Recently, I decided to take a chance and dive into something completely different. If you haven’t already heard about it, Amazon has launched a new way to publish books called Kindle Vella. Instead of a complete manuscript, books are published by continuous episodes reminiscent of the old days when Charles Dickens and other Victorian writers like Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, George Meredith, and Robert Louis Stevenson would publish in literary magazines in a serialized format. At Kindle Vella, the first three episodes of the novel are free and subsequent episodes are unlocked with tokens which are purchased.

The Lady in the Blue Dress is my first foray into this new publishing venue. It’s a book I actually began a good while back but have returned to often over the years, combining fantasy, paranormal, and my love of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. I hope you’ll drop by Kindle Vella and read my first three episodes for free and then decide if you’d like to take this adventure with me. From what I gather, you get you’re first 200 tokens free when you join.

Mika Devalieur desperately wants to refuse her grandmother’s last wish, but she can’t. Reluctantly, she travels from New Orleans to rural Virginia to deliver a precious Pre-Raphaelite painting into the hands of James Clairmont, someone she’s never laid eyes on before. But something isn’t right, and James Clairmont knows much more about her family and the painting than he is letting on. There are so many secrets about him, about her, and most especially, The Lady in the Blue Dress.