Cover Reveal: Ilana's Wish

We're only about eight weeks away from the release of Ilana's Wish, the final stand-alone novel in the series!

Here's the cover:

I can hardly believe we made it this far. It's been both a very long and very short journey, as so many things in life are. Most of all, this series has been a blessing for me.

After Ilana's Wish, only one more book awaits: Reunion, which, as we've mentioned before, was co-written by all four of us, round-robin style. It's been officially submitted, and if all goes as planned, readers will finally get to see what happens to all eight women and where they end up. We've had readers asking, especially those without everything wrapping up in a tidy bow at the end of their books like Paige and Daisy. I'm pleased with how Reunion turned out, and I think readers will be happy with it too

Remember, Victoria's Promise is in stores and available on Kindle now, and Ilana's Wish will be released in April!

Cover Reveal! Ruby's Secret

Coming October 2013...

 

At age sixty-two, life is finally beginning for newly widowed Ruby Crenshaw. Her son is grown and gone, and after long years spent as a loyal wife to her charming but unfaithful husband, she’s ready to live the life she’s always dreamed of. Her resolve is firm: she’ll never make the mistake of giving her heart to another man.

The first step in Ruby’s quest for a carefree lifestyle was to create the Newport Ladies Book Club, an unlikely gathering of women who have been her haven. Now she’s ready to take her newfound independence a step further—along with her friends from the local senior center, Ruby is jetting off to a much-needed Greece adventure. What she isn’t prepared for is Gabriel—the group’s tour guide—a native Greek and a true gentleman. His unquestionable charm is hard to resist. But resist she must—because no matter their growing attraction, Ruby is not about to fall for charming again!

 

Title Changes

        With the production for the second set in the Newport series ramping up we have all been trying to gather what we learned from the first set so as to ensure success of the next four books. There was a lot learned in the process of the first books. For instance, while we all loved the beach/reading scenes on the covers for the first set, some readers had expected the books to be light fun-loving romance novels due to the bright colors and 'soft' scenes. Even Athena, which is the only romance of those first four books, wasn't a light fun-loving story as much as it was a woman's journey to make peace with hard changes in her life. That there was an attractive man who pushed some of those issues into the spotlight for her, wasn't the only driving force of her story. While we had great response from our readers to the stories, the cover confusion is something we want to remedy with this second set. We're not yet sure what the covers will be, but we know they will still 'match' the first set, but be more reflective of the depth of story we're telling. It is interesting to note that Victoria (Julie Wright 2013) Ruby (Heather Moore 2014) do deal with fabulous love stories. Ilana (Annette Lyon 2014) and Shannon (July 2013), however, are solid women's fiction.

The other change that was suggested, to better reflect the content was to change the titles a little bit. While the first set were just the names of the character that book was about, the second set will be two word titles that include the main character's name, but also have a descriptive word. For Shannon, the title has been changed to Shannon's Hope. I will admit that I'm not in love with the change--I really like the idea of all eight books in the series matching through the single name title thing. But, I also realize that while I like to think I know how everything should be done, my part of this process is writing a really great story. The publisher studies trends and marketing aspects and reader feedback and all the other details that go in to choosing a title. So, Shannon's Hope it is and though I don't personally love it, I do see that it might better explain the story contained inside the pages and I am hopeful that it will help the readers as they dive into the pages.

Shannon's Hope will be published in July of this year. I'll post a cover and a pre-order link as soon as they are available.

Cover Reveal: ATHENA

I'm really excited to show the cover for Athena because it's the fourth book in this series, and completes the parallel portion of the series. The next four books (Shannon, Ruby, Ilana, and Victoria) will move ahead in time to the next 4 book club meetings.

When we submitted Olivia, Athena, Daisy, and Paige to our publishers, we didn't know what order they'd be released. We didn't know if the publishers would do one a year, or maybe two a year. We were working with two publishers so it was tricky to get everything lined up. When they agreed to release all four books in 2012, we were really excited. Readers wouldn't have to wait too long between books and the parallel stories will feel more like real-time, how they are meant to be.

While writing Athena, I was trying to decide who Athena would fall in love with. I was about 30 pages into the story and hadn't decided. So I emailed Josi/Annette/Julie and they all had the same opinion of who the man should be--so that made it easy.

It was a lot of fun to write Athena (except for the not so fun parts of the story), and I realized that her personality is a lot like mine. My family life and situation are completely different, but we are similar in many ways. So it will be interesting to read the reviews :-)

Athena will be released in November, but you can get an early copy at the October 6th Book Launch (Fort Union Deseret Book, Ladies Night, 6:00-8:00 p.m.)

Cover Reveal: PAIGE . . . And Final Dates!

We received official word today that all four books will be released on 2012!

It's what we hoped for all along, but something our publishers weren't sure they could promise at first. Now they can, and we have finalized dates, all in 2012 (And there was much rejoicing in the land . . .)

Here's the official line-up:

DAISY comes out in May.

PAIGE will hit shelves in August.

ATHENA will be available in November.

We've got a lot of fun stuff planned for promotion and the whole series, so stay tuned!

And now, here's the cover of PAIGE:

Olivia Cover Preview!

Here is the cover to the first book in the Newport Ladies Book Club series! As cold and shivery as I currently feel, I envy the model in the picture! It makes me want to truck on down to Newport and spend the day on the beach reading.

It's been such a neat process to work with other authors I admire and create something different and new. I signed the contract this afternoon and love how the managing editor at Covenant sends me a letter with the contracts telling me how excited she is for what I'm doing. Those letters are a huge boost to my fragile self confidence. They remind me that someone else loves what I wrote.

Olivia comes out in February. Daisy (by Josi Kilpack) will be coming next--out in either late April or early May. We will definitely be having a launch party for the release, and there will definitely be lots of fun, food and prizes involved.

In the mean time . . . YAY!