Cover art

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    Touch of Frost cover revealed (again) …

    21 Comments

    Well, it looks like I posted too soon.

    My publisher has decided to change the cover art for Touch of Frost, the first book in my Mythos Academy young adult urban fantasy series. I’ve known about this for a while. In fact, my editor told me that they’d decided to change the cover a few days after I posted the first cover here. That’s how it goes sometimes. LOL.

    At left is what the new cover will look like — aka the girl cover. Below, I’ve posted what the old cover looked like — aka the gargoyle cover.

    It’s not uncommon for cover art to be changed. Like the books themselves, the cover art goes through several different rounds of development and lots of folks have to sign off on the cover art before it’s finally approved.

    I like both covers, but I think the girl cover is a better fit for the book/series. To me, it’s a little hipper and edgier and says young adult urban fantasy more than the gargoyle cover did. I think that’s important  since Touch of Frost is all about my heroine, Gwen Frost, and is told from her first-person point of view. Here’s the back cover copy for the book:

    My name is Gwen Frost, and I go to Mythos Acad­emy — a school of myths, magic and war­rior whiz kids, where even the lowli­est geek knows how to chop off somebody’s head with a sword and Logan Quinn, the hottest Spar­tan guy in school, also hap­pens to be the deadliest.

    But lately, things have been weird, even for Mythos. First, mean girl Jas­mine Ash­ton was mur­dered in the Library of Antiq­ui­ties. Then, some­one stole the Bowl of Tears, a mag­i­cal arti­fact that can be used to bring about the sec­ond Chaos War. You know, death, destruc­tion and lots of other bad, bad things. Freaky stuff like this goes on all the time at Mythos, but I’m deter­mined to find out who killed Jas­mine and why – espe­cially since I should have been the one who died …

    So now that I have the final cover for the books, I can go forward with things on my end, like getting flyers and bookmarks made. I’ll post here when I get the bookmarks and let you guys know how to get some.

    By the way, I’ve seen the preliminary cover for Kiss of Frost, the second book in the series, and it is freaking awesome. I can’t wait to share that cover with you guys. 😉

    Which cover do you guys like better? Share in the comments.

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    Touch of Frost cover …

    7 Comments

    Some of you may have seen this on Amazon already, but here’s the cover for Touch of Frost, the first book in my Mythos Academy young adult urban fantasy series that’s coming out on July 26. Pretty cool, huh?

    Of course, I’ll be doing all the usual things now that I have the cover art, including making flyers and bookmarks. It will probably be several weeks before I get around to doing those things, since I’m buried with work right now, but when I get the bookmarks made, I’ll post about them here on the blog.

    In the meantime, Touch of Frost is up for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Also, Kiss of Frost, the second book in the series that’s coming out Nov. 29, is also up on Amazon already. So go forth and pre-order, if you are so inclined.

    Here’s the back cover copy for Touch of Frost:

    My name is Gwen Frost, and I go to Mythos Acad­emy — a school of myths, magic and war­rior whiz kids, where even the lowli­est geek knows how to chop off somebody’s head with a sword and Logan Quinn, the hottest Spar­tan guy in school, also hap­pens to be the deadliest.

    But lately, things have been weird, even for Mythos. First, mean girl Jas­mine Ash­ton was mur­dered in the Library of Antiq­ui­ties. Then, some­one stole the Bowl of Tears, a mag­i­cal arti­fact that can be used to bring about the sec­ond Chaos War. You know, death, destruc­tion and lots of other bad, bad things. Freaky stuff like this goes on all the time at Mythos, but I’m deter­mined to find out who killed Jas­mine and why – espe­cially since I should have been the one who died …

    Are you ready for July yet? I am. 😉

  • Tangleds Threads revealed …

    8 Comments

    Here is (more or less) the final cover for Tangled Threads, the fourth book in my Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series which will come out on April 26, 2011.

