The Foll Stones ebook is up on Amazon! The paperback version is being formatted by my publisher (Meryton Press) as I type this!
Have you read it yet? Once you do, please please leave a review on your favorite bookish site! Amazon, Goodreads, BookBub…whatever you like! It helps me out so much.
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Hello, lovely readers!! The cover for The Foll Stones is ready, and that means it’s time to preorder your digital copy! I. Am. So. Excited!
My publisher, Meryton Press, is running a giveaway for a digital copy of The Foll Stones. Please head to this blog post to see the cover and enter the giveaway! There is also an excerpt from the story itself and a little note from me.
I’ll admit it: I did not create this post title. But once I read it, I couldn’t pass it up! My fantasy romance, The Foll Stones, will be released late this summer (August, hopefully!!) and it will most likely never be made into a movie.
But what if it was?? I started dreaming about who I would want to star in this make-believe magical movie.
First we need our main characters. Cleona Willow – teenager from Vermont, capable, strong and emotional. Then there’s Brian Wallace – loyal, dedicated, understated and good with maps. Although I’m tempted to just cast Tom Holland and Zendaya, let’s lean into this a bit.
Florence Pugh comes to mind for Cleona. I think she has the ability to bring subtleties to the role. She’s a capable actor for sure. Though I disliked the movie (fight me), her portrayal of Amy in Little Women was wonderful.
You know who else would be great? Anna Cathcart of Odd Squad and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. And how about the OG awesome girl herself, Emma Watson? She’s knock it out of the park, as usual.
And what about Brian? Um…I have no idea actually. Turns out the guys I’m watching these days don’t always fit the 18-20 demographic. And what about Wren and Aine? You’ll have to tune in for the next installment of Casting The Foll Stones to find out who I choose!
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Let me take you back a few years. Maybe ten. Okay, how about fifteen? Yep, I’ve been working on The Foll Stones for fifteen years. Back then, I was into making jewelry. I created an anklet for myself with green glass beads. One bead was in the shape of a leaf. My imagination took over at that point.
What if the leaf stone had some sort of magical power? What if it’s magic became so powerful it burned my skin? Where would the magic come from? What if Christian Bale showed up and whisked me away to a different universe?
Ahem. That is where it began. I also have clear memories of hashing out the main storyline with my husband in our local coffee shop. I scratched it out on a piece of paper that I still have. I also have a bunch of scraps with notes and ideas I would right down during the day as they occurred to me.
We were in our early twenties with no kids. We had oodles of time. I started writing the story out by hand. I have those old drafts too. I generally don’t throw away old writing. You never know when you might need it!
Flash forward a few years. The Foll Stones had been stuck in a drawer as we raised our daughter, and then son. With two kids, there was little time for writing. Then I began to need an outlet. I was a stay-at-home mom and I needed something that was just for me. A pursuit that was completely unrelated to my kids. Cue NaNoWriMo.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It happens every November, and it’s a kind of challenge. Can you push yourself to write that novel you’ve had in your head? One of my favorite books (The Night Circus) was written during NaNoWriMo. So, feeling inspired, I hauled out The Foll Stones and made a push to complete it.
I stayed up late every night that month after the kids had gone to sleep, trying to write a thousand words. I finished the draft, and that lit the writing fire within me once more. A short while after that, a local coffee shop opened just down the road. My husband encouraged me to make that my writing space. Every Thursday I would go and write for hours. The alone time was amazing.
I actually started and finished several other works before coming back to The Foll Stones, but it’s always been my favorite. Maybe because it was the first story I ever completed that had a true beginning, middle, and end. It’s been a long and winding road to publication for Brian and Cleona, but I think you’ll love them as much as I do.
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Do you like being in the know? Do you like getting insider info, special deals, pre-release prizes? Then come along! Head to my little slice of Facebook and join my Street Team! As a part of my team, you have direct access to me, exclusive specials, and best of all – giveaways!
I’ll be sharing exclusive snippets from The Foll Stones with my Street Team in the upcoming weeks, so be sure to join to get in on the fun! It’s also a HUGE help to me as an author to have people “on the street” promoting my work. What does that entail? Just read my novels, review them, share them, love on them 🙂
I appreciate you, dear readers, more than you know. Without you, what is the point of sharing my work? The absolute BEST thing for me as an author is when someone reads my work and enjoys it. It’s like a little balm for my soul, a little boost in my step, and little hug for my heart.
World-building is serious business. I write across different genres, including historical, fantasy and science fiction, and world-building is one of my favorite things to do. Which is a good thing, because it’s an extremely important thing to do!
Before I throw this term around any more, let’s take a look at what it means. When writing fiction, an author creates her own rules about the universe her characters inhabit. Is it our universe? Great, that’s nice and simple. Is it our universe but different (like a lot of my stories)? Then it’s time to get creating!
The Foll Stones takes place here in our world and in Terratalam, a land of my own creation. When I started this story, I mostly had images in my mind. I knew what people looked like in this new world, I knew how the characters dressed and how they spoke. But as the story became more complex, I felt the need to clarify and focus on the world I created.
