Ten Years Later, Cordia's Will is Finished!

January 2004, I went to see Cold Mountain while on a sort holiday trip to San Antonio with my husband. My father and I had always been huge Civil War buffs and so I was eager to watch the movie and discuss it with my dad. Unfortunately, both of us were fairly disappointed. We both felt like the explicit content was unnecessary to the story and that it was lacking in actual Civil War content. There just weren't enough battle scenes. Nevertheless, the movie got me thinking. If I was to write a book about the Civil War, what would I write?
As a teacher, I had a few days off from work before school started again. So, once I returned home, I went to the computer and started writing. No outline, no clue what was going to happen. I just knew I was going to write about the Civil War, that it would be a love story, and that I would include as many battle scenes as I could without compromising the integrity of the primary story.
I wrote like a crazy person for the next several weeks (including my first weeks back to work.) I got about 45,000 words in to the story and then, I suddenly realized, I didn't know what happened next. I was stuck.  And then, life got busy. We ended up finding out shortly there after that we were moving to Dallas.  After the move, new jobs, new friends, etc. I got distracted.  Two children and another move later, I finally decided that my characters deserved to have an ending. I sent the manuscript to my sister for a second opinion. I wanted to know if it was any good and if it should even be finished. If so, what should happen?

My Kindle Cover. Pre-order here.

First of all, she loved it, which was relieving.  She was really upset that it wasn't finished and demanded that I finish it as soon as possible.  She also made some suggestions for the ending, which helped lead me to the eventual ending, although, I must admit, I wasn't sure what was going to happen in the final chapters until I started writing them. When I started writing Deck of Cards before I finished Cordia's Will, my sister was not happy.  She refused to read Deck of Cards until Cordia's Will was completed.
Incidentally, Cordia's Will was not the title until about a month ago. The novel sat on my desktop as CW for almost a decade. CW stood for Civil War--not Cordia's Will. That finally came to me about a month ago. Once you read the book, you'll understand. I will say, my sister thinks the double-entendre makes it a ridiculous title and, while she might be right, it made perfect sense to me.
Cordia's Will is currently available for pre-order on Kindle. Click here. Incidentally, though it is a romance novel, there are no inappropriate scenes although there is a big of innuendo.  There are a few incidents where the characters use some strong language but nothing most children haven't heard on television. I would rate it PG or PG-13.
It will be available on Nook and Apple in the next few days. Please check back for information and for a coupon code that will allow you to safe 25%.
I am looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks of this novel that took me so very long to complete. Comments are reviews are always welcome!

My original photo teaser