Then I realized that most books in my genre had covers that (at the time) looked more like this.
(This may or may not be the book I was totally ripping off with my first version of then-Golden. Ahem.) Well, I was always one to learn from others, so I got serious with my cover art and came up with this.
Yes, I went so far as to try to copy the font. Because I’m telling you, I learn, man. I learn. Not how to center my name, apparently, but you know. I solved that problem by just not bothering to put it on my next version.
I apparently did not learn the beauty of a simple, un-cluttered cover yet, LOL. Nor how to draw men all that well, but never mind that. And let’s also ignore the fact that I had no clue what my Brook’s clothes would have looked like (cut me some slack–my only research tools were a 30-year-old set of World Book Encyclopedias [for those of you young’uns scratching your head, that’s like Wikipedia, but in book form]).
Then came college, marriage, kids. Golden got shelved. I wrote 25 other manuscripts. I published 9 of them with WhiteFire, Summerside Press/Guidepost, and Harvest House. And so, when my agent said, “Hey, do you have anything that’s Edwardian? Or could be?”…when I pulled out that first manuscript again…
I can’t adequately express how much I love how this version turned out…and how it would have impossible to get all the nuance of the characters without all that experience under my belt. All the other books. All the breaks from it. Obviously we can’t spend almost two decades on every book, and almost all of my other sales came on books that I turned into the editor within a week of finishing. But I think in a lot of ways, those first books are hardest to get right. Because they’re the hardest for us to change. The hardest for us to let go of enough to do what needs done, and to attack with skill learned in later lessons. But I can say with complete certainty that were it not for these…
I wouldn’t have the joy of presenting this–the cover of The Lost Heiress!
Brook Eden has never known where she truly belongs. Though raised in the palace of Monaco, she’s British by birth and was brought to the Grimaldis under suspicious circumstances as a babe. When Brook’s friend Justin uncovers the fact that Brook is likely a missing heiress from Yorkshire, Brook leaves the sun of the Mediterranean to travel to the moors of the North Sea to the estate of her supposed family.The mystery of her mother’s death haunts her, and though her father is quick to accept her, the rest of the family and the servants of Whitby Park are not. Only when Brook’s life is threatened do they draw close—but their loyalty may come too late to save Brook from the same threat that led to tragedy for her mother.As heir to a dukedom, Justin is no stranger to balancing responsibilities. When the matters of his estate force him far from Brook, the distance between them reveals that what began as friendship has grown into something much more. But how can their very different loyalties and responsibilities ever come together?And then, for a second time, the heiress of Whitby Park is stolen away because of the very rare treasure in her possession—and this time only the servants of Whitby can save her.