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

Being the Outsider

No matter how much the world is shrinking, we humans still have to capacity to feel alone or to make someone else feel different and alienated. In this scene, Cory has only moved from Massachusetts to Maryland, but the difference in culture, weather, clothing...such simple things...already is making her feel different and like an outsider. As a teen, we often are not equipped to embrace change or value a new experience and instead withdraw. Have you ever felt strange, alone, and shunned from the group? How did you cope with a new school, a move, a job change, living in a new country even? I'd love to hear your stories!

Book Excerpt

False Gods: The Show Jumper's Challenge

CORY SLUMPED ON the shaded bench at the school’s front entrance, hoping to avoid the rest of the girls leaving for the cross-country team tryouts. Leaning back deeper into the shadows, she watched the stream of girls jog down the hill, turn onto the road, and disappear. She’d intended to run with them, to try to make the team, but . . .

Why was it still so hot in September? Not at all like back home in Massachusetts. Home. It had only been three weeks since school had started, eight since her family had moved to Maryland. Except Dad. He had left her mom, Roni, and Cory knew her mom would sooner wear white shoes after Labor Day than be known as “the abandoned wife” among her friends back home in Wellesley.

Things would be different if she were still going to school in Wellesley. Cory recalled it was the start of the school season in Massachusetts when women removed their hot pink toenail polish, packed away the Nantucket wicker pocketbooks, and pulled out chests of mothball-infused woolen sweaters. In other words, in the fall. Here in Maryland school started in August.

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L R Trovillion

False Gods: The Show Jumper's Challenge

Synopsis

Author Biography

Author Insight

Being the Outsider

Book Excerpt

False Gods: The Show Jumper's Challenge

Comment on this Bubble