Monthly Archives: May 2015
Enter the Giveaway!
This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.
Your cover can also be worn…
A few weeks ago I mentioned I’d purchased a pendant for myself with The Unraveling cover. Ta-da!
Thank you, Mary Behre! I love it. I wrote about how Mary, author and artist, started making them and showed other samples in a post here, but you can contact Mary through her website (http://marybehre.com/ ) or at authormarybehre AT gmail.com. She sells them for $20 plus shipping.
At last: My cover for THE UNRAVELING
Woo-hoo!
Welcome to my cover reveal for The Unraveling, Volume One of The Luminated Threads!
Isn’t it beautiful? I’m so very lucky to be working with the creative and talented Craig Shields. (I wrote a post about him a few days ago—see it here.)
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About the Book:
In 1868 England, the competition to control agriculture is fierce…
…and nobody says no to Derby’s industrial magnate.
Except Annmar Masterson. The nineteen-year-old rejects his improper advances and instead takes an advertising position on a farm. She discovers the isolated valley is home to gifted species—including animal and plant shifters—who hide their lives from the rest of England. The blue threads only she sees on their clockwork machinery prove her heritage is rooted with theirs, but their world is so different that Annmar doesn’t know if she’ll ever belong.
Shapeshifter Daeryn Darkcoat blames himself for the death of his mate and swears he won’t be responsible for another pack. But when the farm he loves falls victim to an endless run of strange pests eating the crops, he joins the hunt, taking charge of an unruly team of predator shifters. In the midst of the battle, Annmar stirs feelings he can’t resist.
As Annmar becomes entangled in the fight against the pests, and with Daeryn, she discovers her magic might help…if she can learn to use it properly. If not, she’ll be forced to leave the people she has come to care for and become what she fears most: nothing more than another cog in the magnate’s gears.
THE UNRAVELING is a full-length novel, approximately 350 pages, for readers 18+ (new adult and older).
Please note: This is volume 1 of a three-part serialized novel. Volumes 2 & 3 will be published in 2015 to complete THE LUMINATED THREADS, a steampunk fantasy romance. To be notified of these releases, sign up for Laurel’s Newsletter.
Preorder from Amazon for the special price of only .99 cents!
Because the cover just uploaded, the “Look Inside” feature isn’t active. To read the first chapters, click here.
The Unraveling releases June 23, 2015, in ebook and trade paperback.
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Connect with me!
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This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.
Time for another teaser?
The Unraveling is a steampunk fantasy, and that means magic powering the machines!
Oh, yes, The Unraveling offers plenty of magic, including its magical cover that will be revealed tomorrow!
With two days to go to my cover reveal, let me introduce my artist, Craig Shields!
Did you notice on my Thursday post I had my thumb over part of the credits next to my new logo? I couldn’t reveal too much at once (!) and my thumb hid…
My cover artist is Craig Shields.
Craig is the artist behind the stunning covers of Claudia Gray’s Firebird series: A Thousand Pieces of You and Ten Thousand Skies Above You. I love his vibrant use of color, particularly in this second:
No surprise it’s sitting in the #1 spot on the Goodreads list Most Beautiful YA Covers of 2015!
Craig has created the cover artwork for 30+ covers, and will soon be featuring his book cover art in the link on my cover. His book page isn’t live yet, but you can view his advertising, magazine and personal illustrations in his portfolio at www.craigshields.co.uk.
When I contacted Craig, he was excited to work on a steampunk cover, and I was excited to work with such a talented artist to express my story. Though The Unraveling is geared to a new adult audience, it doesn’t fit what readers currently expect from the genre–contemporary set, steamy college stories. I wasn’t even going to try to copy those covers with a story set in Victorian England, heavy on fantasy, with steampunk and romance competing for a reader’s attention, plus a few shapeshifters thrown in for fun. My story is firmly in the category NA Alley calls speculative new adult.
