Books We Love's Tantalizing Talent ~ Author Mikki Sadil

Hello, I’m Mikki Sadil. I was born on a Quarter Horse ranch out in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. I grew up with horses, but also in a military family, where moving from post to post was a normal part of life. Consequently, I lived in many states, and in three foreign countries before the age of 12, when my father was finally posted for the last time, and we landed in Los Angeles, California. I’ve been writing most of my life, but not really for publishing until a few years ago. In the meantime, I taught Sociology courses at a university in Southern California, became an exhibited artist, and for 23 years, bred, raised, and trained Appaloosa horses for the show ring, along with my husband. When we retired from horse breeding and training, we moved to the Central Coast of California. Now I live here with my awesome husband, our “smartest” and “most beautiful” in all the world Corgi, Dylan, our lazy Siamese/Himalayan cat, Beaujangles, and a beautiful but unfriendly (!) Cockatiel, Riley.

I write books for kids and teens. Someone asked me one day why I write for kids, when writing for adults is more lucrative. In a way, that’s a hard question. Writing for kids, those from ages 11 or 12 to teens about 16, is not an easy thing to do. Adults pick up a book, read a couple of chapters and then decide if it is something they like and are going to finish. Kids pick up a book, read the first page, and either love the book or hide it under the covers because Mom will be ticked off if they don’t finish it! So why do I write for “picky” readers? Because I love it. Because I want to challenge young people to read, to get away from the video games that consume so many of them with their violence and foul language, and find fun and entertainment within the pages of a book. I don’t “write down” to the younger kids, the 10, 11, 12 year olds. I write for them in the same way I write for older teens…I challenge them to comprehend the words that make up a story that takes them away from the everyday life of school, TV, and video games. I write for kids because I want them to know, understand, and appreciate the history of our country. I want them to visualize themselves in the same kinds of situations my characters are always in, and realize that their imagination can take them to places they have never been, or even thought about. I write for kids because I want to share with them the magic that’s in my heart and mind, and I want them to find that same magic in the pages of my books. I want them to see and experience all of the other worlds that imagination can take them to.

Amazon

The Freedom Thief  When thirteen year old Ben McKenna finds out his father is going to sell Ben’s best friend, a crippled slave boy, he knows the only way to save Joshua is to arrange an escape for him and his slave parents. With this accomplished, Ben and his friends embark on a journey into a world of danger, desperation, and deception that Ben knew nothing about, in order to find the Ohio River and the freedom for Joshua and his parents that lay beyond.

Amazon

Lily Leticia Langford and the Book of Practical Magic   What do an eleven year old girl, an IQ of 160, and a book of Magic have in common? Absolutely nothing…unless your name is Lily Leticia Langford. Lily Leticia has an IQ of 160, and is in high school. The other freshman girls won’t have anything to do with her, because, after all, she belongs in elementary school. Girls her age won’t have anything to do with her, because after all, she’s in high school. She thinks she can solve everyone’s problems, whether they want her to or not. Consequently, Trouble seems to follow her around like a puppy dog. But when she finds a book of Ancient Magic, Lily Leticia’s Troubles have just begun.

Night Cries: Beneath the Possum Belly, book one   Sixteen

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year old Gabriela Gaudet is just learning about all of her psychic powers. For weeks, the voices of three little girls who had been murdered five years ago, have been begging her to find their killer. When her parents’ traveling carnival comes to the children’s small town, and breaks down, Gabriela knows this is the town that covered up the children’s murder, and she sets out to find this killer. Along the way, she meets Remi, the young man, also psychic, who is determined to help her. A web of evil surrounds this town, a web that includes gargoyles and witches, and one that threatens to draw Gabriela into its sticky strands. Will her powers be enough to fight off this malevolence, or will the town win again? The Possum Belly waits.

