Meet Quincy the Horse

The cover of "Quincy Finds a New Home"

What?!? More books?? For a little while longer. Tis the season. If nothing else, they reflect my fall travels. Also, no affilate links are here. But more about that later.

In late September, I volunteered to work at a booth at the New England Independent Bookseller’s convention trade show in nearby Hartford, CT.

A bookseller’s convention trade show has booths from publishers and author support businesses.

Two of the latter are Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America.  The local chapters of each shared a booth at the NEIBA convention.

I spent about two hours of my afternoon working the booth. We chatted up bookstore owners and publishers. And offered them bookmarks promoting books written by authors in our groups. And offered passers-by chocolate.

When I wasn’t behind the desk, I roamed the trade show floor. While wandering around, I found the author of a new series of children’s horse books.

At NEIBA, I didn’t expect to find any horse stuff. Up here, so much more emphasis is on team sports, along with hiking, golf, sailing and skiing.

Among the big publishing company booths sat a lone author at a booth. Camille Matthews of New Mexico sat at a table with copies of her children’s book QUINCY FINDS A NEW HOME.

Yes, Matthews was representing her horse book smack dab in the nexus of Yankee Mania and Red Sox Nation.

Quincy Finds a Home

Illustrated by Michelle Black, Quincy’s story tells about his new home in terms that any child who has had to move can understand.

Quincy feels loss when he’s moved. Can he fit in? Can he meet expectation? Will he meet new friends?

Does any of that sound familiar? Even to us adults.

One advantage to reviewing this book so long after the convention is that I’ve been able to see it in many of my stops along the fall.

I spotted Quincy’s story in equestrian-themed gift shops and on many shelves in Kentucky and at Equine Affaire.

No doubt – Quincy is getting around.

About the author and artist

Camille Matthews photo courtesy of author

Camille Matthews, come to find out, was born in Bluegrass horse country, according to her bio on the website. Like a lot of us, she left horses behind for a while, but those big brown equine eyes just keep calling us “back home.” Now, she lives in New Mexico.

Quincy’s illustrator Michelle Black appears to have made her life around horses as the website says. She’s a dressage trainer, an consultant on horse nutrition and a proponent of barefoot horsekeeping. She’s also living back in the southwest, but was born there and moved to Australia for a while.

More books will be coming in the series: one about moving to the desert, another about Quincy and a yet-to-be-introduced character named Buck and Quincy’s brothers.

Here’s another blog post on how an encounter with Quincy and his friends touched the life of another blogger.

Disclaimer: Just to keep me out of trouble with the new federal trade laws … yes, I received a copy of this book for free, but it wasn’t a quid pro quo arrangement. Anyone with trade show credentials who asked could get a free book. And I’ll be passing this one onto The Kids Barn anyway.

If you click to the link to the website that’s included in the story, I will receive no compensation – and I’m okay with that.

However, if you order through the links in the columns to the right of this story on The Horsey Set Net site, I do get a little commission. But I’m not chomping at the bit for that or living on peanut butter, either. Although I would be grateful. I’m just saying …

So you’re free to buy the book – or not – anywhere you like.

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Tags: bookseller convention, Camille Matthews, childrens books, childrens horse books, NEIBA, Quincy Finds a New Home, Quincy the Horse, The Kids Barn