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.

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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.

Author Interview

Can you tell us a little bit about what readers can expect from your books?
To find a great story that will make them laugh and cry and entertain while diving into a three generation family who has problems that they find solutions for… together–the way life should be and many times isn’t in the “real world.”

What is the greatest advice you have ever been given about writing?
Write a story you’d love to read.

What book made you fall in love with reading?
I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as well as Madeleine L’Engle’s and Katherine Paterson’s–and a host of other authors’ books. As a child, I would read all sorts of books that transported me to all kinds of times and places. I read stories that made me laugh and cry and the best was when that happened in the same book. Bonus: I got to experience places and times I’ll never get to in “real life” and yet have good memories of being there.

Can you share 5 random facts about this book?
1) What would it look like if all of the adults in a “child of divorce’s” world, actually put the child’s needs first? 2) Can families forgive and heal when there have been betrayals and misunderstandings? 3) What could it look like if our loved ones who have passed on, could actually influence the lives of the people they loved while still alive? These are questions that were answered as we wrote: ALL TOGETHER WEST. 4) We wrote ⅓ of this book to be part of BOOK 5: CHASE YOUR DREAMS WEST, but those parts worked better in this book. 5) We had to come up with a couple new arcs to “fill out” this book, and the Treasure Hunt arc ended up being the favorite of our beta readers–and brought a new, unexpected depth to the story. We love it when our characters tell their story better than we imagined.

What was the inspiration behind it?
In ALL TOGETHER WEST, we needed to finish some arcs that were started in earlier books, like: What would it look like if Ginnie got to know her deceased mother’s family? When her mother died, grief made Ginnie’s dad and her grandfather (on her mother’s side) say and do things they both regretted–causing a lot of hurt and anger. ALL TOGETHER WEST is a story of what can happen when cooler heads–and kinder hearts–prevail.

Can you share something interesting or surprising you learned while researching for the book?
That some horses really like being in the water and will cooperate with becoming a four-legged diving board. G.L. is a horse whisperer, among many other things, and told me about a horse he had who loved being chest high in a pond. Chapter 34 was the result. It’s a fun, new way the kids got to interact with one of the horses.

What was the most challenging part of bringing this book to life? 
Getting “real life” to take care of itself so I could finish writing ALL TOGETHER WEST. 🙂

What was the most rewarding?
Allowing the story to take some twists and turns I hadn't expected it to. I always start with a general idea of what will happen, but I allow my characters the space to determine how that happens and they often surprise me in fun and meaningful ways. .

What do you hope readers will take away from the book?
To enjoy the journey of their life. Hard things happen to everybody, but getting mired in sadness and anger isn’t helpful. Sometimes we need to wallow a little, but eventually life just needs to be lived. Take care to pick good friends and only give people power to your happiness that actually want the best for you. You don’t need everybody to like you, but if you have even one or 2 good people to travel through life with… life can be a pretty incredible journey.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. Before you go, where can readers keep up with what’s next?
My website is: https://authormoniquebucheger.com/

It's still a work in progress, but will have news on my latest releases and the goings on of the West family.

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.