Musa Publishing Memorial Day Blog Hop and Contest

Welcome to the Musa Publishing Memorial Day Blog Hop!

Although this is not a holiday we celebrate in Canada, it is recognized in the United States this year on Monday, May 28, 2012. I would like to thank all the military forces in Canada, the USA, and all other countries for their participation in peace keeping duties in other parts of the world where civil unrest exists.

I never met my mother's father. My grandfather passed away before I was born. He was a doctor and he served in the British Army in World War One. He rode a horse onto the battlefield to assist wounded soldiers and he lost a leg in the war. He didn't pass on his riding skills to my mother who was always scared of horses and didn't want to get too close to them.

However I have loved horses ever since I was a little girl and have owned horses for most of my life - the advantage of growing up in Cloverdale when it was still a rural community and our neighbor across the road on 182 Street owned 10 acres where I kept my first horse Duchess.

I watched the racetrack get started in Cloverdale for Standardbred racehorses. The track was first called the Cloverdale Raceway and is now known as Fraser Downs Racetrack and Casino. I was very interested in Standardbreds as a riding horse, not as a racehorse, and in 1982 I purchased my first Standardbred - a wonderful gelding named Mark. He was the best horse I ever owned. Quiet, loving, well behaved, and always willing to hit the trails.

Here's a picture I took of Mark just after I bought him. He was lying down in the field so I brought his grain out to him so he could have breakfast in bed.

In fact I liked this picture so much I commissioned a charcoal drawing of it.

And here is Mark a few years later getting ready to go for a ride.

A few years after Mark passed away another Standardbred came into my life rather by accident. I was at an auction house in Langley and couldn't bear to let this poor Standardbred end up in the hands of a meat buyer so I shelled out $50 and took Lucky home with me. That was nearly 10 years ago and my big boy is still doing great. Another wonderful trail horse Lucky is the first horse I've ever owned who actually looks out for his rider and makes sure to give trees a wide berth so his rider never bangs a leg on to them.

Here's Lucky a few months after I bought him.

And here I am with Lucky at a Standardbred horse show in 2008.

I always liked reading books with horses in them. Romances, mysteries, comedies, ranchers, cowboys, horse racing books - I read as many as I could get hold of. I never was able to find a romance that had Standardbred horses so I decided I should write one.

My romantic mystery novel Ringer was recently published with Musa Publishing as an electronic book. My ebook is available in formats for all ereaders, including iPads, or as a PDF document to read on a computer.

A horse who is a dead ringer for a missing racehorse. A missing cousin whose body was never found. An attempted murder. Is anything what it seems? Holly Thompson is drawn into the middle of ths puzzle when she rescues sexy horse trainer Matt Winter and flees with him and the look-a-like horse.

Holly and Matt follow the clues from British Columbia to Matt's home in Oregon to a horserace in California, trying to find who is behind the horse-swapping scheme. Matt didn't count on losing his heart to a feisty woman who can saddle her own horse and hotwire a truck. And Holly has done the unthinkable: fallen in love with a horseman, something she vowed she'd never do. Is Matt a wealthy racehorse owner or just another backstretch con artist, cheating on horses and women? And will he ride to her rescue when they unravel the mystery of the ringer?

If you'd like to read the first chapter of Ringer, please click here to go to D. Renee Bagby's blog for a sneak peek. There is a warning that you will be entering an adult content site because it contains first chapters and cover photos of romance novels that range from sweet to wild and hot. The first chapter of Ringer does not contain any adult content.

I am holding a contest over the Memorial Day long weekend for a lucky reader to win a copy of my ebook Ringer. You can enter my contest two ways:

1. Leave a comment on my Memorial Day Blog Hop. If you are the winner I'll need a way to contact you so if your Blogger profile doesn't include a link to your email or if you are posting anonymously, please leave your name and contact email in the comments section.

2. You can friend me on Facebook. On the right hand side of this page, scroll up a little until you see a photo of Lucky near the bottom of my archived articles. There is my Facebook badge. Click on that or click here. I will have to accept your friend request and then you can leave a message on my wall asking to be entered into the ebook contest.

Deadline for contest entries is midnight Monday May 28, 2012. I will be drawing a winner on Tuesday May 29, 2012. Good luck!

If you'd like to purchase a copy of Ringer, it is available through Musa Publishing and other online booksellers including iTunes and Amazon.

Ringer is also available to check out at your local library in the United States and Canada. If your library doesn't have a copy yet, ask your librarian to order one through their Overdrive system so they can add Ringer to their ebook collection.

Other Musa Publishing authors are holding contests this weekend for free copies of their ebooks. Continue on the blog hop by clicking the link below and choosing another blog to visit.

Thank you for stopping by!

http://musapublishingbloghops.blogspot.ca/2012/05/welcome-to-musa-memorial-day-hop.html