Synopsis

When Jessie Gibbs meets Lemuel Sanders, she thinks she has finally found her ideal man—until she discovers that he is the ghost of a Civil War soldier. For 144 years, Lem has kept vigil at his unmarked battlefield grave, seeking someone to complete a personal mission so he can go to his final rest. As love grows between them, Jessie is torn. If she succeeds in fulfilling Lem’s wish, she’ll lose him when he passes into the afterlife. But if she fails and he remains in the world, she’ll never be free to find intimacy with a living man.

​A riveting story of faith, passion, and selfless devotion, Stones River shows the power of love to overcome all obstacles—even death itself.

Stones River is Book I of The Sentinel Heart Trilogy, with Book II, Soldier’s Joy, coming out in 2026!

Amazon ~ B&N ~ BAM ~ Indiebound

Guest Post

Why I’m an Indie Author

By M. F. Jones

In 2012, I began looking for a publisher for an early version of Stones River. I had been a magazine editor for many years and—timidly, fearfully—I sent a query to an agent I’d had a good, long relationship with. She responded at once asking for the manuscript.

I’ll never forget the day I heard back from her. My family and I were living in a log cabin in the country, and just as I saw her email come in and read her name, the power went out—a not infrequent occurrence. I ran screaming down the stairs to my husband and said, “We have to drive to the shopping center where we can get WiFi and I can read G.’s message about my book!” He is my biggest supporter, so he dropped everything, and we sped the five miles to the shopping center—me praying that the power outage hadn’t affected it.

The stores were all ablaze with lights. Holding my breath, I opened the email, bracing myself for a kind rejection. Instead, as I read, I gasped, and there may have been some tears. My husband said, “What? Is everything okay?”

“She said she loves it. She actually used that word. LOVE!”  I read on. “She said she’ll send it around, but the market is tough and I should be prepared that it might not find a home.”  I knew that was true, but at that moment it really didn’t matter. The fact that this top agent loved my book was my validation as a real writer.

The editors G. sent the manuscript to had lots of praise, which was wonderful and affirming, but no one made an offer. After several tries, G. and I amicably agreed to stop the submissions. Over the next twelve years, I revised the book and wrote five others.

While polishing Stones River, I tried to find an agent for two of my other novels. When I was a young editor in book publishing, publishers would accept unsolicited submissions, but – my theory – with the ubiquity of personal computers came a tidal wave of manuscripts. Most publishers slammed the hatches shut against this deluge of unagented submissions.

The result was that now agents were flooded, and it became extremely difficult to get one. After several fruitless tries, I drew back and did a reality check. Having begun my writing career at an advanced age, and thinking about the time it would take to get just one of my six books published, I was sobered. Current estimates are that, assuming the work is good, it may take a year or more to get an agent, and then another year or more for the agent to place the book with a publisher. And then nine months or more for the book to go through production and be released.

I want to see all of my present books, and some future ones, published. But the only way to make that happen in a timely way is to produce them myself, bypassing the publishing industry and going directly to readers. It requires a significant investment of money, time, and energy;  I hope to earn enough to offset the cost of producing the next book/s, but I (with the full approval of my wonderful husband) am willing to sacrifice to realize my dream. And I’m also sacrificing the possibility of recognition by the literary establishment; mainstream reviewers, other media, and bookstores generally look down on independently published books, assuming them all to be amateurish.

But my goal is neither fortune nor fame.  My hope is to reach individual readers, to entertain them, touch their emotions, and maybe even inspire them. That will be my greatest reward.

About the Author

Before beginning to write full-time in 2008, M. F. (Mimi) Jones was an editor at Viking Press, where she discovered Judith Guest’s bestseller Ordinary People in the slush pile and became its editor. She went on to senior editorial positions at Redbook, Family Circle, and Reader’s Digest magazines. In addition to writing, she’s a devotee of reading, knitting (while listening to audiobooks), choral singing, and hiking with her rescue dog, Ruby. She lives in Tennessee with her husband, composer Douglas Hedwig.

Website * Goodreads

Giveaway

An author-signed copy of Stones River: A Civil War Story of Courage, Sacrifice, and an Otherworldly Love (one winner) (USA only) (ends Oct 21)

STONES RIVER by M.F. Jones Book Tour Giveaway