Saturday, July 20, 2013

Covering another essential

Now that I've written The Fire and sent it to the first of several beta readers, I've had the opportunity to devote more time to the other things authors must do in preparing a book for market. One of those things is picking a cover. After weeks of consideration, I've decided to go with a comet theme for the cover of the fourth book of the Northwest Passage series.

In doing so, I'm taking my cues not from images of the Great Fire of 1910, the climactic event of the novel, but rather the title of a 1978 made-for-television movie. In A Fire in the Sky, the fire is a comet that is discovered just eight days before it makes face time with Phoenix, Arizona.

No comets collide with the Earth in The Fire, but one does take center stage in the first part of the novel. Halley's comet dazzles the community of Wallace, Idaho, and the world, for several weeks in the spring of 1910, presages historic events, and alters how several principal characters interact with each other.

The Fire, the sequel to The Journey, is scheduled for an early September release.