False Gods: The Show Jumper's Challenge

Teens

synopsis

Synopsis

Cory Iverson's junior year is off to a lousy start. Publicly humiliated by the school's hottest guy and terrorized by a bullying band director, Cory flees sports try-outs and just about everything else she begins, earning a reputation as a loser as well as a quitter. But when her wandering dog leads her to the barn of a former Grand Prix rider, she finds a welcome refuge in the familiar world of horses. It's not too long before she starts dreaming of showing in one of the country's most prestigious shows--a totally unrealistic hope--until she rescues a mysterious horse with some unusual talents. But her road to success is littered with roadblocks as events spin out of control: prescription painkillers appear in her mother's purse; her ballerina sister wastes away before her eyes; her boyfriend is keeping secrets; and her normally opinionated trainer becomes strangely evasive. Worst of all, the horse show world is not what she imagined. It isn't long before Cory's winning spree attracts the attention of a brutal trainer with a string of unexplained horse deaths in her wake. When Cory lands in the crosshairs, she has to decide if she'll once again back down and flee or stand up for herself, her horse, and her dreams.

bio

Author Biography

Inspired by everyday miracles, L.R. Trovillion weaves magical stories of hurting people who find hope through horses in her Maryland Equestrian Novel series. Although she earned a degree in Russian and spent a career in government service, her real love has been caring for and working with horses. That love shines through in her series, focusing on the healing power of horses in the lives of teens facing complex and sometimes dangerous family situations. Believing there is more to this world than meets the eye, she adds a dash of the supernatural to each story. L. R. Trovillion lives on a small horse farm in Maryland with her husband, daughter, and several animals that really run the place. Her other works have appeared in Baltimore magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and various poetry anthologies.

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Author Insight

Themes of Staying True to Self

On the surface, False Gods is a rollicking good horse story about a lost teen who rescues a horse and together with a washed-up trainer shoots for the prestigious Washington International Horse Show. Who doesn't love a story where the underdogs triumph? Beyond that, however, it a story about finding out who you really are in the face of everyone else telling you who you should be...or want to be. It's about a young woman who vanquishes the "false gods" that try to lure her away from her true direction and calling in life. Like all of my stories, this one has a touch of the supernatural amidst the edgy, realistic setting and characters. This bit of magic shows up usually through a relationship with a horse, which are always used as a catalyst for hope and healing.

Book Excerpt

False Gods: The Show Jumper's Challenge

And not just desire for some one but also desire for some thing. I’m watching as a girl I know is killing herself, literally, over a desire for something. She wants to be the best dancer so bad, everything else in her life is shrinking away, including her body. Just to make the goal of getting into a big-time dance company someday. Her desire is not making her happy. Just the opposite. It seems to make her miserable. The more successful she is at dancing, the more driven and obsessed she gets, and the more she thinks she’s fat and ugly.

I wanted to qualify to ride in the Washington International Horse Show, but I’m also afraid of not making it. Sometimes I’m so afraid that I think I’m only in love with the idea of being a good rider, but don’t have what it takes to get there. I don’t want to want something so bad and not get it. It would be easier to just not try.

Cory didn’t go back and read over what had flown out from her fingertips. She pushed the key to send the email, snapped off the light, and climbed into bed, pulling the heavy comforter up to her ears. All the anger, frustration, outrage, and fear had spilled out of her like water shooting from a hose, at first with a force under great pressure, then to a steady stream until the last drop dripped out over the metal rim.

The next morning an email message sat in her inbox, flashing, waiting impatiently. Ms. Jankowski had responded.

You quit out of fear. You change course out of self-knowledge and wisdom.