Two Book Signings Coming Up!

I just wanted to try to get the word out about my two book signings coming up! I'll be at the Barnes & Noble at Bridge Street in Huntsville, Alabama tomorrow, Friday the 22nd, at 6 p.m. 

If you are unable to make that one, I'll be at the Monrovia Library, 254 Allen Drake Dr., Huntsville, on Tuesday, December 3rd at 6:30 p.m. 

So if you're in the area, please come out and support a local author and maybe pick up a few books to give as gifts. :-) 'Tis the Christmas, gift-giving season!

The Captive Maiden is Now Available!

If you have not checked facebook lately, you might not know that The Captive Maiden released yesterday! Yay! You can now turn your Nook or Kindle's wifi on and receive your pre-ordered copy. You didn't pre-order it? No problem! It is still only $5.12 for e-book, and only $5.99 for the paperback!

And if you haven't yet read The Merchant's Daughter or The Fairest Beauty, they are now only $1.99 but only for about a week! So get them now!

I don't know why, but The Healer's Apprentice is still $5.12, but that's still not bad. :-)

And if you have read any of these books, but especially The Captive Maiden, I would really appreciate it if you were to write a review and post it to Amazon, or any of the other sites like Goodreads and Chrisitanbook.com, etc. Thanks much!!!

Winner of the Ellie Sweet Giveaway

And the winner of her choice of Stephanie Morrill's Ellie Sweet series e-books is ....
Victoria Grace! Congratulations, Victoria! Please email me privately at melaniedickerson at knology dot net and let me know which of the Ellie Sweet books you would like.

Thanks so much to Stephanie Morrill for offering this giveaway!!! It was fun having you on my blog. :-) The Ellie Sweet books are already a huge hit with a lot of readers!

Stephanie Morrill's New Ellie Sweet Series! Win a book

Awesome Young Adult writer, Stephanie Morrill, has a wonderful new series out that is getting rave reviews! And she is giving away a copy to the Ellie Sweet book of the winner's choosing to one lucky commenter on my blog! Stephanie has a wonderful blog where she nurtures and encourages young writers, which I admire so much!

Here's a little bit about her new book:

For once, Ellie Sweet has it all together. Her hair now curls instead of fuzzes, she’s tamed the former bad-boy, Chase Cervantes (she has, right?), and her debut novel will hit shelves in less than a year. Even her ex-friends are leaving her alone. Well, except for Palmer Davis, but it can’t be helped that he works at her grandmother’s nursing home.

Life should feel perfect. And yet, it’s not that easy. Ellie’s editor loves her, but the rest of the publishing biz? Not so much. And they’re not shy about sharing their distrust over Ellie’s unlikely debut.

Ellie has always been able to escape reality in the pages of her novel, but with the stress of major edits and rocky relationships, her words dry up. In fiction, everything always comes together, but in real life, it seems to Ellie that hard work isn’t always enough, the people you love can’t always be trusted…and the dream-come-true of publishing her book could be the biggest mistake she’s made yet.

The first book in this series is The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet, and it is only 99 cents on your Kindle! Get it now and start reading this awesome series:

Stephanie Morrill lives in Overland Park, Kansas with her husband and two kids. Her only talents are reading, writing, and drinking coffee, so career options were somewhat limited. Fortunately she discovered a passion for young adult novels and has been writing them ever since.
Stephanie is the author of The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series, The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet, and the award-winning Go Teen Writers: How to Turn Your First Draft into a Published Book. She enjoys encouraging and teaching teen writers on her blog, www.GoTeenWriters.com. You can also find her online at www.StephanieMorrill.com

Social media links:

Twitter: @StephMorrill https://twitter.com/stephmorrill

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephanie-Morrill/96655061611

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/stephaniewrites/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2769171.Stephanie_Morrill

Blog: www.GoTeenWriters.com

My Fairy Tale Retellings are $1.99!

I wanted to use my (neglected) blog to let you know that my previously published books are $1.99 on Kindle right now and probably will also be $1.99 on Nook and other devices. It just sometimes takes a little while to change the prices.

Click on the cover to buy The Fairest Beauty for $1.99

The Fairest Beauty e-book

And click on this cover to purchase The Merchant's Daughter, my Beauty and the Beast retelling:

The Merchant's Daughter

And click here to purchase The Healer's Apprentice:

The Healer's Apprentice

But not only are my earlier books a special price, but the new book, The Captive Maiden, is only $5.19 for the Kindle, and only $5.99 for the paperback! That is a great pre-order promotion, and I'm not sure how much longer it will last.

The Captive Maiden

Thanks for letting me share these promotions with you! And a few reviews are trickling in already for The Captive Maiden, from reviewers who got early advance copies. Blooming with Books said:
"Based upon Cinderella The Captive Maiden will capture your imagination as it brings faith and fiction together in a believable heartfelt story.  You will want to re-read this story again and again (I know because I'm re-reading it again) and it will join the favorites on your shelf."
You can read the entire review here.

