New Book Covers

While I've been preoccupied with a number of tasks, chores and drama (including working on the newest Thea Campbell mystery) my talented friend Tracy Hayes has been creating brand new covers for the print version covers of Death By A Dark Horse, Levels Of Deception and An Error In Judgment. Yes, the photographs are mine, but without Tracy's ability to take raw material and make magic happen, they would have been just ordinary photographs. So, as they say .... Ladies and Gentlemen, I present ---

The horse in this picture is not my Eddie -- who is white (gray, if you're being absolutely correct), and therefore unsuitable -- but Stacey Sikorski's very excellent dressage horse High Spirrits. The photograph was taken at a clinic with Henrik Johansen, and Spirrit was exhibiting the exuberance that earned him his name. Stacey, ever the tactful rider, was simply sitting quietly and waiting for him to settle down. I think his energy comes through in the picture and particularly the book cover! 

This photograph is actually a "negative" of the original. Fossilized Trilobites are not white, as you may know, but black. With the exception of the trilobite in the center, all the images are fossils my husband and I dug at a little place in Eastern Washington called Stonerose Interpretive Center (go ahead and follow the link if you are intrigued). I do own the trilobite, but bought it so many years ago that I can't remember where now.

This is a photograph of my daughter -- and yes, she is this beautiful, but she's not blue. And no, guys, you don't get a link to her. We staged the photograph specifically for the book cover. Bless her heart, she was very patient with me. Of course, she could simply be used to her quirky mother by now!

I hope you all enjoy these new covers even half as much as I do. The images above are for the print covers. The ebook covers will follow suit, if they haven't already. Many thanks to everyone who has aided and abetted my wild schemes and nutty ideas!

An Error In Judgment -- redressed

Book covers are important. They entice -- and tell the browser a bit about the book, the tone, and information they will need to make the all important decision:

To read or not to read.

In my never-ending quest to come up with just the right cover ... here's the newest one for AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT.

This is the e-book version. The print will be similar. What do you think?

He's not dead, but...

Artist/writer Tracy Hayes and I have been tossing around ideas for a cover for An Error in Judgment. She decided she wanted to do more of a scene from the book this time.

"Fine," I said. "Go for it."

She emailed me links to a bunch of cover styles and we narrowed it down to one we both liked. Then she asked me to help her look for some images. 

"We'd make a good cover!"

You may find this hard to believe, but artists don't work from memory.

Cats do the best job at keeping paper under control

Yeah, I know, surprised me too. (All of the above)

Anyway, she told me she was having trouble finding an image of a middle-aged dead guy, so I went to work and Googled images of sleeping men. Hey, sleeping men often look dead. Tell me I'm wrong.

[there's no picture here because, well, come on -- not cute!]

However, it soon became apparent that photographers don't go for realism. Most of the pictures I found were somewhat evenly divided between men who were horizontal and had their eyes closed, but were smiling, and nearly naked men curled up in bed with nearly naked women.

None of them looked very dead.

In fact, quite a number of them looked pretty lively. I sincerely doubt any of them were sleeping.

Then I hit the jackpot. Students asleep in a lecture hall.

Those guys looked dead.

I owe a debt of gratitude to boring professors. I think Tracy's going to use a couple of those snoring students to help concoct the cover. If not, I know how to look for images of dead guys now: Google "bored men."