still we did celebrate the holiday.

As a Jewish girl growing up in Brooklyn, NY, I can only remember one Christmas when my parents let me celebrate. I woke up and there were toys under my bed. I was so excited I couldn't believe it. I think I believed Santa Claus put them there. But the next year there were none and though I looked every year afterward there were never any more toys under my bed. We did celebrate Hanukah and I got little presents like a dreidel and socks. There was never the wild profusion of gaily wrapped presents or a Christmas tree. For that I had to go to my friend's house where her family gave up their living room to this giant tree covered in tinsel and fake snow and garlands and with those bubbling lights I haven't seen in awhile. It was a fairyland for me. There was the Hanukah party from my father's lodge that we went to every year that was basically eating a few cold latkes and then waiting to see if I won the drawing. When you arrived they gave you a ticket and then called out numbers to give kids presents. There were great presents that I always wished to have and never got and there were the cheap ones that I always got. I didn't realize, but corruption was going on there. The kids of the top officers got all the good presents. Their parent just picked their tickets. So they got the beautiful big dolls and I got the coloring book. My father, an honest man, was a big whig too, but he never cheated.

Enough reminiscing. I have a contest running where I am giving away a free ebook to the winner of the comment drawing. All you need to do is write a comment and you will be in the drawing. My book, If I Could Be Like Jennifer Taylor is about envy and what happens when you get what you wanted. What price do you have to pay? If you are looking for a gift for a girl 10 -14 this is an ideal book. However, older kids like it and several boys and men as well as older women have read and enjoyed it. If you don't win you can find it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and The Muse Bookstore.

The Muse Bookstore is offering a number of holiday specials with several bundles of great books. Check it out. You might find something you want.

So please leave a comment and tell me about your holiday traditions.

Until the next time, thank you for the people who continue to come over here and read my meanderings. In the coming weeks I will be having more guest authors so keep checking.

For December, RRWL Tales from the Pages will be having my holiday show. Guests from the previous year or years will be on the show reading their holiday stories. I always enjoy this show the best!! More later. It will be on Thursday, December 23rd at 3PM Central time.