Word Salad II

A goddess in the making, or a demon reborn...?

In the remote mountain village where she was born, Mariarta dil Alicg lives the untroubled life of a peasant girl...until, soon after a mysterious stranger's arrival, she starts to hear voices in the wind.

The voices whisper strange secrets in Mariarta’s ears -- promising her the power to command the stormwind, hinting at an unknown, magical heritage, and prophesying a fate marvelous past all Mariarta’s imaginings.

Then a curse falls on Mariarta's village, shattering the lives of her family and friends. Mariarta must set out across the mountain realm of Raetia in search of a way to break the curse -- while also hunting for the truth about the beautiful and terrible being who is trying to possess her soul.

Mariarta’s search will lead her into hidden domains of sorcery both dreadful and wondrous, and will finally embroil the young woman in the growing rebellion against her land's cruel Austriac oppressors. But not before Mariarta comes face to face at last with the immortal Lady of the Storms, and challenges her to one final battle for control of her life, her soul, and her destiny...

...Some of you may know that the first of the "Raetian Tales" books is now available in paperback. (It's been doing okay, by the way.)

With this in mind, I'm now turning the e-versions of the book loose on the Net for free download. Anyone who's interested in reading the whole thing can grab a copy from the storage at Box.net.

The book comes in three versions. There's an Adobe .pdf version, a Microsoft Reader .LIT version, and a Palm-friendly .PDB version. (If anyone who downloads one of these wants to port the book over to some other reader format or whatever, please feel free. I'd ask, though, that you send me a copy so I can store it here too.)

If, after you've read the book, you liked it and feel like you want to encourage the writer to do the second one in the series (it's outlined), there's a button in the left-hand column at the Raetian Tales website/blog where you can stuff something in the tip jar if you feel so inclined. And if you wanted to buy a paperback edition of the book, well, Heaven forbid I should talk you out of the idea.  Here's a link.

Additional resources: for those of you who're Google Earth users, we have a basic placemarks file available where you can view the major (and minor) locations in the book. You can download that file here.