“Batch 3” or “Grand Prize Day!”

This is it, guys: Time to announce the final “quantity (as of persons or things) considered as a group” of winners in my “Stone Kingdom” Launch Week Giveaway! And those three winners are… *drumroll, nail-biting suspense*…

Brittany S.!

Alyson Grauer!

And Aisazia! … and Erika Beebe!

(‘Cause I’m sleep-deprived and don’t even know what was going on while I was picking names, so whatever, we’ll have an extra winner.)

Holy cow, you ~~three~~ four, do you know what you’ve got coming to you?! Anything you want! That’s right – you get your pick of any 2 previous prizes offered during this giveaway! Song lyric word art, mystery illustrations, commentaries – you name it! (Full list of available prizes here.) And on top of that, one of you is getting an autographed paperback of “The Stone Kingdom”. Biggest congratulations of all go to…

Aisazia!

Hooray for you all! Contact me within the next week with the address to which I should ship the prize (unless you’ve already done so previously, in which case you’re covered), and it’s all yours!

**Note to all winners: If I don’t hear back from you within 7 days after your name is announced, I go back in the pool to pick a new victor. Prizes feel sad when no one comes to claim them. Of course, I’m sure you’ll all be far too eager to lay hands on your winnings for this defaulting rule to come into play; still, figured I’d best give you fair warning.**

So ends the Launch Week of “The Stone Kingdom (Book One of The Wilderhark Tales)”. (…of which people have said:

“A charming and excellent read.”

“Wry wit, clever twists, and, of course, dashing love interests.”

“Not only fun and funny, but relevant and wise.”

“A highly vivid, carefully formulated story … [Shipley] has a style all her own, and it’s lovely.”)

My sincere thanks to everyone who participated in the celebration in any way, great or small, to the fun-loving spirits who played with me during our rounds of scavenger hunting, to those who have already purchased the book, and to those who haven’t yet gotten around to it but totally plan to soon. The paperback’s available on Amazon and CreateSpace, and e-books await your Nook and/or Kindle. Once you’ve had a chance to fly through the story, I’d super appreciate it if you posted a review on the retail sites, pretty please and thank you. (:

I’d also like to take a moment to extend extra thanks to everyone who’s already posted a review or a book release spotlight on their blogs (too many to list here, though everyone who I knew about ahead of time got a place on “The Stone Kingdom”s acknowledgements page!), and to Tonja Drecker and Marissa Halvorson for granting me guest post space on their blogs this past week.

Well, I think that’s all the “i”s dotted and “t”s crossed. Time for this blog to start working its way back to normal! …after one last reminder of what this week’s been all about.

* * * * *

“Love and prince,

Both true, wed rose of white in realm of stone;

For blood begins,

But naught can be put right by blood alone.”

One thoughtless act is all it takes to bring the curse threatened on Rosalba’s christening day to pass. Now the princess must combine her desperate determination with the service of benevolent tailor Edgwyn Wyle to find the second half of the key to her kingdom’s restoration.

The Stone Kingdom

Book Two of The Wilderhark Tales

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An enchantress’s curse turns a spoiled royal into a beast;

A princess’s pricked finger places her under a hundred-year spell;

Bales of straw are spun as golden as the singing harp whisked down a giant beanstalk –

All within sight of Wilderhark, the forest that’s seen it all.

You’ve heard the stories –

of young men scaling rope-like braids to assist the tower-bound damsel;

of gorgeous gowns appearing just in time for a midnight ball;

of frog princes, and swan princes,

and princes saved from drowning by maidens of the sea.