Cover Reveal for Crow's Rest from Crow and Pitcher Press

I've been working hard behind the scenes to get Crow's Rest ready for a May 22 release, and I can finally share the cover! I started out by teasing on Facebook and my websites with a partial cover:

And now, the entire thing! (you can click on it to see it bigger)

I hope you all love it as much as I do! Kudos to Kelley York of X-Potion Designs for another great cover. She actually did the design on the earlier edition of this book, released through Spencer Hill Press in 2015, which was styled after a mockup I did with stock art.

This time around I didn't want to hassle with licensing and permissions, so we used entirely my own work (plus a little painting by Kelley, like the skirt). I paid to do a private photo shoot at Preston Castle with model Renee Sprouse and we got some great shots for this cover, Merlin's Stronghold's cover, and for assorted teasers. It was well worth the time and expense--and almost worth the 105+ degree day of the shoot.

The archway and brick, and stone rail, were taken on the front porch of Preston Castle, a haunted former boys' reformatory I've been photographing for about a decade.* I knew it would make the perfect framework for introducing Avery, and leading us into a magical world.

The path beyond the arch is at Bunratty Castle in Ireland, in the Folk Park which features tableaux of villages and cottages from surrounding areas. My husband and I stumbled into the grounds directly after landing, and my own skewed perceptions (from jetlag) lent them a surreal quality indeed. The real path is paved, but Kelley and I liked the wilder look of a grassy walk found in Stourhead Gardens (taken on the same UK trip).

Kelley expertly fused all these elements into an image that I hope conveys a bit of the story, with Avery's feet planted in one world but her attention captured by another. We have more great covers in store with the rest of the series, plus in the weeks leading up to the release on May 22, I'll be sharing teasers (some with the shots that didn't make the covers) and other fun content.

Stay tuned for more!



*I've collected my photos of Preston Castle in an art book, Capturing The Castle: Images of Preston Castle (2006-2016), which you can purchase on Amazon, B&N, etc with links here

Crow's Rest Book Trailer Reveal!

Today, the book trailer for Crow's Rest goes live!





Also today, on Operation Awesome, I give a closer look at the images that make up the trailer, so please go check it out! You can find pre-order and Goodreads info on Crow's Rest here.

For this blog post, I thought it would be interesting to share an earlier version of an attempt at making a video trailer. I had some great raw footage of the Castle and its interior, and even some models for the characters--but felt like I was missing a few other scenes. Without buying some stock video footage (which gets expensive!), I felt like this was too disjointed and abandoned it in favor of using still images and PowerPoint. You can see that the script changed a little, too (this one has no sound)




Thanks for stopping by!

Crow's Rest is Available in Paperback for Preorder!

I was stalking my own book on Goodreads yesterday (we writers can't help ourselves) and noticed something new on the Crow's Rest page:

a small note saying other editions (1) led me to click, and to discover that gasp my book has an ISBN!

Some further poking around led me to Amazon.com, where I discovered it's available for preorder in paperback!!!!!
(I write YA and have a literary license to use this many exclamation points; don't try this at home)


Amazon doesn't have the cover up yet, but should soon, and then it will be really shiny. It will start showing up on other retail sites too, and then the ebook will follow.

After I saw all this, it was really difficult to concentrate on the scene I was working on in Crow's Rest's sequel, No Man's Land, but at the same time it's really motivating. If people are getting excited about CR, I'd better get that second book finished so there's no delay in the publishing schedule!

Happy Wednesday, everybody!