Save a Horse…Read a Book

USA TODAY Bestselling Author of 13 romance novels, Maxine Sullivan, is giving half her royalties from her Escape Publishing ebook, a sexy romantic comedy called Night Talk to the Save a Horse Australia Horse Rescue and Sanctuary charity. Today Maxine is here to tell us more about why she is doing this.

Firstly, let me tell you a little about the charity. Based in Queensland, the Save a Horse Australia (SAHA) is the brainchild of president Amanda Vella who established the fully registered, not-for-profit organisation which helps to rehabilitate neglected, abused and slaughter-bound horses and finds them perfect forever homes. This self-funded organisation has been running for over ten years, latterly as a registered charity since 2009.

No one is more surprised than me to find myself helping a horse charity. I have always been a lover of dogs and cats and over the years have taken abandoned animals into my home as beloved pets, but horses have always been a mystery to me. They are magnificent animals, but I’m a city girl and I’ve never been around them. It wasn’t until this year when my husband and I took our first holiday together in fifteen years and went to the Sidmouth Donkey Sanctuary in England that we became aware of the extent of donkey abuse throughout the UK and the wonderful job the Sidmouth charity was doing to help ease these animals’ suffering.

On our return to Australia I searched the internet, curious to see if there were any donkey sanctuaries in this country, and instead came across the Save a Horse Australia Rescue and Sanctuary. Since then I have followed the lives of the rescue horses via the SAHA Facebook page, which now has over twelve thousand fans. Along with many others who regularly donate to this small charity, I help to sponsor horses like Honey-Megs, a mare used purely for breeding and who’d just had her latest baby taken off her. Poor Honey-Megs was so downtrodden that she could barely hold her head up as she waited to be slaughtered. Thankfully SAHA saved her and she is now very loved and doing wonderfully.

And then there’s Logan, a twenty-year-old Arab horse who looks like a youngster and whom my family helps to sponsor. Logan’s teeth were so bad that every tooth had sharp barbs on them and eating would have been excruciating for him. He was very thin and his feet were terrible yet he is the most friendly, loving little horse who did not deserve to be so mistreated.

What is really amazing is to see horses so badly let down by humans but who somehow still have the capacity to love and trust. And that’s thanks to the many unpaid SAHA volunteers who dedicate their lives to show care and compassion to these animals who suffer in silence. It restores my faith in humanity and it’s the reason I want to get horse charities like these noticed in the wider world through the sale of my ebook. At the least I hope that people might consider sponsoring one of the SAHA horses or give a donation to help cover the cost of feed as well as the huge veterinary bills involved in bringing these animals back.

One of the tireless unpaid SAHA volunteers, Jennifer Malloch, said, “No donation is too big or small. If only more people were willing to donate just two dollars per week it would be a great help. It’s not even the cost of a cup of coffee and the banks charge nothing to direct debit. Would you miss two dollars? Probably not. Would we notice your two dollars? Yes, definitely!”

We CAN make a difference!

To buy Maxine’s ebook, go to the Escape Publishing website or her own website at http://
www.maxinesullivan.com. If you wish to send a donation or direct debit to SAHA, here are the details:

BSB: 084852
ACC: 189538671
Name: Save A Horse Australia
Bank: NAB