Book Cover Reveal!

As I told you on Saturday, I've been working on a project that needed to be put together: an electronic box set of the five novels of The Owen Family Saga, in chronological order. I felt this was the best way to enhance the reading experience for future readers of the series . . . or fans who want a fresh perspective on the family.

To tie the books together, and to make them correlate more closely to the work I am writing right now, I re-wrote several tidbits of scenes as I went through the five novels: Gone for a Soldier, The Man from Shenandoah, Spinster's Folly, Ride to Raton, and Trail of Storms. The new words don't change any relevant action or the plot. They smooth out a few attitudes, bring clarity to the overall timeline of events, and enhance family relationships.

This box set will be released later this month.

Without further ado, I give you the Cover of The Complete Owen Family Saga:

I know. You can hardly wait, right?

Reading Order of Owen Family Saga Is Changed

by Marsha Ward @MarshaWard

I have gone ahead and changed the order of the books in The Owen Family Saga. From now on, the suggested reading order for these novels is:

Gone for a Soldier
The Man from Shenandoah
Spinster's Folly
Ride to Raton
Trail of Storms

There will be a bit of a disconnect in book order showing at Amazon.com until I can get them straightened out. It may take a while, so spread the word, please.
 
In addition, I'm calling a halt to The Owen Family Saga. I've covered the first seven children, including baby John, in the five novels of the Saga.  I have ideas for Clay and Albert, and I'm waiting for Julianna to reveal her tale, but they have to grow older and mature a bit. These future stories don't fit comfortably into the Saga.

The Saga has been continuous, with no time gaps (okay, there is a timeline overlap in two books, Spinster's Folly and Ride to Raton), and I see a gap of several years between Trail of Storms and other novels down the road. Therefore, I'll call those future novels, novellas and short stories An Owen Family Novel... or Novella... or Story, depending on length.

As I envision the next batch of tales about members of the Owen family, they will be stand-alone stories without any particular suggested reading order.

Other stories about all those neighbor families from the Shenandoah Valley will be tagged as "Shenandoah Neighbors". I have a multitude of ideas for these spin-off stories. Did Ned ever catch up with Miss Maggie? Will Charity Bingham ever remarry? Will Robert and Hannah go to Zion to raise their son in their new faith? What are George and Heppie up to? Does Max Bingham have an interesting story?

A current WIP, Mended by Moonlight, will fall under this series canopy.

I've even wondered about other characters who have appeared or been mentioned in the Saga. When did Jonathan Helm go to Colorado and what did he do there? What is Don Pedro doing?  Neither of these men are from the Shenandoah Valley, so I'll have to come up with another tag for such stories. Just pray that my health and strength holds up long enough for me to empty the Characters out of my Head.

Thank you.
---

New Reading Order for Owen Family Saga?

by Marsha Ward @MarshaWard

July was such a stressful month. Some of the stress was bad and some was good. I'm just very happy to have survived it!

* I've been mulling over a re-vamp of the suggested order of reading the books of the Owen Family Saga. I'll let you know my thoughts on order below, then you can tell me YOUR thoughts.

* The first step of doing a re-order would be to go into the back end at Kindle and change the book number designations on the five books so they would show up on Amazon with a new order.

* The second thing to do (at my leisure, as I don't want to take away from writing time and effort) is remove all references to book number on the ebook covers, just in case I change my mind and want to change to some other order. Sheesh!

* That's simple enough to do for THE MAN FROM SHENANDOAH, RIDE TO RATON, and TRAIL OF STORMS. GONE FOR A SOLDIER already gives only the series title. I would have to contact the designer of the cover of SPINSTER'S FOLLY to take the book number off and send me revised covers.

* Some of the paperback covers never were numbered, fortunately. I can do new covers for a couple of them, but SPINSTER'S FOLLY, as I said above, requires contacting the designer.

Here's the reading order I've been thinking about:

1. Gone for a Soldier

2. The Man from Shenandoah

3. Spinster's Folly

4. Ride to Raton

5. Trail of Storms

If you've read them all, or even only a few of them, what do YOU think about changing to this new suggested reading order?