Stone Heart's Woman Book Cover

Because this will be my first e-book publication, I'm really excited about getting a copy of my cover. It depicts beautifully the area in which the story takes place.

Fort Robinson, Nebraska once known as Camp Robinson, is a huge military outpost. There a few bedraggled remnants of the great Northern Cheyenne, known as the Beautiful People, are being held hostage. They have been pursued for 1500 miles as they escaped from the Indian Nation and headed for their home in Montana.

Stone Heart is the son of George Armstrong Custer and White Dove, a Northern Cheyenne. His hatred of his father drives him to rebuke his white heritage and swear never to speak the white-man's language again. Until he meets Aiden Connor, a red-haired Irish lass abandoned in the remote town of Benson by the man she loved.

Their meeting in a shack on the high plains is less than charmed. Stone Heart is recovering from wounds received during the final breakout at Fort Robinson when Aiden stumbles onto the sod house:

A shuffling of feet, movement of some kind, startled him fully awake. He had no idea how

long he had slept, but someone was coming. Tilting his head, he listened. Not an animal, nor a

big man. Someone small, weary. Even with his wounds, he would have no trouble overpowering

this one and slitting its throat. The musket lay in the dark corner, for he had not yet loaded it. He

hoped this was a white man approaching, for he desperately desired to count coup, repay the

slaughter of the day before. Ignoring the lancing of pain, he crept toward the door, waited out of

sight until his prey entered. The only light filtered into the gloom through that opening, and he

could be upon the enemy without ever being seen.

The fur-shrouded figure that stepped into sight radiated fire about its head, rays of sun

brilliant in long strands of tangled red hair. Already in motion, his arm clamped about its throat,

cut off a high scream.

A woman. A white woman.

The robe slipped from her shoulders when she clawed the air and kicked furiously with

both feet, her full weight swinging on his forearm. One pointed boot toe struck his shin, another

cracked his knee painfully. Gritting his teeth against passing out, he leaned against the wall and

hung on, pressed the blade of his knife hard against her mid-section.

Hissed in her ear, “Stop fighting or I’ll gut you.”

The galleys came last week and I've finished editing them. What a great book this is! Talk about Blatant Self Promotion. Well, I've always believed if we didn't like our own work no one else would either.

I don't have a release date yet, but it will be sometime within six months, I'm told. I'll celebrate with something special for my readers. Time will tell what that will be. I once gave away and silver and turquoise ring from New Mexico to a lucky reader. I'll come up with something.

Wild about Ebooks

For a good long while my goal has been to be published in Ebooks. So when I met Rhonda Penders at our super conference in Eureka Springs, Arkansas known as Ozark Creative Writers, I was thrilled when she asked me to submit two of my manuscripts.

For the past few years my work has all been in nonfiction, but along the way that old love, writing fiction, often reared its head and I would work on something. The problem is, my reach exceeds practicality. Concentrate on one genre, we're often told, but that never appealed to me. A Jane of all trades, I wrote in a wide range.

Having been published the traditional route in the 90s, I'd settled into the western historical romance genre, and had one novel, Stone Heart's Woman, ready. Then I leaped to paranormal, Wolf Song, but still western oriented, a story about the gray wolf restoration in Wyoming at Yellowstone National Park. Going to the dark side, out came A Savage Grace. Oh, was I ever ready to submit when it became evident that Ebooks were the coming place to be.

Knowing all this, my next step was to buy a Kindle, for how could I pursue Epublishing without a way to read Ebooks? Fell in love immediately with the concept of downloading books and carrying so many around in my purse. A tiny, light weight thing I could hold up easily while reading in bed.

Then came the news that The Wild Rose Press wanted to publish Stone Heart's Woman, really liked Wolf Song but didn't find enough romance there to fit.

I can already see that this is a great place to be, and I'm eagerly awaiting the next steps in seeing my book Epublished.

Have found some great writing helps on Digital Book World and this helpful site.