The Site Is Live, and Here's What It Cost

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 What It Cost. 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 What It Cost. 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: every one of these stories is a tally of what a woman pays to get free. 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.