New Title & Cover Reveal for my WIP!
Last week was a busy one for my current book, which, up until now, I've been calling The Mermaid's Tear.
I've been working with my [longsuffering] graphic designer, Fiona Jayde, for about a month to create the cover for the new book. I quickly realized that the artwork I'd kinda had in mind for basically the last eight years did not really suit either my target audience or the flavour of the book.
So, after a whole lot of market research, we took the cover in a new direction. And when Fiona sent me the draft, I LOVED it…
And my boys said that the artwork was okay, but they would never pick up a book that had the word "Mermaid" in the title.
This is a problem, since teen boys are half the demographic I am shooting for with this one.
So, with my family, we came up with the alternative title of The Undine's Jewel, and then I did a Facebook poll.
From the results of that and some more market research, I did one more, and the title was officially changed to The Undine's Tear.
Now I have a title that I love and doesn't turn off half my market. And, when I got the final proof for the cover, my boys all said, "I like it!".
And I am so excited, because I LOVE IT, TOO!
She was raised to save her people—as long as she doesn't go mad and kill them all first.
What do you think?
Blurb:
For as long as Calandra can remember, she has been running from the Madness…
Calandra is the most powerful undine Healer to be born on Sirenia for three millennia. She has been raised to be the saviour of her people, the only one with a hope of healing the Heartstone that hides their civilization. However, she has questions. Why must her kind capture human males to survive? Why do all the powerful Healers go mad? And why does her aunt, Queen Adonia, seem determined to hide the truth about her people's history?
Across the sea in England, Zale is unaware of his merman identity until a series of accidents leaves his father dead and his friend blinded. Fearing his own elemental powers, he flees from his home and becomes a spectacle on display for money. When the beautiful and mysterious Abela frees him and tells him that he is the last male of his kind, he finds himself on a quest to save his mother and the sister he's never met from the same dark forces that pursue him. But if he can't control his powers, he may destroy everything he's trying to save.
Meanwhile, the Heartstone is failing, and along with it, the protective barrier it powers. To save the stone and her people, Calandra must choose between enslaving the man she loves, or trusting a cryptic message left behind by the mother who abandoned her as a baby that could change everything. And the Madness is calling…
In this young adult historical fantasy, join merfolk, sphinxes, dragons, and humans as their lives become entwined on the search for the true meaning of redemption. But when they find it, will it be all that they had hoped for?
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Happy Monday! What's new with you?
The reason the first book in the Rise of the Grigori series came to be called The Undine’s Tear, the significance of the stones on all my covers, and more. Includes new insights into the covers and crystals on them.