The Site Is Live — and Here's the Ledger

The site is live. If you’re reading this, you found it early — which means you get to say you were here before it was cool, and I get to say I told you so later.

Here’s what’s actually on lianashford.com right now:

The first two chapters of The Price of Walking Away, free, no signup required. Chapter One starts in the rain with a snapped heel and a stranger who already knows her name. If that hooks you, the rest is serializing free on Wattpad — new chapters weekly.

The newsletter, which I’ve named The Ledger. It’s not a marketing list. It’s the thing that shows up once a week with new-chapter alerts, epilogue scenes that never get posted anywhere else, and first look at whatever I’m writing next. If you’ve ever wanted to know what happens to a contract marriage after the contract part stops being the interesting part — that’s where those scenes live.

And this journal. Behind-the-research notes, writing updates, and the occasional confession about which scenes took eleven drafts.

A word about why the newsletter is called The Ledger. In the book, the heroine prices everything — grief, loyalty, silence. It’s how she survives. When I was building this site, I kept coming back to that: a ledger is a record of what you owe and what you’re owed. That’s what a newsletter between a writer and readers is, if you do it honestly. I’ll try to keep my side of it.

One practical note: if you want the next chapter alert, subscribe. If you don’t, the chapters will still be free — you’ll just hear about them later, from someone else, at a party, and you’ll have to pretend you already knew.

— L.A. Ashford

Also in the journal: a guide to the Toronto places in this book — which ones you can actually visit, and which one is a hospital you hopefully never have to.