So I went the opposite direction of most NA covers and looked at fantasy covers. I looked at a lot of covers. I saved them on Pinterest (See my board!) and then looked at my friends’ collections of book covers. And in those covers I found my cover artist. 🙂
What was I looking for in a cover for The Unraveling? Color. A magical feeling. And steampunk…
I love what Craig came up with for my story and can’t wait to share it with you…in two days!
What is ‘A Steampunk Fantasy Romance’?
I’m using the tag ‘A Steampunk Fantasy Romance’ to describe The Unraveling, but my novel isn’t all about gears and steam.
Steampunk falls within the science fiction genre. Libraries and bookstores will categorize my novel as: Fiction/science fiction/steampunk
But that still doesn’t explain it. So, think Jules Verne. He lived and wrote in the 1800s, and is considered the founder of science fiction. Steampunk is a kind of revival of his style of stories: A Victorian setting–or at least Victorian sensibilities–with fantastical machinery, powered by steam, or aether, or…something! That’s the fun part, the part I made up, the ‘fantasy’ part. And just to make it even more fun, I tossed in shapeshifters. And a romance, or two…I cannot imagine a story without a happily ever after.
Best Fantasy Books has the best explanation of steampunk fantasy I’ve seen, complete with a reading list. I’ve read a number of their selections, but not all. Jules Verne’s 20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine were two of my favorites as a teenager.
Here’s a list of my more recent favorites…heavily weighted in young adult, because I really do read YA.
Leviathan, plus 2 sequels, by Scott Westerfeld
Clockwork Angel, plus 2 sequels, by Cassandra Clare
Souless, numerous sequels, by Gail Carriger
The Golden Compass, plus 2 sequels, by Phillip Pullman
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, edited by Kelly Link
The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross
And a new release I mentioned a few weeks ago by one of my writing partners: The Rooftop Inventor by Nooce Miller
In case you’re still wondering, gears and steam do play a part in my novel…and they will be right there on the cover to assure you they’re in the story, too! Join me for my cover reveal in three days!
Five days to go until…
My cover reveal!
If I was a gif person you’d see me cheering, but instead I have still photo… of a tiny piece of the cover, because, you know, the cover reveal isn’t until May 26th. (!)
What is that Sprouting Star, you ask? Well, that’s me. I wanted to do all I could to have my self-published print book look like a traditionally published paperback. I had planned to use a little logo my family used for a rubber stamp to do letterboxing while we traveled. (Sorry, I just probably generated another question: What’s letterboxing?) But when I asked my daughter to make a vector of it, she suggested I needed something more representative of my book themes–magic and people’s ties to the land– and to my tag–fantasy tuned to the magic of the land.
She was right, of course, since she is art-savvy and I am not. But the amazing thing was while talking, she sketched it out and said, “Here. Sprouting Star.”
So I became Sprouting Star Press, and I love the look my talented daughter devised!
She even sent me one version in an amazing fake embossed look!
BTW, my Mary Behre has completed my cover pendant. I should have it before the cover reveal!
I have a cover!
Yes, The Unraveling has a cover! It’s bright and shiny and everything I wanted in a fantasy cover. So much so, I’m saving it for a cover reveal. That’ll be May 26th. In the meantime, I wanted to share a little thing some authors do when they really love their covers: They have jewelry made.
I saw this beauty for Unchained Memory when I went to my friend Donna Frelick’s launch and another writer friend gifted her this lovely pendant!
Author Mary Behre has been making cover jewelry for a few years now, starting back when several friends debuted with ebooks and didn’t have a physical book to hold. She told me, “I wanted them to have something tangible to celebrate the incredible accomplishment of getting published.”
Her side business took off from there. When Mary isn’t under the crunch of a deadline herself, she makes them for other authors…and herself!
These are titles from Mary’s Tidewater series.
If you might be interested, you can contact Mary through her website (http://marybehre.com/ ) or at authormarybehre AT gmail.com. She sells them for $20 plus shipping.
I’ve ordered mine! Depending on Mary’s schedule, I’ll post a photo at my cover reveal or hopefully by publishing…which will be June 23!
Laurel Wanrow 