The Legend in the Stone: An Arizona Historical Fiction Novel is now available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook. You can also buy my ebook direct from me, just visit the book’s page. It’s the first novel in my new Tales of the Southwest series. Thanks for all the support throughout the years.
blurb:
For years, stories have circulated around the Superstition Mountains about an old hermit who seems to have been there forever.
Some stories are true, while some aren’t, and some may be better left unexplained.
He finds the answer sooner than expected. What begins as a simple research project soon becomes something far stranger as the man that Matt talks to shares memories of an Arizona that no longer exists, stories gathered over a lifetime, and hints of a past that raises more questions than it answers. The deeper Matt looks, the harder it becomes to separate the truth from the legend.
University of Arizona graduate student Matt Hayden has always been fascinated by the stories, but fascination isn’t enough for a historian. When the opportunity arises to investigate the legend for his final graduate paper, Matt sets out to find out what is fact, what is folklore, and whether the mysterious hermit ever existed at all.
I’ve always enjoyed history, particularly the stories that don’t quite fit neatly into a history book. Legends, strange events, forgotten places, old mysteries, and stories that have been passed down for generations can sometimes be just as interesting as the history itself. That’s where the idea for Tales of the Southwest came from.
The series will follow different stories from the American Southwest. Some will be inspired by real historical events and legends, while others may be completely fictional. I want to take those stories and ask: What if? And this is only the beginning.
One of the things I like about Tales of the Southwest is that it gives me plenty of room to explore. Arizona has a lot of folklore, and eventually the series can reach beyond Arizona into other parts of the Southwest. Some stories may be longer novels, while others might be shorter. There may even be collections of shorter stories along the way.
I also have a lot of fun connecting my different books. If you’ve read some of my other novels, you may eventually recognize a character, place, reference, or other little detail hidden in a story in my later novels starting with this one and at least two others in two other series that I’m currently writing. I don’t plan to make those connections obvious, but as some people know, sometimes the novel’s characters have other plans. They’re meant to be Easter eggs, something you might notice and think, “Wait a minute… I know that name.” If you don’t catch them, that’s okay, because the story should still work on its own. If you do catch one, consider it a little reward for being a longtime reader.
So if you enjoy historical fiction, Southwestern stories, legends, adventure, or stories that leave you wondering what might really have happened, I hope you’ll give The Legend in the Stone a try. And who knows? This may be the beginning of a pretty long journey through the Southwest.
The Legend in the Stone is available now.
Leave a Reply