About the Book

Book: All Together West: A Ginnie West Adventure

Authors: Monique Bucheger & G.L. Rasmussen

Genre: Upper Middle Grade

Release date: December 5, 2024

Families are complicated… and no one knows that better than 12 year-old Ginnie West. With her dad engaged to her best friend’s mom, this summer should be a dream come true. However, the return of Tillie’s birth father muddles the girls’ celebration.

On the plus side, Ginnie’s dream of training on her beloved horse, Calliope, is finally happening. However, she soon discovers that her riding experience is not enough when Tillie, her best friend, and Toran, her twin brother, and their new horses outshine Calliope in performance.

To complicate matters further, Ginnie finds herself in the midst of an escalating prank war with her mischievous Uncle Jake, drawing the entire family into the chaos. The West/Stratton/Taylor families must come together and heal, allowing her great-uncle’s cherished motto, “When you’re here, you’re family,” to hold true once more.

Click here to get your copy!

About the Authors

Monique is a bestselling author, a certified Farland Fiction Coach, and an empowerment speaker, dedicated to championing the underdog, in both her writing and real-life adventures.

Having a heart for families in crisis, Monique creates stories that capture the essence of real-life challenges and triumphs, with a touch of humor.

Monique’s upper middle-grade series, ‘The Ginnie West Adventures,’ delves into sensitive and weighty themes such as parental loss, abandonment, and overcoming abuse. She delivers stories not only for tween readers, but for those young at heart.

Drawing from her experiences nurturing a dozen of her own children and fostering over a hundred more, Monique’s experiences shape her books, creating novels in a number of genres, including a historical family saga, contemporary family dramas, a fun picture book, and a middle grade series weaving whimsy and heart into her tales.

A country boy by birth and by choice, Gary spent his youth working on the family farm, for local farmers and ranchers, on horseback or playing sports. Offered scholarships in Agriculture and Advertising Design, he opted for the bright lights and big city. Eight years in the advertising field convinced him that wasn’t where he wanted to be.

Gary freelanced in design and illustration, converted his love of writing for advertising to a newspaper column about the country lifestyle. He has also worked as a ranch manager, cowboy, rancher, and horse trainer. An avid painter and author, Gary shares his talents through mentoring others, is a past president of the Western Art Guild and Idaho Writers League and is an active member of Western Writers of America.

Gary and his wife, Margie are the parents of four children and ten grandchildren and have traveled extensively throughout Europe, Great Britain and the United States.

More from Monique

All Together West: A Ginnie West Adventure is an accumulation of many arcs, including getting to know some family members that Ginnie didn’t even know existed not very long ago. These blasts from the past make Ginnie and Tillie’s present very interesting.

When Monique and G.L. wrote Book 5: Chase Your Dreams West: A Ginnie West Adventure, it turned into a very long book and was split almost in half–with some storylines going into Book 5 and others into Book 6. A new plotline was added to weave a more interesting tale that readers have really liked. In fact, while Ginnie and Tillie have puzzled along trying to solve some riddles, readers made some interesting guesses that have given the authors ideas to add to future novels.

So put on your thinking caps and jump right in with your best guesses as the girls go on a treasure hunt. Who knows what they might find as they search for clues from the present to fill in gaps from the past? Their hunt might lead to an amazing adventure in the future.

Author Interview

What is your favorite genre of books? Why? Humor. It helps me deal with the craziness.”
Are you a one project at a time author or do you have multiple projects going at once? At any given time I may come up with ideas for any of my four series: one published, one is on Kindlevella, one has the first book written, one I haven’t started writing yet, as well as other projects.

I am also in two anthologies coming out this year. G.L, and I are collaborating on three series–and he has some standalone books as well as picture books he writes and illustrates.

How has your life experience helped in your writing journey? When I was 12, two of my friends were being abused. I knew, but didn’t know how to help them. I have a lot of guilt about that and I became a foster mom to over 100 kids. Now I write books that deal with all facets of abuse: victims, abusers, and people who want to help kids overcome hard things.

So I write about a family who often makes the hard right choices to help empower others to do the same. The Wests are a close-knit family, but welcome others into it.

What is the funniest thing to happen in the process of writing one of your books? The funnest thing is the cobwebs on the vaults of my memory get blown away and long forgotten events come back to life.
How do you relax after a long day of writing? I can’t sit still for very long so I move on to other projects.
Where do you find your greatest inspiration? Sometimes nature but usually life in general. Haven’t watched TV in 20 years so I draw inspiration from my daily encounters.
Who is your favorite author? Patrick F. McManus. Why? He encouraged me to keep writing and proved that humor sells.
Do you have extensive outlines when writing or do you write a book as you go? Sometimes a book or short story gets laid out in my head then I flesh it out, but most of the time I have the first chapter written in my head then it’s all seat-off-the-pants from there.
Do you remember the first book you read? What sort of impact did it make on you? Jules Vern’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. The written word’s ability to transport me anywhere.
What do you need in your writing space to help you stay focused? Quiet