2/20/25 – I’m rolling along with my Stonehenge novel, and I even have a working title!

Hey there happy reader!

I’ve been a busy author! I’ve spent a ton of time at my desk, working on my new historical novel. For some reason, it took a lot of time for me to get into the groove of this book. Despite that I had basically outlined the entire thing in my mind, getting started took a minute. I was stumped by the lack of a title for the longest time. But I decided that the simple approach was best, so, I’m calling it “The Stones.”

You would think that a book title about an iconic monument would come to mind easily. 

This one didn’t, until I stepped back and stripped it down to the most basic concept — the stone circle itself is a major character in the story and those massive boulders needed to be acknowledged. Sometimes the most obvious thoughts are the ones that don’t surface until you least expect them to!

And…bonus! 

Here’s a very rough excerpt from the opening pages:

Miriam slowly opened one eye and then the other, narrowing them and squinting in the direction of the lone window of her bedroom. A seam of light separated night from day at the horizon. She knew that it was early, but once she was awake, there was never the chance that she’d fall back to sleep. At least last evening she’d been spared the bizarre dreams she’d been experiencing for months, shadowy figures crossing great expanses of open fields, seemingly searching for something she couldn’t place. She slowly turned her cheek against the scratchy pillowcase, waiting to feel that familiar ache at the base of her skull. Thankfully, it wasn’t there today. At least not yet. Her migraines were unpredictable. While she had some warning before one struck, she never understood what caused them in the first place.

She slowly shifted into a sitting position, reminding herself that this single bed in her sparse dorm room didn’t leave much space for movement. She longed for the day when she’d finally have her own apartment, but as a graduate fellow living off a sparse grant, that wouldn’t be anytime soon. She was doing important research and had made some headway toward her dissertation, but she was not yet close to being financially independent. Sometimes she wondered if she’d ever get there. It seemed that all her college roommates were well on their way, their careers firmly established, some of them married and living in elegant doorman buildings with polished marble-floored lobbies, their furniture lavishly purchased at Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn. Those leather ottomans and linen sectional couches were a faraway dream, or so it seemed to Miriam. She was immersed in an ancient world, a place full of so many more questions than answers that she often felt like Sisyphus, constantly pushing a boulder uphill with no end in sight.

The research she did was never ending. Every time Miriam felt like she was just about to breakthrough and uncover the one missing piece that would snap the puzzle into place, she hit a wall. She had postponed her dissertation argument twice now. Her mentor and chair of the dissertation committee, Dr. Matthias Solomon had told her plainly that without meeting her current deadline date, Miriam would no longer be a PhD candidate at Columbia University. They had given her all the leeway possible, there were no more extensions to be had. The pressure she felt was enormous, and the debilitating headaches she suffered as a byproduct did not help.

Standing now on shaky feet, Miriam thought about the place she was researching — Stonehenge. She had been mesmerized by the ancient structure when she had studied abroad as an undergrad and had based her entire academic career on the theory that the massive monument on Salisbury Plain was engineered by women. What she couldn’t figure out yet, but what she was trying to uncover, was why these women seemed to be erased from the history of the place. She’d been back countless times and was about to head off to England again, this time to Oxford, for a look at some of the documents in their extensive library. She had applied to offer a seminar on her findings to date in exchange for room and board for a semester, and luckily, she had been granted that request. She had to find the key as her final dissertation defense date was set and now was only six months away. The clock was ticking, and Miriam still had more questions than answers…

This novel is told from two points of view. 

Miriam lives in the present day and Maya lives at Stonehenge. Both women share a common bond and even though they don’t know one another, their lives will mesh. It’s one-part magical realism, one-part historical fact and a little bit of suspense all rolled into one fascinating story! I’ll share more of it as time goes on, but for now, I hope I left you wanting more!