Meet The Horses In Heart of Hope

With the release of Heart of Hope just 1 month away, I wanted to pop on the blog today and share a little about the horses you’ll see on the page in Heart of Hope. As with the other books in the Hooves & Hearts Series, the horses are very much at the center of the story, and many of them have been inspired for the many, many horses I’ve been so lucky to have spent time around over the years.

First up is Isabel’s Dutch Warmblood mare, Cadence. Cadence is the first horse Isabel had actually owned, despite riding for her father, Rodger Martin, for years. Mares often get a bad reputation in the horse world for being difficult, something that Rodger definitely believes in, but Isabel knows that Cadence is a kindhearted and good-natured mare, so when Cadence starts acting difficult and out of character, Isabel isn’t willing to brush it off.

The second horse Isabel finds herself the owner of is Kaspar, a quirky young warmblood that’s come to River Green Farm for training. Kaspar is a pinto Dutch Warmblood and while pinto coloring isn’t super common in warmbloods, it does exist! I loosely based Kaspar’s appearance off of the beautiful Dutch Warmblood stallion, Art Deco, who stood at stud in Virginia for many years. Kaspar isn’t an easy horse to handle and somehow always seems to find new ways to get into trouble, but Isabel is determined to do the best she can for the young horse- even when things take some tough turns over the course of the story.

The third horse at River Green Farm who finds his way into Isabel’s life in Knight Errant. For readers who have read By Heart & By Soul, your might remember Isabel riding Knight in a clinic at Haven Hills Equestrian Center. In Heart of Hope, Knight is a good bit older and when his owner finds herself in the middle of some significant life changes, she ends up putting Knight up for sale. After having grown up riding Knight and being pretty bonded with him, Isabel makes the choice to step in and purchase Knight herself- something Rodger doesn’t agree with.

Last but not least is Esperanza! If you’ve read the previous books in the series, Esperanza will also be a familiar equine face. This sweet older Paint Horse mare is back to fill her role of helping Meg help her human clients. With Isabel’s riding burn-out, Meg challenges her to try some new things, and Esperanza is there to help Isabel on that part of her journey.

If you haven’t done so already, you can pre-order Heart of Hope in eBook here and in print here. Plus, if you pre-order the eBook from my online bookstore, you can get 15% OFF your pre-order with the code HORSEGIRLENERGY25. Heart of Hope releases November 25th, 2025.

From The Desk- 10/23/2025

Popping in today with your end of the month writing update! This month has been a busy month around other health things, but I’m so excited to be inching closer to Heart of Hope’s release date.

This month I have been busy getting Heart of Hope ready for release! Which has included final proofing, print proofs, and formatting. ARC Team Sign Ups are currently open (you can sign up by clicking here) and ARCs are scheduled to go out on November 1st. I always loved when I start getting print proofs, there’s just something that’s so fun about holding your book in your hands, and I am absolutely in love with the print cover for Heart of Hope.

I have also started dabbling a bit in what will be the next Hooves & Heart’s book. Right now I’m very much in the beginning stages, so I’m largely focusing on plotting, character backstory, and some writing here and there. I’ll have more about the next book in the series for your closer to the end of this year/beginning of next year, but there will be more books in the Hooves & Hearts Series, and I can’t wait to share them with y’all.

On the fantasy front, with the publishing process slowly wrapping up with Heart of Hope, I’ve diving back into the Tales of Kelnore. The next book in the series, The Deceiver, is drafted, and I’m currently beginning to go through the manuscript again with a fine tooth comb, focusing on self-editing and self-revisions. I’m still not spending quite as much time on the manuscript as I am on Heart of Hope, but I’m really enjoying getting back into it. My goal is to have my self-edits & revisions done by the end of this year so I can get the manuscript off to my editorial team and stay on track for a 2026 release.

At the beginning of the month, I had started reading A Sense of Danger by Jennifer Estep (urban fantasy romance). I’ve finished that and it was a super fun read! I’m definitely looking forward to getting my hands on the rest of the series. I’ve currently started reading The Star-Crossed Empire by Maya Darjan (sci-fi romance) and Traitor’s Knot by Cryssa Bazos (historical fiction).

This month’s book deals are almost over, so be sure to take advantage of them while you can!

Calling All ARC Readers!

Popping onto the blog today to let you know that ARC Sign Ups for Heart of Hope are live! You can sign up to be on the ARC Team by using the link below. Not familiar with ARC Teams? An ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) is a free early copy of a book sent to readers ahead of the book’s release. In exchange, ARC readers are asked to leave an honest review of the book on various retailers/reading apps.

Important Notes About ARCS:

  • The ARC Sign Up Form will close on October 28th, 2025
  • ARCs will be sent on October 30th, 2025 and reviews will be due on November 25th, 2025

As always, I appreciate all of my ARC Readers. I so appreciate you helping get the word out about Heart of Hope!

Sign Up For The Heart of Hope ARC Team

Pre-Order Heart of Hope Today!

I’m excited to share that Heart of Hope is now available to pre-order in eBook at all major retailers! You can place your pre-order now from your favorite book retailer using this link. You can also still pre-order Heart of Hope directly from my online bookstore and get 15% OFF your pre-order with the code HORSEGIRLENERGY25.

Pre-Order Now (Major Retailers)
pre-order now (my bookstore)

Print Pre-Orders

I’m also excited to share reveal paperback cover for Heart of Hope and share that pre-orders are also now available exclusively at my online bookstore. While the eBook cover of Heart of Hope features Isabel’s mare, Cadence, the paperback will be featuring the stunning but quirky Kaspar. All print books pre-ordered at my bookstore have the option of coming signed, plus you can save on your pre-order. The print edition of Heart of Hope is currently scheduled to release on December 15th, 2025, and I’m expecting print pre-orders to go live at all major retailers sometime next month.

pre-order paperback (my bookstore)

As always, I so appreciate every pre-order and the continued support for my readers! I am so excited to share this next chapter at Heart & Soul Ranch.

