Click any of the photos below to view a photo gallery of that character.
(horses' names above are in parentheses)
Kezzie's registered name is Keziah's Jubilee. I was present at her birth and raised and trained her myself. The name, Keziah, is the name of one of Job's daughters in the Old Testament and Jubilee comes from her pedigree. Kezzie is a Racking Horse, a gaited breed. She is a very friendly, good-natured horse and has been used for 4-H, trail riding and parades.
His name in real life is Kody. When I first wrote the scene where he was born, we didn't own Kody yet. We were looking for a horse for my daughter and the first one we looked at was Kody. He looked exactly like the foal I had just written about in the book. Julie has trained Kody to do about everything - western pleasure, english, jumping, competitive trail, and parades. He is very versatile! Kody is one quarter draft, one quarter Amish work horse and half Paint.
Bandit is a fictional horse, whose appearance is based on a palomino mare we owned named Maggie. Maggie was my oldest daughter, Lisa's horse. Maggie was absolutely the calmest horse I have ever seen. She would literally go anywhere or through anything without blinking an eye. She was a favorite during many of our Christian Cowgirl Club sessions and was great on the trails and in parades.
Jet is a fictional pony. In order to make the time frame and size work for the books, I created her as the daughter of a pony, Ebony, that all my daughters learned to ride on. Jet's personality is the same as Ebony's, although she is a little larger. Ebony is a 47" black pony with a couple very small spots that would qualify her as a pinto. She is also gaited. If I could pick my ideal horse, it would be Ebony in a larger version.
In real life, Sassy was as much a character as she is depicted in the book series. Mules tend to have quirky personalities. Most people either love them - or NOT! Sassy's biggest flaw was her dependence on needing to be with a buddy. I think that's pretty common for mules though. Being hybrid animals, they tend to have an identity crisis.
I am the author of the Sonrise Stable series. The books are based on true experiences with the horses I have owned over the years. I am the grandmother in the book. I have loved horses as long as I can remember and God has taught me many things through my experiences and relationships with horses. All of my daughter's husbands and children in the books are fictional.
Lisa is my oldest daughter. She rode Ebony briefly when we first got the pony, before outgrowing her, then received Maggie for her thirteenth birthday. Lisa was homeschooled from third grade through high school and is now a nurse practitioner.
My middle daughter rode Ebony for many years before reluctantly passing her down to Julie. Kristy then received a Racking Horse mare, Satin, who is the mother of Kezzie. Kristy was homeschooled for all grades and is now working as an American Sign Language interpreter and instructor at a community college.
Julie is my youngest. She also rode and adored Ebony. She had other hand-me-down horses, until she received Kody (Scamper) in 2008. She was very active in 4-H - riding english as well as western, jumping, and competitive trail riding.
Tick otherwise known as JJ. This Rottweiler puppy joins the cast of Sonrise Stable in book two. In one of the photos in the gallery, it looks like she's being attacked, however she was not harmed, and considered it great entertainment to harrass the older dog.
This very unique cat appears in the second book. She is a bobtailed calico and began life as the most adorable kitten. Now she is cranky and temperamental, but never boring!
Our barn seems to be a magnet for all the stray cats in the vicinity. Jemimah and Katy are sisters who arrived as tiny kittens tucked into a depression under a hay bale in a load of hay we purchased a few years ago. They were very young and had to be bottle fed.
If I had known the first book, Rosie and Scamper, was going to turn into a series of ten, I would have taken many more photos of the characters we used as models for the Rosie and Carrie illustrations. Those two girls are young women now!
