Wolf Run Wildlife Refuge

Thanks to you wonderful Maniacs, I got to make a wish come true this past weekend.

We adopted a lion. By ‘we,’ I mean each of you who bought one of my signed books recently. Thank you!

A few months ago, my bookshelves were crammed with comp copies (those are free or discounted copies from my publisher) of my own books and I had no idea what to do with them. Leiha and I discussed giving them away but couldn’t come up with a way to do it that afforded everyone fair opportunity to acquire a signed copy if they wanted one.

So we listed them for sale for a reasonable price plus shipping, and when the money came in, after expenses, we’d made quite a bit. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

Meet Serandi—the Moning Maniacs’ lion! Isn’t he magnificent?

Serandi lives with his friend Singa at the Wolf Run Wildlife Refuge. He’s a five year old African male lion. At the Wolf Run website, they say he likes to “talk” to his visitors. That’s an understatement! Every woman that visited got a show, full of head-tossing, stalking and roaring. He’s a major flirt! He’s also hungry and needs a lot of things, so with the proceeds from my book sale, we’re sponsoring him.

If you’d like to learn more about Serandi and Wolf Run Wildlife Refuge, see some of the pictures I took (and an embarrassing clip of me getting spooked by some gorgeous wolves before I work up the courage to kiss them) visit my Wolf Run page.

New Covers for the Fever Series!

I was going to wait until I had the final versions of them all, but I just saw the new Darkfever online so decided to debut them now, here.

Darkfever and Dreamfever are in their final incarnations. Bloodfever and Faefever are still being refined, but are essentially as they are. I love them!!! After much debate: person or no person? Scene or element? Big with wide appeal and no real genre definition or genre with a touch of noir? we came up with a look that we felt spoke well for the series, is eye-catching, tactile, atmospheric. The black at the top and bottom will be matte, the shot in the middle between the smoky lines will be gloss, and the name and title embossed. We chose to go for a less flashy, no foil, no fancy embossing look. It was a tough decision because my publisher was willing to go all out, no worries about cost, but in a sea of increasingly bling-y covers, it was this look that really stood out.

It was critical to me that it be a well-matched set. I like my sets to match in my own library. I also felt it important that a reader be comfortable reading the books anywhere: a doctor's office, in front of the kids, on a plane, wherever. I wanted them to appropriately represent the story within, and be lushly visual, while a little stark, hence the monochromatic scenes. I was also adamant that the say Book 1,2,3,4 of the Fever Series, so a new reader wouldn't be rudely surprised to realize they'd begun in the middle.

Darkfever is the beginning of an eerie journey, (I love the cobbled stone she's standing on, inside the circle) Bloodfever is heading toward the cracked-earth Burren and the vampire Malluce, Faefever is the terrifying event in the church (I liked the white shift as a final loss of innocence) and Dreamfever is the madly skewed Hall of All Days, elusive and hard to manipulate.

Thanks to all of you for your input at the message board over the last few months! I appreciated the time you took to post your thoughts. I hope you love them as much as we do!

xoxoxoxooo
(and now back to work on Shadowfever...:)
Karen

I think the pictures say it all...

The bottom picture is where I was last year, matching outfits entirely inadvertent. The top two are where we are this year. Grrr. Just grrr.

What's the weather like where you are?