About the Book

Book: The Secret Sisters Club

Author: Monique Bucheger

Genre: Mid-grade, blended family, horses The Secret Sisters Club

Release Date: March 18, 2012

Twelve-year-old BFF’s Ginnie West and Tillie Taylor, want to be sisters. Ginnie’s widowed dad plus Tillie’s divorced mom could equal a lifetime of round-the-clock girl talk and slumber parties. Too bad Dad vowed to never marry again. Ginnie and Tillie come up with the perfect scheme to change his mind: ‘Operation Secret Sisters’ (aka OSS). After all, if they can’t get Dad to move on, Tillie can’t move in.
Things get more complicated when Ginnie stumbles across her mom’s hidden journals. Ginnie can finally get to know the mother she doesn’t remember and her dad doesn’t talk about—if Dad doesn’t take them away.

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I had the opportunity to interview Monique, and get to know her a bit. As a “new to me” author, I always enjoy doing this. Here’s what she had to say!

Monique, thanks for being with me today. One question my readers always have is do you ever name your characters after people you know?

In Secret Sisters Club and Trouble Blows West, at least one of each of my kids’ names or nicknames is used for a minor character. The boy in the convertible, Ryan, from the first chapter of The Secret Sisters Club is one of my sons’ names. As well as Reed, from the principal, Mr. Reed in is another son’s middle name. Luci Jo from Trouble Blows West is a nickname of one of my daughters. Mrs. Ruby and Mrs. Stewart–the lunch monitor and the principal’s secretary are named after real life friends.

Do real life stories get turned into fiction plots?

Of course. The best fiction contains truth.

Have you ever read a book that made you cry?

Bridge To Terabithia by Katherine Paterson–one of my favorite middle grade books. And as a side note–my favorite reviews of my books usually say something like: “This book made me laugh and it made me cry.”

I love it when a book is so good I laugh and cry along with the main characters–and I especially love it when my readers will go along with Ginnie, Tillie, and Toran and feel what they feel. 🙂

Okay, let’s get serious. What’s your favorite kind of ice cream?

I have three favorites: Mint chocolate chip, Rocky Road and Chocolate Peanut Butter–all of them drizzled with Chocolate Reese’s Peanut Butter Shell. (As opposed to the peanut butter flavored shell.) 🙂

What is your favorite vacation spot?

Walt Disney World or Disneyland. My family and I just returned from a four day trip to Orlando. We had lots of fun in spite of the Covid restrictions.

Again, thank you for being here. I enjoyed getting to know you!

About the Author

When Monique isn’t writing, you can find her playing taxi driver to one or more of her Monique 12 children, plotting her next novel, scrapbooking, or being the “Mamarazzi” at any number of child-oriented events.

Even though she realizes there will never be enough hours in any given day, Monique tries very hard to enjoy the journey that is her life. She shares it with a terrific husband, her dozen children, twelve granddarlings, too many cats, and many real and imaginary friends. She is the author of several books in three series and hopes to write many more.

More from Monique

Hello everybody!

I’d like to welcome you to the first book in my Ginnie West Adventures Series: The Secret Sisters Club. This series has been a fun journey that started longer ago than I care to admit.

As a tween, Ginnie West was my imaginary friend who gave me courage. Since then, I have written her story through four novels to each become a #1 Amazon Best-selling novel.

The Secret Sisters Club is the story of 12-year-old BFF’s (Ginnie and Tillie) who want to become sisters. However, The Secret Sisters Club is more than a scheme (AKA: OSS: Operation Secret Sisters) to get Tillie’s divorcee mom to fall in love with Ginnie’s widowered dad.

The Secret Sisters Club is a contemporary, middle-grade novel about: belonging, overcoming hard things, finding joy in the journey of your life, and finding the courage to change your own stars when you don’t like the hand you have been dealt—and realizing that ‘real’ family can be friends you have chosen when the people in the family you were born to are missing because of choices they made, death, divorce, and circumstances beyond your (and sometimes their) control—and these themes are shared in an uplifting, empowering, age-appropriate way.

Because Tillie was abandoned when she was six years-old by her birth dad, six years before The Secret Sisters Club starts, she longs to for a “whole” family: with a mom, a good dad, a sister, and a brother. Tillie has always been timid, but Ginnie helps her feel brave. Tillie, in turn, helps Ginnie realize that she has a lot to be grateful for.

Ginnie has never worried about what her family looks like—because it has always “felt” right. She lives in a 3-generation farm family composed of her great-Uncle Ben, his two kids, her dad , Todd, and his brother, Uncle Jake–who were raised by Uncle Ben because they were orphaned as young tweens, as well as Ginnie’s twin brother, Toran.

Ginnie’s mother died in a tragic accident when she was 3 ½ years old, leaving Ginnie with very few memories of her mom. Which hasn’t been a problem for her—UNTIL she finds a box of her dead mom’s journals and starts reading one.

Then Ginnie realizes that she really missed out—her mom was pretty amazing: creative, energetic, courageous, funny, a nationally ranked beauty queen (which Ginnie couldn’t care less about) but also a nationally ranked equestrian and trick rider—which Ginnie cares VERY much about. And more than that—she realizes that her mother truly understood her. And while her dad loves her very much—Ginnie is constantly tossing him out of his comfort zone as he struggles to balance her need to be independent with his need to keep her safe.

The Secret Sisters Club explores the journey of two BFF’s finding strength to overcome adversities, humor in day-to day life, and courage to make hard choices as they grow up together, embracing their differences as well their similarities, to make life a totally awesome sauce adventure.