You can find these and my other books at:  

http://bookswelove.net/authors/sadil-mikki/

Foxes, Horses, and a Runaway Girl by Mikki Sadil

(Young Adult author Mikki Sadil brings her Civil War historical to Books We Love, and joins us on the Insider Blog)

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Hello, I’m Mikki Sadil, a relatively new author with Books We Love. Jude told me to write something about myself, to allow all of you to get to know me. So here goes.I was born on a ranch in Texas, raised with Quarter Horses and Long Horn cattle, dogs, cats, and many unspecified animals, mostly wild. I was on the back of a horse…in front of my mom or dad or a ranch hand…from the time I was 6 months old, and was given my own Quarter Pony on my second birthday. On my fifth birthday, I was give a small .22 rifle and taught to shoot. As you may have guessed by now, horses and animals of all kinds have been a mainstay of my life…uh, .22’s, not so much.
My dad was in the service, and when I was 8 years old, he was deployed overseas and my mother and I went with him. That lasted about 2 years, then he was sent back to the US and we traveled all over this country.
When I was 10 years old, he was stationed in Washington, D.C, and we lived in a boarding house in Rock Creek, Maryland. One of his officers had a Civil War-type home ( read that as mansion) in another part of Maryland, with acres and acres of land. He also had horses…the Thoroughbreds that were used in Fox Hunts. Oh yes, Fox Hunts were real! This officer invited my father and me to take part in a Fox Hunt on a Sunday, and I was thrilled. I was not an English rider, but had had a few lessons in an English saddle so I could sit it pretty well.
That morning, there were about 40 people at this man’s home, all with their Thoroughbreds, and all of the adults dressed to the hilt in “fox hunting” clothing. Me? Well, I had on Western riding boots, jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt…not exactly dressed to the teeth for this event. My dad was far more presentable, as he had been in the Cavalry all his life ( before they turned the horses into tanks and military jeeps), so he had the proper boots and jodhpurs. I wouldn’t be caught dead riding a horse in such “sissified” attire, especially in a saddle that barely sat on the back of the horse.
Needless to say, the other adults were not exactly pleased to have a “child” riding with them, but as time went on, and I jumped the fences and went over the downed tree logs and splashed through the brooks as well as any of them, I was temporarily accepted. Temporarily being the key word.
The Fox Hunt was exactly as you’ve seen in movies or read about in books. We had a Hunt Master with a horn; we had a pack of beautiful hunt dogs, barking and straining at their leashes, eager to be let loose. There were broken fences and upright fences to jump over. There were the tree logs we had to guide our horse over or around, and there were the many brooks and streams to be splashed through. We started out, and rode for a while. It was a beautiful day, sun streaming down, gentle breeze blowing. The horses were gorgeous, coats shining in the sun, ears pricked forward, and the dogs were just being dogs.
Then…the Hunt Master let out a blast on his horn, the dogs were turned loose, and pandemonium began. Horses, horses everywhere. No longer was there any rhyme or reason for where one was riding, who you were riding beside. From a gentle canter it was now a full-out gallop, following the dogs. The dogs: yapping, barking, chasing each other, running as fast as they could. The scent of FOX was in the air. It was all I could do to stay in the saddle and handle this huge monster of a horse who was at least twice as big as my Quarter Horse, and twice as hard-headed. He was after the dogs, after the fox, and totally unresponsive to my pull on the reins.
Then, another different blast from the Hunt Master. Horses were reined in, slowed down. I looked ahead, and saw twenty dogs barking and trying unsuccessfully to climb up a tree. On a lower branch, a bit of orangy-red hung down: the FOX had been treed.
The woman next to me leaned closer, and asked if I’d ever seen how they killed the FOX? WHAT? KILL the FOX? My dad didn’t tell me that part of what a Fox Hunt was all about. I just looked at her, speechless. Suddenly, I realized all the horses were quiet. They were pacing forward at a walk. Only the dogs were still making a racket.
Oh NO! Kill the FOX? Not today! I gathered myself in the saddle, swung my crop against my horse’s side, and dug my spurs in. He jumped forward like he’d been stung by a swarm of bees. Yelling at the top of my voice, I headed straight for the dogs, the tree, and the FOX! The dogs quieted down for just a moment. They saw this huge horse and screaming “something” headed straight for them , and they scattered to the wind. The fox jumped down, and disappeared in an instant.
This Fox Hunt was so over.
My father and I were never invited to a Fox Hunt again.

You can find my books at Books We Love.