Cover Reveal: From Julia's Kitchen: Owen Family Cookery

Early next month I’ll publish an exciting new project: From Julia’s Kitchen: Owen Family Cookery. This ebook contains Julia Owen’s prized recipes, plus a note on each recipe telling about it.

Of course the idea that a fictional character has collected recipes, or “receipts,” as they were sometimes known in those days, is pure fiction, but the recipes are real. Sign up for my Readers mailing list below to get the first notice of the release of From Julia’s Kitchen, right in your inbox.

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Sample Saturday is Back

I've been dealing with winter storms and power outages and 18-20 inches of snow piled up around my place, so I am treating myself to a bit of diversion by bringing back Saturday Sample today.

Here's a tidbit from a piece I'm working on that I hope to publish later this year.

Julia Helm wiped the streaming tears off her cheeks, then climbed up onto the wooden spring seat of the farm wagon weathered almost white. Jonathan's firm hand on her elbow steadied her some, but the overwhelming sadness that had brought the tears remained. She looked at the stone house, the wooden barn with its wide doors, the early spring fields smelling of molding corn stalks. Why this sadness? I'll see it all again in two months.
She pulled her brown wool cloak more tightly around herself and wrenched her gaze from the house. Couldn't she just tell Jonathan she had changed her mind? Tell her brother to unhitch the team of gray horses while she ran back inside the house and into her small, cozy room to curl up in the comfort of Papa's upholstered chair? Cousin Camilla didn't need her help to prepare for her wedding. Virginia was so far away. The trip would take two weeks! Two weeks of travel behind the rumps of the horses, being jostled and jolted until her young bones couldn't stand another yard, let alone another mile. And all for what? Camilla's gratitude? The chance to see Aunt Susannah again?

The wagon groaned and creaked as Jonathan climbed into the wagon seat on the other side, pausing before he lifted the leather lines to lean over and tuck a brown woolen blanket under her far knee. "Mind you tell me if you get cold," he said, and grinned at her like a crazy man, his breath clouding around his ruddy face underneath his knitted cap.
~~~

What do you think? Does it engage your interest? Tell me if you know who the characters are.

Until the next time, stay warm and healthy!

Behind the Scenes: 2016 Publishing Plans Update

Back in January, I outlined on another blog my 2016 plans for publication. Things didn't go quite as I had thought they would, though. As always, life happened, and shiny things came along and . . .

I stayed on track for the first planned effort. I released a novel, The Zion Trail, on February 19, followed on March 25 with the print edition (yes, there was enough reader demand for a print version). This book features Julia Owen’s first cousin, Elijah “Lije” Marshall, and is the first novel in a trilogy labeled “Promised Valley.”

From there, things got interesting.

Instead of letting me finish and publish Mended by Moonlight and purchase a cover for a story featuring “gloves” so it could appear, other Characters horned in and gummed up my plans by demanding their time in the spotlight. So . . .

Wes and Lonnie Haught got their moment when I released the novella Blood at Haught Springs on May 27. These Characters have no relationship at all to the Owen Family. They live in frontier Texas. This is the first of three works in the “Men of Haught Springs” series. The ebook contains two bonus short stories, Cottonwood Cowboys and No More Strangers.

With Mended by Moonlight still unfinished when the calendar approached July, I chose to publish Faith and the Foreman instead, which is a stand-alone novella that was first seen as part of the Old West Collection, A Timeless Romance Anthology Book 9 from 2014. These Characters are also unrelated to any of the Owen family, as they live in frontier Arizona. A bonus story, The Usual Game, is also set in Arizona, in the early days of Statehood.

Then somebody mentioned in a review their displeasure that the book they’d read from The Owen Family Saga seemed to be out of order. I agreed. I’d had my struggles with putting Gone for a Soldier as Book 5 in the series, since chronologically, it is Book 1. I decided the best way to address the problem was to publish the books of the Saga in chronological order, as one huge ebook. I polled several of my author friends on whether I should do such a project, and they thought it was a great idea. On September 30, I released The Complete Owen Family Saga as an ebook. All the favorite Characters from the series are intact. Sales so far have validated the idea of publishing this box set containing the five Owen Family Saga novels in the best reading order.

I don’t know if I will publish anything else this year. I am working on three projects at the same time, bouncing back and forth between what I presume is a novel, a novella, and a non-fiction project. If I finish one of them before the year is out, it will be published. Otherwise, 2017 is right around the corner!

In the meantime, to get purchase links to your favorite online vendor for all of the above books, go to the Simple List at the Bookshelf on my website.

Behind the Scenes: Discovery

by Marsha Ward @MarshaWard

I'm so relieved to discover that the Characters in My Head are not dead! They're talking to me again.

Maybe they aren't the characters for the book I thought I was supposed to write, but these are just as important.

I've also discovered some names in my pretend genealogy, revealed as I wrote this morning. Finding out the names of Rod Owen's parents is almost as exciting as finding my own ancestors!

Rulon Peter Owen married Nellie Marie Yancey. Their only surviving child is Roderick Owen. I don't know yet if he has a middle name, but his son, Rulon, does.

I knew the name began with S, for that was revealed to me as I wrote Gone for a Soldier, when Rulon signed his name in a letter to his wife, Mary. A couple of days ago, I learned that his middle name is Scow, the surname of his maternal grandmother, Phoebe Scow Helm.

I know. All this sounds really freaky. This is part of the discovery process of some writers when they dig deep into their characters' lives. It's really quite thrilling to us, and not spooky at all.

Now go read a good book this weekend. May I suggest my latest full-length novel, The Zion Trail? Someone just posted on my Facebook profile that she's finishing up reading it. Oh, she said such lovely things that make my knees quake and my heart beat faster! Here's a part: "Great read. Wonderful history. Endearing characters. Better and better with each turned page."

You may purchase The Zion Trail in ebook formats or in print:

The Zion Trail

$3.99 for ebooks; $12.99 for print books
Ebooks: Smashwords | Kindle | Nook | Kobo | Apple iBooks Store  

Print books: CreateSpace | Amazon | Barnes and Noble

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.
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