New Cover on The Man from Shenandoah

It's hard to believe that The Man from Shenandoah was first published 15 years ago. Yes, that's FIFTEEN years.

It's time for a bit of a sprucing-up, so I've put a new cover on the novel:

Here's what the novel is about.

Carl Owen doesn’t intend to lose anything—not his land, not his cattle, and certainly not his girl—ever again!

The young cavalryman returns from the Civil War to find the family farm destroyed, his favorite brother dead, food scarce, and his father determined to leave the Shenandoah Valley to build a cattle empire in Colorado Territory. Crossing the continent, Carl falls in love with his brother’s fiancée while set to wed another girl, but he might lose everything if the murderous thug Berto Acosta has his way. Carl battles a band of outlaws, a prairie fire, blizzards, a trackless waterless desert, and his own brother—all for the hand of feisty Ellen Bates.

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The new cover is on the e-book right now at the major online retailers, and will appear on the print book soon. Here's where you can buy it, if you don't have it in your digital library yet.

E-Books: Smashwords (all formats) | Kindle | NOOK | Kobo | Apple iTunes Bookstore

Fresh Book Friday: The Complete Owen Family Saga

There's so much going on out my way, that I don't really know where to start. I guess Fresh Book Friday is a good Starting Place.

Title: The Complete Owen Family Saga
Author: Marsha Ward
Genre: Civil War and Western Historical Fiction
POD Publication Date: April 28, 2017
Promotional Price: $24.95

Purchase Links: CreateSpace | Amazon 

Book Description:
Marsha Ward did not write the five novels of The Owen Family Saga in order, but there is definitely an optimal reading order, and here it is in one grand box set collection.

The Complete Owen Family Saga is a chronological ordering for optimal reading pleasure and understanding of the five novels within: Gone for a Soldier, The Man from Shenandoah, Spinster's Folly, Ride to Raton, and Trail of Storms.

The Owen Family is headed by Rod Owen, with his wife Julia at his side to hand him a daily dose of love and humility. Their sons and daughters are fun-loving and a bit rowdy, but intensely loyal to God, Virginia, and family. Not even the Civil War and its hardships can quell their spirits, but in quiet times, the losses seem overwhelming.

Join Rod and Julia Owen, their sons, daughters, and neighbors in Colorado Territory and beyond for action, adventure and romance in 19th Century America.

Author's Note:
This box set was first published as an ebook collection, but I was persuaded that some people might like the set in print. Here it is, all 798 pages of it.

The Promotional Price will increase to the Regular Price of $34.95 on June 1, so get the collection while you can at a discount of over $50.00 off the cost of the novels purchased individually.

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In other news, Western Stories: Four Tales of the West is now available in both ebook and print, with a brand new cover:

Purchase Links: Print: CreateSpace | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | E-Books: Smashwords (all formats) | Kindle | NOOK | Kobo | Apple iTunes Bookstore

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In addition, I'm in the process of changing the cover for Spinster's Folly due to re-numbering issues with the original print cover that I couldn't overcome. I hope you will like it when it trickles down through the system:

In the next few days I'll have a brand new book for writers available! Keep watch for THE CHECKLIST: Indie Publishing My Way.

Warm Up Your Winter - Free Ebooks and 5 Gift Cards, too!

EDITED: Now 5 $10 Gift Cards are up for grabs in the Sweepstakes!

A group of my Author friends and I joined together to make you this nifty free ebook offer and giveaway at My Book Cave, because, you know, it's cold out there, and what could be better than cuddling up in a cozy chair with a blanket around your shoulders and reading a new book on your Kindle, Nook, phone, or tablet?

From now until Friday, February 10, 2017, we're each giving away one or more of our ebooks. Free. And a chance to win a $10 gift card in a giveaway sweepstakes, too. So what's the catch?

Authors always welcome the opportunity--if you like our books--to let you know about our newest releases. We all have emailed newsletters, like mine, that let us tell you about our books, give you a glimpse into our lives, and allow you to take part in special offers like this one.

We like more readers to subscribe, so we do these kinds of promotions in exchange for your email address.* That's the catch. You get free ebooks and a chance to win a gift card, and we get new readers for our newsletters. Cool, huh?

You will be contacted by the authors whose books you select and to whom you give your emails. They are all nice people and good writers. Here's the link to a page where all the ebooks are featured.

Remember to enter the Sweepstakes Giveaway on the right side of the page, found here on My Book Cave.

*You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time, but you might want to stick around and find out what my friends and I have planned for the year for your reading pleasure.
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Gone for a Soldier - Book 1: The Owen Family Saga.

Rulon Owen enlists in the cavalry to fight Yankees, but he needs good fortune to survive and make it home to his young wife, Mary, and the toddler son he's never seen.

At home, newlywed Mary faces her own soul-draining battles in her disapproving mother's household, magnified by the trials of life in a war zone.

Separated by war and circumstance, Rulon and Mary discover that not all enemies wear the Union blue.

It's Cyber Monday!

Don't forget that Gone for a Soldier is on sale for only $.99 until midnight. It's listed among nearly 40 other ebook in the huge Multi-Author sale here.

Fill up your e-reading device for winter with lots of good stories. And Gone for a Soldier, Book 1 of The Owen Family Saga!

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?

Behind the Scenes: Special Project Coming

Last month, I spent a lot of time thinking about my published work and all the future stories I have to tell. I wanted to organize the work into easily identifiable categories. That's when I decided that The Owen Family Saga was complete.

Yes, I have many more stories to write about members of the Owen Family, but as I said back on August 9, there is going to be a gap of several years in the chronology before another story begins.

So I called a halt, capping the series at the five existing novels, and then went a giant step farther and changed the suggested reading order. Since I made those decisions, I've been working on a special project. I'll tell you more on Monday, when I do a Cover Reveal. See you then!

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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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?