Why I Wrote GALLOP
They look so happy in this photo. Seeing pictures like this, especially their wedding photo, still makes it feel impossible that they divorced when I was fifteen.
Fifteen is a rotten age for anything, but especially for watching your family split in two. My whole childhood was made of memories of them together, and suddenly those memories only made me sad. The confusion. The trust issues. The anger I didn’t know where to put. It changed everything.
I found myself revisiting those emotions while writing Book 3 of the Hope and Horses series. In GALLOP, Eli faces his parents’ divorce and a sudden relocation. His mom decides a fresh start in a rural town is the best path forward.
The story itself is not mine. The characters are not my family. But the emotions are very real.
If even one teen reads Eli’s journey and feels less alone, if they begin to believe that life can steady itself again, then the story has done what I hoped it would.
GALLOP, published by Editor-911 books, releases May 6, and this one is especially close to my heart.
Kidsillio 