The "Big Reveal" of the cover of my new Cinderella fairy tale retelling!

Here it is! The cover of The Captive Maiden, a.k.a. my newest fairy tale retelling, a.k.a. my Cinderella story, a.k.a. Valten's story.

 I especially love the dress, which so perfectly matches the ball dress Gisela borrows from her neighbor Ava. And Gisela, a.k.a. my Cinderella, looks frightened but brave, which is good. :-)

Another stunning cover, I thought. I am very pleased with it.

The book releases in October, and if you really want to bless an author--in this case, me--please pre-order it! If you usually shop at a book store, please go there and pre-order it. If you usually buy your books from Amazon, please pre-order it here. If you usually get your books from CBD, order it here. And if you usually get your books from library, go to your local library and submit a request for them to pre-order it! Pre-orders can really make a difference. So thank you very much for your pre-orders! 

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop!

Hi, everybody! Well, I've been tagged more than once to do this Next Big Thing Blog Hop, but for one reason or another, I couldn't do it--until now. I finally was able to say yes to Sarah Penner, so go check out Sarah's "Next Big Thing" blog post!

So, The Next Big Thing is supposed to be about what book I have coming up next. Well, my next book is actually a bit of a sequel to the one that just came out this month, The Fairest Beauty.

If you have read The Fairest Beauty, which you can purchase now wherever books are sold, 

you may be wondering about Valten, Gabe's brother. The story didn't end well for him, but his story isn't over. He gets his own heroic tale told in my next book The Captive Maiden, which is a Cinderella story in which he finds his own fairest beauty. ;-) So now I'm going to tell you a bit about that book, which is set to release in October.

1: What is the working title of your book?

The Captive Maiden

2: Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea came from the Cinderella story, from Valten, who is a character in The Fairest Beauty and gets to be the hero in The Captive Maiden, and I threw in some stuff inspired by the great novel, Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott.

3: What genre does your book come under?

It is a Young Adult, Inspirational, Medieval, fairy tale retelling romance. Is that enough genres?

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

If I had to choose actors who would play Valten and Gisela in a movie rendition, a good actor to play Valten might be Jensen Ackles, who has the perfect look but ought to be a little brawnier, as Valten is quite muscular, being a trained knight.

And here's another picture of the "Supernatural" star.

Put him in Medieval clothes and a sword in his hand and you have Valten, the hero of my next book.

As for Gisela, the heroine, the perfect actress to play her would have to be blond and beautiful, but also tough and feisty. Maybe Emelie de Ravin with blond hair:

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

The Captive Maiden is a fairy tale retelling of Cinderella, set in the Medieval town of Hagenheim and continues the story of Rose and Wilhelm's son, Valten, and a beautiful named Gisela, who gets kidnapped by Valten's rival.

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?

The Captive Maiden is being published by Zondervan in October, 2013

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

The rough draft took me about four months to write.

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I would compare this book to my other fairy tale retellings, and also to other Inspirational historical romance stories with lots of action and romance.

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Valten's character inspired me to write this story. I'd been wanting to write a Cinderella story, but I wasn't sure how to do it in an original way, and then Valten turned out to be the perfect hero for a Cinderella story. He was my inspiration!

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

One of my inspirations for this book, besides Valten's character and the story of Cinderella, was the book, Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott. I love that story, and since my hero is a knight who likes to fight in tournaments, I was inspired by the tournaments that Ivanhoe engages in, as well as the tradition of knights wearing the scarf of the lady he loves into battle. Such a fun, romantic concept! And I think Valten makes good use of it in my story. :-)


So, if you have read The Fairest Beauty and wondered, "What about Valten?" I hope this answers that, at least until October when you can read the entire story!

And now I want to encourage you to go to my friends' blogs, who have also agreed to participate in this blog hop!

1. Kathleen Maher www.kathleenlmaher.blogspot.com

2. Debra Collins http://www.debracollins.blogspot.com/

3. Bridgett Henson http://www.bridgetthenson.com/

4. Sarah Holman http://destinyofone.blogspot.com/

The Fairest Beauty on Kindle!

After all the delays, The Fairest Beauty is finally available on Kindle! And it will be out everywhere else in 7 days, on Jan. 22nd.

I'm so glad it's finally available somewhere! :-) Click Here for the link to get it on Kindle.

The Fairest Beauty--A Little Delay in the Release

Hey, guys. I am so sorry, but it looks like there's another delay in the release of my new book. I have no idea why. But hopefully it won't be long before we'll ALL have copies!!! I really appreciate so much the people who have pre-ordered it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And while we wait to get them, here's another look at the trailer, just in case you might have forgotten what the story is about. :-)