I started by creating a map, a copy of which you will be able to see in the published book! As I kept writing, I added more details to the map. Glance at the map and you can see Terratalam is similar to our world, with mountains, marshes, oceans, and valleys. The differences lie in subtle things that live beyond the map. Things like the types of animals you might see, or people you might talk with. It’s important to know how magic works here, who fights for which causes, and what friend and foe look like.
With each layer the world becomes more detailed and complex. For example, people of different regions dress differently. They eat different foods and use different tools. For The Foll Stones, the majority of the world-building was about the people themselves. Who were they? What was their family history? What were their personal experiences? I sketched all this out in my notebook while writing, noting down who was married to whom, and how many children they had and when. I also wrote out important experiences, even if they do not appear in the novel.
The more detail I put into my thoughts behind the story, the more real the story becomes to me. I can see all my characters in my mind. I can watch them move through the story of the book, as if I were watching real people on a screen. I created their world, and yet I feel as if they are just letting me in so I might watch their adventures.
I’ve talked about the writing process, and I’ve celebrated with you when The Foll Stones was accepted, but just what is this story about? It’s my favorite so far, so brace yourself for adventure and romance.
Picture a world where the sun hardly ever shines, a world where it drizzles most of the time, where two adjoining nations are at war. This world is filled with ancient forests, marsh lands, oceans, and mountains. Interesting beasts you have never seen before roam the woods, and magical creatures of unknown form hide in the marshes. The people of this world have dark, mysterious eyes and glistening skin. This is Terratalam.
Now picture a recent high school graduate living a quiet life in Vermont. She lives with her mother, hangs out constantly with her best friend, and dreams about a future full of adventures overseas. This is Cleona.
And next is Cleona’s best friend. He is steadfast, loyal, and tired of being in the friendzone. He dreams of a future with Cleona. This is Brian.
Now envision a tree, a massive, magical tree that spreads its branches high and wide. This tree brings balance to Terratalam, until it is destroyed. Those that would steal its power kill the tree, but are confounded by what is left behind: four magical stones.
Cleona and Brian are whisked away to Terratalam, and must find a way to unite the four stones, or risk being trapped in Terratalm forever.
The Foll Stones is an upcoming young adult fantasy romance that will be released Summer 2023.
Music is so important to my writing process. In fact, many of my stories have been directly inspired by a song; Fidelity blossomed from Biplane by Andrew Lockington, a wonderful piece of music from the soundtrack to The Space Between Us.
My novel The Foll Stones was recently accepted by Meryton Press (!!) and I’m currently in the editing stage. Folx, I’ve had The Foll Stones in my head since before 2010, but when I listen to a track from my playlist, I’m instantly transported to Terratalam; I can see Brian and Cleona as if they were in the room with me. That’s how magical music is.
The list of songs I’ve added to The Foll Stones playlist is long, but I wanted to share some standouts. First up is Injection by the magnificent Hans Zimmer. This piece is from Mission Impossible 2, which I guess makes it vintage at this point. The combination of vocal music and strings in this piece is dramatic and mysterious, and I just love it. It inspired a very important scene in The Foll Stones, and so deserves a place here. Listen and imagine!
Next up we have Heavy Rain from the score to the Heavy Rain video game from Quantic Dream. The music was composed by Normand Corbeil. It’s a haunting, sad piece of music that has served as the underscore for all of Terratalam. You’ll understand more once you read it, but for now, listen and be entranced.
I have a theory that as soon as you start having children, time moves twice as fast. Remember when you were small and stretches of time seemed to last forever? You wanted to grow up, be finished with school, do what you wanted to do.
Then you graduate high school, and time gets a little faster, but not much. You graduate and get a job. The days drag on and you seem to have time to spare.
Then you have kids. Zoom! Time goes by at twice it’s normal rate, and with every passing year it seems to get faster still.
I started writing The Foll Stones before my daughter was born. She’ll be thirteen in a few short months. (Pause for deep, calming breaths.)
My publisher has shown interest in a sequel to The Foll Stones, so I have returned to Terratalam (the land in which The Foll Stones takes place) and begun again. I’m seeing it all with different eyes now. These eyes have seen much more than those of thirteen years ago. I am hoping it brings more depth to my work (and not stodginess!), but time – ahem – will tell.
As life speeds by me, through me, around me, I try to stop and breath it all in. As someone once said, the days are long, but the years are short.
Take care, dear reader. XX
I am so excited to share that my young adult fantasy romance has been accepted for publication by Meryton Press! I have been working on this story for so long, I can’t really believe that it’s truly going to be shared at last!
Here’s the back cover copy as it stands now. It’s sure to be edited, because writing back cover copy is not a strength of mine!
Terratalam is a world out of balance. It rains nearly every day, the crops barely produce, and kingdoms wage war. The Great Tree was destroyed so long ago that all that remains are myths and legends.
Cleona Willow is more than ready for college. It means leaving her best friend Brian behind, which is harder than she’d like to admit. But studying in Ireland is her dream, and Cleona is excited to reconnect with her roots.from The Foll Stones by Brigid Huey
The two worlds collide when the necklace left to Cleona by her grandmother pulls her and Brian to Terratalam. There they must navigate the secrets of the past and their growing feelings for each other in order to unite the mythical Foll Stones and heal the land. If they don’t, they risk being trapped in Terratalam forever.
Brigid Huey 