November is fast around the corner! It felt to me like the world held it’s breath in 2020, waiting for it to pass, as if 2021 would be our ‘get out of jail free’ card in regard to Coronavirus. Definitely not the case! And yet, we seem to have settled into a ‘new normal’ and it feels that 2021 is flying by! So here I am once again preparing for another National Novel Writing Month – and quite excited by the idea!

2021 has been a ‘slow’ year for me, when it comes to publishing books. Last year I had an incredibly successful writing year, publishing 10 books in 12 months. I made the decision to ‘do less in 2021‘ and have achieved this from a writing perspective.

I’ve still had plenty of other projects on the go! But from a publishing angle, I have released three books in 2021:

1. Christian Horse Romance Box Set 1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08X3MC48D
2. Discernment (Free Rein #13) https://www.amazon.com/Discernment-Free-Rein-Book-13-ebook/dp/B094H84BHC/
3. Belonging (Free Rein #14) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094H8649W

It is my plan to focus on three books in the upcoming NaNoWriMo – the Chemistry of Horses, Free Rein #15 and a non-fiction book Solomon 12, along a similar vein to Wealthy Christians. I hope to finish the next Free Rein book and publish this in time for Christmas.

You can be kept up to date on daily word counts via my Instagram account @ChristineMeunierAuthor. The goal is 50,000 words for the month! Stay tuned for progress updates 🙂

Last week we had an earthquake in Victoria that measured 5.6 on the Richter scale. It was something else to focus on amidst the consistent theme of COVID-19. I am thankful we had no damage to our home and no one we know appears to have gotten hurt. The kids were surprised but don’t appear to have been negatively impacted by the event; another thing to be thankful for.

It’s really easy when you’re stuck in a situation that you may feel you have very little say over, to focus on what you can’t do or shouldn’t do.

Although things aren’t as we’d expected for 2021, there are many things I am thankful for: healthy children, the ability to do a job I love from home, the chance to use applications to regularly exercise from home, a husband who invests so much time in our children. What are you thankful for?

Now in some horse books and writing news, I’d love to share with you a recent review that I wrote on Equus Education for Tara Coyote’s book Grace, Grit and Gratitude. Head along to my horse careers blog to check it out.

I’m currently (re)reading The Silver Brumby by Elyne Mitchell and reading Runaway Alex by Natalie Keller Reinert. I’ll review this one on Equus Education once it’s finished.

In author goal news, I hit a target for number of page reads on Kindle Unlimited this month. I was rapt! 743 pages of my books read in one day 😀 That was last week. This week, another day hit 1290 page reads! Very exciting.

In social media news, I’ve started doing something with my Instagram account. If you’re a visual person who loves stories told with photos and uses IG, I encourage you to head along to https://www.instagram.com/christinemeunierauthor. My posts will generally be focused on horses, horses books, travel, education, music and my faith – see you there!

I’ve finally taken the plunge and started utilising the Instagram account that I made a long, long time ago! So if you’re on Instagram, why not find me and follow? @christinemeunierauthor is where you’ll find me. I’m working on visually being able to create a story and focus on horse books over there!

And if you’re a Facebook user, then I encourage you to head along and check out Christine Meunier at Facebook! There you’ll also find posts relating to horses, horse books and my latest releases and news. Each of my social media accounts you can find at the footer of this site – Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest included.

Recently I posted on both Instagram and Facebook about people’s all time favourite horse book. What is yours?

So far the discussion is flowing on Facebook and I’ve discovered a couple of new (to me, but older books) horse titles and horse book authors that I need to check out! My all time favourite horse book that I can read over and again is The Silver Brumby by Elyne Mitchell.

I think as a young horse fan, reading this book from the horse’s point of view was quite refreshing! The fact that this story focused on a beautiful creamy/palomino horse (my favourite colour at the time) and was set in Australia was just icing on the cake. Even now as an adult, I can re-read this novel although I know many parts by heart.

So the question for you again – what is your favourite horse book? Feel free to comment below or head along to either Instagram or Facebook via the links above. You’re welcome to continue the conversation!

Now they might sound like some interesting words to have as a post title, but they’re the names of the next two Free Rein books! Discernment (Free Rein #13) is live on Amazon and Belonging (Free Rein #14) is available on pre-order. It is to be released on June 4, 2021.

So if you’re a fan of the Free Rein series, I encourage you to head along to Amazon to secure your copies! Or, if you know of middle grade horse crazy fans, then why not check out this series that currently has fourteen books they can get stuck into?

— Blurb for Discernment:
The New Year is fast approaching. Jared is learning that he doesn’t need to wait until a New Year to set resolutions. Instead, each day he can make choices to improve and help others. He plans to continue learning about horses and the bible as much as he can.

Between Jed and Jacqui, the teenage boy is also learning how to pay attention to his feelings about other people. Some negative feelings about Jed leave Jared questioning how he can determine if his feelings are worth paying attention to. With the help of his horsey friends, Jared goes on another learning curve. This leads to a study on the word discernment. Jared finds the Christian faith is once again teaching him some important lessons about life and friendships.

Blurb for Belonging:
Jared is pleased to find himself welcomed into the ‘horse riding family’ by Jacqui King, even if he doesn’t like the way it came about. This event causes him to question when the grey gelding Chairo will settle into the herd. Although Chairo is now paddocked with the other horses, he doesn’t seem to have bonded with any of them. Jared is keen for his favourite horse to truly settle in at the Kings’ property.

As Jared continues to learn about horses, his youth leader Jed Hansen teaches him about becoming a part of the Christian family. The thirteen-year-old goes on a journey, thankful to find that he and Chairo seem to have found a place to belong.

— I’m in the middle of a couple of different horse books since my latest Free Rein update. I’m currently reading Beautiful Horseflesh by Karen S. Bennett and Moving North by Tudor Robins. Reviews will be posted at my blog Equus Education once I’ve finished them and had a chance to review.