11 Fun Facts You Didn’t Know About Horses Adored and Men Endured

If you are a long-time friend of Saddle Seeks Horse, you probably know I wrote a memoir about the trials and tribulations of being a horse girl looking for love. When I was about 10 I thought it would be perfect to marry a horse. At 30 I thought, “I just might have to marry my horse,” and the seed of a funny book took root.

You see, I was not a good dater. I was a magnet for heartbreak and catastrophe. Some of what I encountered was just too bizarre to not write about, and so the noble horses I met over the years were perfect to balance out all the drama. Here are eleven previously undisclosed facts about my horse lover’s dating memoir Horses Adored and Men Endured: a Memoir of Falling and Getting Back Up.

1. It took me over ten years to write my memoir, Horses Adored and it all started during a memoir writing class at a local indie book store! Vroman’s for the win–woot, woot!

2. The title I initially wanted to use for my equestrian memoir was Gaits and Dates. My friend Patrick the theologian came up with it. I actually purchased the domain name gaitsanddates.com and held on to that for maybe a year or two. But in the end I’m glad I chose Horses Adored and Men Endured because I think it is pretty clear what the topic is. 🙂

3. I had a literary agent for about a year. She loved the book but in the end it was too niche for her to sell. So I plunged into world of being an indie author and I haven’t looked back.

4. Cowboy romance author Carly Kade was instrumental in helping me navigate publishing a book. She’s really smart and generous. (Thanks, Carly!) I was recently a guest on Carly’s Equestrian Author Spotlight Podcast and it was so much fun. After we recorded the video we talked and talked and talked some more offline. If you want to write horse books or just love reading them, you need to give her show a listen.

5. In Chapter 13 “Spring Launch” when I broke my nose, I was elated I would be required to get a nose job and insurance would cover it! Yes, when I fell off my horse and landed face-first, my nose broke and when I came up, it was kind of off-center.

6. Thanks to my fall in “Spring Launch,” I always had a little fear about the right lead canter on DC. It was in the back of my mind for the majority of the rides I continued to have with him. I can canter any horse today without a fear of the right lead canter.

7. There is a copy of Horses Adored at the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, Virginia. I donated a copy when I went foxhunting in Virginia last October. (If you’d like to see a copy at your local library, let me know and I’ll reach out.)

8. I tried to set up Tony from the chapter “As American as Apple Pie” with a friend of a friend a few years ago. It was not as awkward as it sounds–well, maybe a little awkward, but let me explain.

I met a friend of a friend who was single and having a hard time meeting anyone. She told me it was unacceptable in her culture to be single and her mom and aunts were all on her case. This friend of a friend and Tony had the same cultural background!!!

I asked my friend if it would be weird for me to try to make a love connection on behalf of her friend (since I didn’t really know her friend at all). My friend said, “Do it!”

I emailed Tony to say, “Hey, I don’t know if you remember me from that eHarmony date years ago, and I don’t know what your status is, but you came to mind when I met this lovely woman. . .”

Tony was extremely gracious and as it turned out, had just gotten married and was no longer living in that palatial mansion (think Crazy Rich Asians) where I had to go to drop off the binoculars in Chapter 31. 🙂

9. I made a mistake on the back cover of the book! I deleted several chapters from the final draft of Horses Adored. I felt like getting rid of some of the stories made the overall story line flow better. So one of the stories I cut out, but mention on the back cover copy is how I won an Appaloosa weanling from a 4-H essay contest! I’ll save that story for another time.

10. My genius friend/cover designer Amy Summer Ellison of Hunt Seat Paper Co. came up with other versions of the book cover.  The Pride and Prejudice inspired one is pretty cool too, but I’m glad I opted for the current cover.

11. One of the dates I left out of the book and I just remembered when talking to a girlfriend recently was a man who was an archaeologist. He was pretty fascinating because I’m a history nerd and he talked and talked and talked–all about his discoveries and people he’d met and so on and so forth. He claimed he was going to be getting his own show on Discovery or History Channel (and maybe he did?!). I don’t remember him asking me a single question on our date. And at the end he was very enthusiastic and said he’d really like to see me again. He never reached out again after that. #weirdo

There you have it. Eleven fun facts about my horsey memoir. Hope you enjoyed! If you haven’t read Horses Adored yet, CLICK HERE to buy your very own. (That’s my affiliate link.) If you have read it and haven’t left a review on Amazon or Goodreads, I would be so honored to have a few minutes of your time to help me spread the word. Thank you!

Question: Have you ever tried to set up someone you once dated with someone else? Leave a comment in the comments section. I’m dying to know!

Thanks for reading and tally ho!

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