    Once again, big kudos go out to Tony Mauro, who created the cover art. So far, Tony has done all the covers for the books in the series, and I think they just keep getting better and better. Every time I think that he can’t possibly top the last cover, he comes up with a way to do it. Thanks, Tony! 😉

    In other news, the book is up for pre-order at Amazon. It doesn’t look like it’s up at Barnes & Noble yet, but hopefully, it will be up there before too much longer. (And no, I have no control over when either Amazon or B&N puts my books up for pre-order.)

    Those of you who read Venom have already seen this, since it was in the back of the book, but you can read the first chapter of Tangled Threads on the website here.

    Now that I have the final cover art, I can get some bookmarks made. I’ll post here on the blog when I have those and how readers can get them.

    I also plan to write another free short story or two to tie in with Tangled Threads. It will probably be a while before I get to these, though. I’ve got back-to-back deadlines through the end of the year already. I’m thinking at least one of the stories will be from Jo-Jo’s point of view, but we’ll see where my muse takes me.

    For now, I’m just going to sit back and admire my shiny new cover.

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    Oh, what a tangled web Gin weaves …

    12 Comments

    Look what my editor sent me — the preliminary cover art for Tangled Threads, the fourth Elemental Assassin book. So pretty! So shiny! 😉

    Seriously, I think this is another kick-ass cover. There are so many little details that I love about it — the use of the spider rune in the title, the rune showing on Gin’s hand again, how tough and cool bad-ass she looks. And the background is just perfect, since a lot of the action in the book takes place at a train yard.

    For those of you who missed it, here’s the back cover copy for Tangled Threads:

    I’d rather face a dozen lethal assas­sins any night than deal with some­thing as tricky, con­vo­luted, and frag­ile as my feelings. But here I am. Gin Blanco, the semi-retired assas­sin known as the Spi­der. Hov­er­ing out­side sexy busi­ness­man Owen Grayson’s front door like a ner­vous teenage girl. One thing I like about Owen: he doesn’t shy away from my past—or my present. And right now I have a bull’s-eye on my fore­head. Cold-blooded Fire ele­men­tal Mab Mon­roe has hired one of the smartest assas­sins in the busi­ness to trap me. Elek­tra LaFleur is skilled and effi­cient, with deadly elec­tri­cal ele­men­tal magic as potent as my own Ice and Stone pow­ers. Which means there’s a fifty-fifty chance one of us won’t sur­vive this bat­tle. I intend to kill LaFleur—or die trying—because Mab wants the assas­sin to take out my baby sis­ter, Detec­tive Bria Coolidge, too. The only prob­lem is, Bria has no idea I’m her long-lost sib­ling … or that I’m the mur­derer she’s been chas­ing through Ash­land for weeks. And what Bria doesn’t know just might get us both dead …

    In other news, Scott on my Facebook fan page alerted me to the fact that Tangled Threads is now up for pre-order at Amazon. So go forth and buy, if you wish. It looks like the book will be out in May 2011 (April 26 to be exact), unless something drastic changes. I’m pretty sure that book #5 will be out on October 2011, but I’m still waiting on confirmation on that one too.

    Anyway, I’m doing the happy dance about how cool the cover is. I hope you guys like it too! 😉

  • Venom cover art …

    6 Comments

    So look what showed up in my e-mail last week — the preliminary cover art for Venom.

    So cool! So shiny! So cool! So shiny! Okay, I’ll quit gushing now. 😉

    Seriously, though, I think this is another awesome cover. What really impresses me about it are the colors — I can just imagine how pretty they’re going to look when the book is finally printed. And the title should really pop since it’s done in that light, glowing blue. And how neat is it to have the spider rune in the title and showing on Gin’s hand again as well?

    As an author, you never know what you’re going to get when your editor sends you cover art. But I have to say that the folks at Pocket really keep impressing me. I’m already excited to see what they do for Elemental Assassin #4 and #5.

    And you know what the best part is? The cover actually fits the book. Those riverboats you see in the background? Well, Gin gets on board one of them during the course of Venom. So consider that a little teaser for the book, which comes out Sept. 28. 😉