Eleven-year-old Josey Miller knows two things: it's her fault Mama left, and she will do anything to coax her back. Mrs. Casey, the new music teacher, starts a band at Bennett Springs Middle School, and Josey sees it as her chance to finally belong to something and convince Mama to visit for her concerts. The only problem: there's no money for a clarinet, what with Dad laid off and fighting to keep their farm. But things start looking up when Grandpa Joe gives Josey an old trombone to play, and Mr. McInerny starts boarding his high-dollar Arabian stallion with Dad. Nobody can train horses like Josey's father. And that's good because Chief is dangerous. When her father and the stallion go missing during a 50-mile endurance ride in the Ozark Mountains, can Josey bring them safely home?
Genre: FICTION / Coming of AgeTrombone Girl has recently been retitled (previously titled Bone Girl) and received a new cover. While the book has only 10 reviews, they are all 5 stars. I've also written a script for the book and am querying agents/producers. I intend to promote the book in early spring via email subsciber services.
PROLOGUE
Josey didn’t know what woke her. It was either the thunder of the approaching summer storm, or the sound of her mother yelling at her father. Most days, her parents barely spoke to one another. But now, she heard their angry voices.
Josey was the tallest girl in her fourth-grade class, so she crouched to make herself small before tiptoeing down the stairs. She stepped over the creaky third step from the top and hid in the shadows of the stairwell. Josey heard Mama’s voice.
“You got all the answers, Carl.”
“I know stealing isn’t the answer,” Dad said. “How could you do this, Rebecca?”
“I needed the money.”
“You got to go to the police.”
Josey heard a stranger’s voice – a deep, gravelly growl she’d never heard before.
“We ain’t turning ourselves in, Carl,” he said, his voice thick with contempt.
“Rebecca, what happened?”
Her mother’s voice faltered. “It’s like this. I owed Jimmy Martin some money for –”
“I know what Jimmy Martin sells, Rebecca.”
“Jimmy told us that old man Gillespie was in the hospital. Jimmy said, if me and Kyle broke in and took the guns and brought them to him, he’d call the debt paid. Kyle and me went out there and the house wasn’t locked, but Gillespie was home. He shot at us and Kyle shot back. It was self-defense,” Mama said.
“Did you call an ambulance?” Dad asked.
“They track those calls. I was afraid.”
“So, no. We didn’t stop to call no ambulance or do the supper dishes, neither,” Kyle said.
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German
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Already translated.
Translated by Cécilia Lê
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Isabel M.
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Spanish
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Translation in progress.
Translated by Cristina Oliveros Calvo
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