C. K. Volnek
author of Ghost Dog of Roanoke Island (MuseItYoung - Middle Grade Ghost Story)
A Horse Called Trouble (MuseItYoung)
The Secret of the Stones (MuseItYoung - book one in The Lost Diaries of Northumberland)
Charlotte Volnek, aka Charlie or C.K., lives in Nebraska with her husband and four fur-kid Papillon pups. A mother of three grown children, Charlie has a passion for writing and focuses most of her stories toward middle grade and tweens. Having a son that ‘hated’ to read spurred her to create stories to entertain, encourage and inspire young readers. When she is not writing, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading, long hikes, gardening, and movies.
Ghost Dog of Roanoke Island
Evil haunts Roanoke Island and a young boy must unravel its mystery and destroy it, before it destroys him.
In 1587, 121 colonists disappeare from Roanoke Island, NC, never to be seen again.
Something evil is haunting Roanoke Island and it’s up to twelve year-old Jack Dahlgren to unravel the mystery of the lost colony and stop the hateful campaign of revenge. But can Jack solve the puzzle in time to destroy the beast, before it destroys him?
A Horse Called Trouble
A troubled teen must overcome her abusive past to save the defiant horse that has taught her to love and trust again.
Abandoned by her mother at the young age of seven, Tara Cumming’s been passed from foster home to foster home; not wanted anywhere by anyone. At thirteen she finds herself skeptic and suspicious, with no family, no friends, and forced to participate in horse therapy.
Horse therapy “will teach trust, perseverance, respect and the value of teamwork,” or so says the program’s instructor. Tara is unconvinced. Trust only got her heart broken, perseverance only gets her put down, and no one respects or wants to team up with the misfit foster kid.
At the stable, Tara meets Trouble, an angry horse bent on destroying everything and everyone around him. When Tara realizes he’s just as misunderstood and untrusting as she is, she pushes aside her fear and a special relationship is formed. Trouble trusts Tara, and Tara in turn finds hope and acceptance as well as the will to love and trust again herself.
But Tara’s confidence is shaken as a great challenge looms ahead. Trouble’s manipulative owner is determined to have him destroyed because of his ‘dangerous’ nature. Tara must overcome her own limitations and fight to save the horse that has freed her heart and given her life value and meaning.
The Secret of the Stones
A Merlin-loving tween is thrust into magic mayhem when the gift he’s been entrusted to protect turns out to be the enchanted object detailed in a mysterious prophecy.
Trading places with a squirrel outside his window is the last thing twelve year-old Alex Ramsey expects to happen. Could the gift Aunt Norma gave him be magic? The Merlin’s magic he’d read about in the ancient diary? After he unexpectedly trades places with another animal, Alex realizes he must discover how this magic works, and fast. How had the trickery transformed him…and better yet… how did it turn him back into himself?
As Alex struggles to understand the how and why of his enchanted gift, he becomes painfully aware there is more to it than he first thought. Within the magic there is a great power, a power to control, a power so strong that another is willing do almost anything to get it. Can Alex protect the gift while solving the secrets to how the magic works? And can he make sense of the riddles in the diary, the riddles surrounding the prophecy of Merlin’s return?
