{Cover Reveal} Stolen Enchantress (Forbidden Forest #1)

Stolen Enchantress (Forbidden Forest #1) By Amber Argyle Genre: Fairytale Adaptation/ Epic Fantasy Age category: Young Adult Release Date: April 9, 2018 Blurb: Any girl who goes into the Forbidden Forest never comes out again. Except the one who did. Larkin should have been watching her little sister. Should have paid more attention to the trees looming over her family’s fields. Now Sela is gone. Knowing full well the danger of the forest and its beast, Larkin goes after her anyway. With her sister clutched in her arms, she manages to escape, but not before discovering the truth lurking beneath the wicked boughs. She may have evaded the beast once, but with the full force of his magic now fixated on her, she isn’t sure how much longer she can resist . . . I'm so in love with my newest cover. It's utterly beautiful, and I adore how simplistic it is. All the little details work so well together. Melissa Williams Design and I worked together to come up with the concepts, but the credit for its outcome goes solely to her. She did an utterly fantastic job. Don't forget to add it to your Goodreads Shelf.

Preorder from iBooks

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My Manuscripts Listed Chronologically

This post might be more for my sanity than for all my dear readers. I'm having a seriously hard time remember what book I wrote when. So without further ado:

The Priestess Prophecy
Began January 2006
Status: Permanently shelved. I may recycle my magical system though. It was super cool.

Priestess 2
Began late '06
Status: Permanently shelved

Priestess 3
Began '07
Status: Permanently shelved

Witch Song
Began late Summer of '07
Status: Published by Rhemalda Publishing 2011

The Brotherhood
Began '08
Status: Coming Fall of 2012

Winter Queen
Began '08
Status: Coming sometime 2013. First in a trilogy.

*Insert new baby here*
The Forbidden Forest
Began March 2010
Status: First draft is up to 60K. First in an expected trilogy

Witch Born
Began spring 2011, shelved numerous times because I wasn't sure I would write it.
Status: Coming soon.

Winner! Plus my life lately.

The winner of Tris and Izzie and Witch Song is: Tina! Yay! And thanks for talking to a bookstore! You rock!

My son was praying aloud the other day and asked God to please help mom be on the computer a little less. *winces*

So we've been playing a lot lately. This week, my father-in-law and his wife came down from Ohio, we've hung out with them at the beach and parks.

Any time I'm not spending with my kids or cleaning my house, I've been hard at work with my edits of Daughter of Winter. I've made a lot of changes. Added 3,000 words. I'm not sure if half--not all, just half--those edits actually help the book--seems more like a vertical shift. Very frustrating. But that's what my publisher wanted. Part of playing the game.

I have ZERO time to work on Forbidden Forest lately, which is also very frustrating. I wanted to have the whole MS written by the end of August. I'm not even half way and I don't see any end in sight for what I'm doing. *double sigh*

So ya, between edits, marketing, kids, and cleaning; no time to write new stuff. *triple sigh*

But I wouldn't trade it. We're simply having too much fun (except for the cleaning part).

First Page of Forbidden Forest

I'm trying to decide whether to use 1st or 3rd person. There seems to be an unwritten rule that classic fantasy be written in 3rd (it sounds more formal, for one). But I kinda like to break rules. Let me know if the third person works for you.

Forbidden Forest

Chapter 1

Mud squelched between my toes. Shoving my spear-shaped hoe into the ground, I lifted a sodden lump of earth and scattered three seeds inside. I did this over and over again as rain ran down my face, dripping off my nose and chin, and my back clenched into one big cramp. But I didn’t let any of it slow me. If I finished fast enough, Shan and I would have time to go fishing in the river. And I’d finally be free of the mud and the drudgery . . . for at least a little while.

When I finally ran out of seeds, I straightened up with a sigh to roll the kinks from my neck. “Sella’s, time to go,” I called impatiently to my three-year old sister. When she didn’t answer, I threw off my damp smelling wool hood to look for her. But instead of freshly plowed fields, all I saw was a thick black-green line of the Forest.

All the blood seemed to leave my body, pooling with the water in cold puddles at my feet. I’d strayed too far from the village—dangerously close to the Forbidden Forest.
Like hunch-shouldered sentinels, the enormous trees strained toward me like reaching arms. I grabbed my hoe and held it like a spear—a dull, mud caked spear. I knew it was laughable, but I felt a little better with it in my hand. I took a startled step back, my eyes automatically searched their shadows for the dark face of a Treeman.

“Sella?” I called again, and even to my own ears, my voice sounded hollow. How long had it been since I’d last seen her?