I met McKenna when I was a guest on her blog. She's smart and sassy, and her blog was wonderful. I'm happy to have her as a guest today spotlighting her newest release, Ghost Of A Chance
Hi Leslie, Thank you for hosting me today.
I’ve always been a horse-crazy girl. I grew up reading every horse story I could get my hands on, and when my parents vetoed buying a horse, I caged rides wherever I could. I was the one they’d put on the nutty Thoroughbred to see if he was safe enough for students to ride. I was the one who mucked stalls and did scut work just so I could ride. I bought my first horse off a slaughter truck, and hid his existence from my parents for years. When I was injured in a car accident, I was told to give up riding—but I didn’t. That first horse? I had him for 35 years. And I am still riding horses today.
So when it came to writing Ghost of a Chance, I was struck by the idea: what would make someone who lived for riding walk away from it? What would it take for them to come back? Hence Sarah Atwell was born. I drew a lot from personal experience to create this character, with a couple of major differences. She’s a fangirl with a HUGE secret, and she’s spent most of her adult life denying her true self in order to be ‘normal.’ I think there are a lot of us that can identify with that, don’t you?
Excerpt:
For some reason, he glanced back at Sarah where she waited by the door. The backlight of falling snow through the glass in the shadowed hallway created the suggestion of a black-and-white photograph. The only spot of color was the bright red scarf at the collar of her coat and the wine-dark lipstick she wore. She leaned against the wall with her eyes closed. Something inside him clicked, as though recognizing a scene from a movie. His heart stopped a beat, flipped over, and thudded again with increased intensity.
No. It couldn’t be. Not her.
He hurried away, head still reeling at his reaction.
When he returned with an armload of clothing, she was nowhere to be seen. Her laptop sat by her shoes, one pretty little pump turned over on its side. As expected, he discovered her in the living room, staring at the pictures on the wall. “There you are.”
She jumped at the sound of his voice.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He adjusted the heap of clothing piled over one arm and held out a pair of snow boots.
“She had so many photographs of me.” Sarah took the boots almost automatically, and indicated the walls covered with pictures, ones Casey had seen many times.
That had to be it. Why she felt so familiar. Why she seemed to be the one. Relief washed over him. Obviously he’d spent too much time alone if he thought Sarah Atwell was his destined mate.
Sarah spoke quietly, as though she felt a sense of reverence as well. “So different from my own place. My walls are largely bare.” She turned in a slow circle, taking in everything in the room.
“Why is that?”
Her shrug seemed self-deprecating. “Less to dust, according to Simon. I got rid of most of my furniture when I moved in with him. It made sense at the time. His place was small and there wasn’t room for all my clutter.”
“I’m not much of a house-keeper myself.” There was no way he’d ever let someone as classy as Sarah into his ramshackle single-wide trailer. “But if something makes you happy, I think you should keep it.”
She smiled, though not at him. At his words perhaps. “This room is a shrine to a life well-lived. A love letter to the beauty Gran found in the little things around her.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
On the wall facing the door was a large dramatic shot of a bay horse jumping down from an impossibly huge obstacle into a body of water. Where her forelegs struck the surface, the spray shot up into the air, beading in the sunlight like tiny prisms. It was Casey’s favorite photograph of Athena, one of the best horses June had ever bred. Taken at one of Sarah’s last competitions as a teenager, Sarah was rocked back in the saddle, the reins looking dangerously long to the untrained eye. Of course, she had let them slip to allow Athena to drop down into the water. Seeing Sarah standing in front of the photograph now sent a weird jolt of recognition combined with dissonance through him. It was hard to believe she was the girl riding that mare. The look on her teenaged face in the photo had always captivated him. It was one of sheer joy, the thrill of the ride itself.
That girl had not only found life worth living, but had taken it by the reins as its master. The woman standing beside him looked closed off from joy, shielded.
What had happened to her?
Blurb:
At sixteen, Sarah Atwell walked away from her love of horses and a promising career as a competitive rider after discovering she’d inherited the family curse. Years later, her grandmother stunned everyone by leaving Sarah her horse farm—worth millions—but with conditions Sarah might not be able to meet.
A former Redclaw agent, Casey Barnes retired when a security assignment went bad, killing his partner and leaving him as a partial amputee. His inner wolf is in hiding. He’s been living quietly as a horse trainer, but June Atwell’s death now pits him against her granddaughter for rights to the stable.
With both of them snowed in at the farm, a series of increasingly serious accidents draws Sarah and Casey closer together, but they each harbor secrets that might tear them apart.
A former Redclaw agent, Casey Barnes retired when a security assignment went bad, killing his partner and leaving him as a partial amputee. His inner wolf is in hiding. He’s been living quietly as a horse trainer, but June Atwell’s death now pits him against her granddaughter for rights to the stable.
With both of them snowed in at the farm, a series of increasingly serious accidents draws Sarah and Casey closer together, but they each harbor secrets that might tear them apart.
McKenna Dean has been an actress, a vet tech, a singer, a teacher, a biologist, and a dog trainer. She’s worked in a genetics lab, at the stockyard, behind the scenes as a props manager, and at a pizza parlor slinging dough. Finally she realized all these jobs were just a preparation for what she really wanted to be: a writer.
She lives on a small farm in North Carolina with her family, as well as the assorted dogs, cats, and various livestock.
She likes putting her characters in hot water to see how strong they are. Like tea bags, only sexier.
Find McKenna:
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