Win a signed copy of The River Maiden

To celebrate kids going back to school and me being able to FINALLY dive deep into writing the next book in the series, I decided to do a Goodreads giveaway. So, 5 lucky readers can win a signed copy of The River Maiden. All you have to do is sign up below.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The River Maiden

by Meredith R. Stoddard

Giveaway ends September 16, 2014.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Not on Goodreads yet? I highly recommend that you join. It's great for reading reviews, and discussing books with other readers. Just click here. You can even login with your facebook login so there's no extra typing and finding your reader friends is easy.

The River Maiden is now available!

I've finally done it! Well actually, I did it about two weeks ago. I've been remiss in updating things here because I was also wrapping up another project, which I'll talk about in another post.  However, I am happy to say that The River Maiden is now available as an ebook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Scribd and iTunes. You can download samples to your device or you can read the first seven chapters on Wattpad.

I am working now on making it available in paperback. I have some proofs from one printer that are being reviewed and am awaiting proofs from another printer. 

The feedback I've been getting so far is great. Check the reviews on Amazon and ratings on Goodreads.  Many of my twitter followers have had glowing things to say, and are already asking about the next book, which IS coming. I've got an outline and some passages written. I might even have a little preview for folks this summer just to whet appetites. 

I am SO gratified that it has been received as well as it has. I can only hope that with some more marketing attention that I wasn't able to do while wrapping up the other project, the momentum will only keep building. 

I have more to say about the process of getting this book to market, but I will save those things for other posts over the next few weeks. 

So, what's your book about?

The picture you're looking at is a picture of the complete first draft of my first novel. It's in need of some serious editing, as any first draft should be, but it's done. I actually managed to put all the action that's been going on in my head onto paper.

I know you're probably thinking, 'Wow, big deal. We all write books. Hell those NaNoWriMo people do it in a month." And maybe you're right. But, have been working on this book off and on since shortly after I married my husband. In the time that it's taken me to get this plot out of my head I have;

• had two babies
• changed jobs three times
• been laid off TWICE (1 company went out of business, 1 eliminated my department)
• bought a house
• started a small business
• survived postpartum depression
• wrote and self-pubbed two short ebooks
• and beat myself up about eighty gazillion times for not finishing the book sooner

It finally took my younger child going to school to give me enough hours in the day to actually move the needle on this thing more than a millimeter at a time.  Once I was able to treat it like a job, albeit a part time one, it only took me a little over a month to fill in the blanks on this outline I've been toting around for the last year or so. And now, I've finally done it. Now my head is filled with visions of possible covers and book trailers and marketing plans.

"So, what's your book about?"

I confess I am frequently flummoxed by this question. Seeing as I've lived with these characters in my head for over a decade, I really should be able to sum it up easily. But if I say what the whole series is about, then I'd give away some major spoilers. If I say what inspired it, that would probably just be confusing to people who aren't Scotia-phile  genealogy folklore and politics nerds like me. That would also totally skip over the spiritual aspects of the journey that the main character is on. If I described it from that purely academic standpoint, you would never get that at it's heart it's a romance but not the kind that most people think of when they hear romance. There's a mystery, but it's not a mystery. There's paranormal stuff and some romance, but it's not a paranormal romance (No vampires or werewolves. I promise). There's danger, but I don't know that I'd call it a thriller. There's a love story...sort of.

Clearly, if I'm ever going to market this thing, I'm going to have to get a lot better at the 30 second elevator speech. I'm hoping that the editing/rewriting process will help clarify things. And I might want to settle on a title.

In the meantime, you can find some excerpts here.