Dreams, Hopes, and Hard Choices

Bringing y’all some behind the scenes a bit on the Hooves & Hearts Series today, specifically about the next upcoming book in the series, Heart of Hope.

Pretty much everything you read in my equestrian fiction comes from my real life experiences over the course of a couple of decades. As I’m writing fiction, nothing is a word for word direct account of a particular experience, but I do pull bits and pieces from the experiences I’ve had and from what I’ve learned over the years. In Heart of Hope, a large part of the inspiration for the story comes from one of the horses I owned and had in my life, a little Haflinger gelding named Aeneas of Deer Haven. Aeneas has since passed, after battling numerous health conditions, but his memories and the many things he taught me over the years have remained.

Aeneas came into my life when he was 10 years old. We’d been looking to grow our herd for our farm, which we’d recently purchased, and my initial hope with Aeneas had been that he would be able to fill the role of being one of my main horses for me continue my own horsemanship and riding education. My heart horse of many years, Mocachee, was heading into his senior years and in the near future, I knew I would need to start easing him into a lighter workload. After taking a few test rides with Aeneas, checking out his groundwork skills, and getting a PPE done, I wrote the check and we brought him to our farm. Aeneas was young and well-bred, and when he came home, I was full of hope for the future.

At first, things had seemed to be going well enough. I’d noticed some inconsistencies in his behavior, but there hadn’t been anything significant that had made me feel like those inconsistencies couldn’t be worked through with training, management, and time. A few months into owning Aeneas, however, I came out to the barn to find his eye weeping and swollen shut. I called my vets and when one of them came to do an exam, she found something very concerning. Aeneas was missing part of his third eyelid, which showed evidence of being surgically removed. And there had been no evidence of any surgery in any of his vet records.

The discovery of the third eyelid removal prompted some digging, and eventually, I was able to get my hands on Aeneas’ missing medical records that the seller had skillfully hidden. Aeneas had a slew of issues in his medical history, including Insulin Resistance and squamous cell carcinoma. The scaring on his face, it turned out, was actually from an improperly applied chemotherapy drug (the veterinary team who did his surgery years later would express to me that they were amazed he would let anyone touch his face at all). At first, I’d been determined that with the right management, good vet care, and the right training, we could get him stable enough for me to still be able to achieve my dreams and goals with him. So I got to work.

I threw myself into making plans, except those plans never really worked out like I’d hoped. For roughly a year, I tried, and tried, and tried to get Aeneas stable, but it was one issue and roadblock after another. Aeneas was chronically inconsistent in training (something that, over time, I began to notice was pretty closely tied to his chronic pain), and we were constantly battling lameness issues, skin issues & skin infections, and reoccurring issues with his eyes. It was two steps forward and ten steps back, and seemingly no end to that cycle.

As I neared the one year mark of owning Aeneas, I had to sit down and make myself look at the reality of what was truly going on. Aeneas was constantly struggling, and there were some real, difficult to manage, physiological reasons for it. Constant training and ridden work only seemed to be making things worse, not better. How fair was it to push him into the role of being one of my main horses? At the end of the day, I determined that I wasn’t okay with having my wants and dreams trumping my horse’s well-being.

And so, I made the really hard, really not fun choice of stepping back from those dreams with Aeneas. Instead of being one of my main horses, Aeneas became my husband’s horse (which my husband, who had fallen in love with Aeneas right off the bat, was 100% on board with). When Aeneas was well enough and sound enough, he and my husband enjoyed light pleasure riding, hand walks through the woods, groundwork and liberty work, and, at times, Aeneas would do the occasional light lesson or participate in a low stress “teaching assistant job” during one of the many clinics and classes we held at our farm. When he was struggling, focusing on getting his pain managed and his body stable was a much better route than pushing him to perform no matter what. In some ways, the blow of that hard decision was softened by having another horse on the farm, Mercutio (whose story I’ll share at another time), who unexpectedly stepped into the role Aeneas had stepped out of, but that letting go still wasn’t easy.

A few years into owning him, Aeneas had an eye removal surgery at the North Carolina State University Equine Clinic. As we’d known going into it, in Aeneas’ particular case, the surgery wasn’t going to be a magical fix for all of his issues, but it did buy him a few more years where his pain could be better managed. Eventually, Aeneas did retire from riding and lesson/clinic life, as his pain and soundness were growing harder and harder to manage, and there did one day come a point where we had to say goodbye and free him from his pain.

I’m currently in the middle of wrapping up the last of my self-edits/revisions on Heart of Hope before I send it off for its first professional edit next month, and the female lead of the story, Isabel, goes through a similar struggle with a talented and well-bred young horse. And ultimately, just like I did, she has to take a step back and be willing to set aside her dreams in order to do what her horse needs. I hope that journey will be one that resonates with readers and fellow horse lovers. My time with Aeneas wasn’t always easy, and there were some days it was extremely hard, but I’m still grateful to have had Aeneas in my life, and to have been in a position where I could give him what he needed, even if it wasn’t what I’d first dreamed of.

Heart of Hope is scheduled to release this fall on November 25th. You can pre-order the eBook now exclusively at my online bookstore (pre-orders will be coming to retailers later this summer). If you haven’t started the Hooves & Hearts series, you can get yourself a copy of the prequel novella, By Heart & By Soul, by clicking here.

Photos by Serenity Oasis Farm, Tom Crockett Photography, and Rachel Sheets Photography