by Ron Vitale

I started writing Found: Cinderella's Secret Diaries (book 3) on my birthday back in January 2013. Over the next year, I would alternate days throughout the week and either run or write. Throughout 2013, I trained and ran for 2 marathons, Philadelphia's Broad Street Run (10 miler) and the ODDyssey half-marathon. That's a lot of running. During that time, I used my exercising to think and work out plot points for Found.

And that's what I wanted to share here: Writing is hard work. I had written the entire book and then, after re-reading it, realized that whole sections needed to be deleted and I would have to start over from scratch. My main goal in writing Found was to come full circle so that we could see Cinderella from when she was still young, her marriage fallen apart to despair and then redemption. Our lives are like roller coasters. We all have our up and down times. Just like Cinderella. No matter how the book ends, that does not mean that the characters are forever frozen in time. They are fluid and will move on (if they didn't die at the end of the book).

There's a message that I wanted to weave throughout my series and it's a pretty basic one: You need to love yourself first before you can love another. All the mess and angst that Cinderella goes through can all be boiled down to that one point. And let me be clear: Loving yourself doesn't mean she's self-centered, egotistical or looking out only for herself. That is not the type of love that I mean. It's enjoying the person you are, relying on yourself and not being rescued by a Prince.

When I finished the book, I started working with my graphic designer on the cover and we went back and forth on several drafts. I wanted a strong image so that I could continue to tell a narrative on the covers. The first book, Lost, you only see the glass slipper. On Stolen, you see the back of Cinderella, but in Found, the journey is complete and you now see her face on. She's confident now and can face the world. With that said, I'm happy to share the cover for my latest book:

Here is the back cover blurb:

"For two years, Cinderella has searched for her lost daughter who had been kidnapped by Emperor Napoleon. With magic and at her wit's end, she searches for her long lost enemy, the Silver Fox, in a desperate attempt to convince him to help her find her daughter.

Allied with Jeremiah, the witch hunter, Cinderella stops at nothing to find her daughter and to defeat Napoleon. With time running out as only Russia remains strong against the Emperor's army, Cinderella will sacrifice all she knows to find her daughter, but will she lose herself or be found?"

It's been a roller coaster writing this book. I've had good days and bad days in which I did not think I would complete the book. But still, I worked at it. I did not give up. When I needed to, I took some time to think between drafts and trained for my running races. That enabled me to work the kinks out in the book until I was able to finish.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I do. I'm in the final phases of work and it'll be published this spring (by the end of March 2014). I'll have more news on that soon. Thank you again for everyone who has supported me. Without my family and their patience, these books would never have seen the light of day. I wish to especially thank my wife for her insight, love and support. Thank you.