Twilight Splash Book Cover Reveal

I can’t wait to tell you about the second book in the Lake Waluga Cozy Mystery Series.

I wrote Willful Obsession as a standalone novella. Honestly, I didn’t even dream of there being a follow-up story, and then there was. The second book in the series, Twilight Splash, is novel-length. It sets up the final book in the trilogy, which will come out next year.

For fun, let’s describe Twilight Splash in one sentence: 

Mary witnesses a body plunge into the lake at twilight, but first she wants to make sure that everyone in her sphere is safe, but her world gets upended when her decades-long secret gets revealed.

Twilight Splash Story

That’s Mary, the protagonist in the series, in the rowboat with her husband, Ned, and the irrepressible yellow Lab Chompers, who they inherited from Denise in Willful Obsession. It’s July 3rd, and they’re out on Lake Waluga to see the laser light show for the 4th of July celebration. Right before the show starts, Mary sees a body fall from the cliff, but here’s the rub: everyone was looking up at the sky, and Mary was the only one to see the body. Or was it a body? Could it have been a tree limb? A bird? A boulder? 

Although no one reported seeing a body fall from the cliff, Mary isn’t satisfied. She begins investigating to ensure her friends and loved ones are safe. Meanwhile, she’s kept a secret for decades, which we learn about in Willful Obsession. During Twilight Splash, that secret gets revealed, and that turns Mary’s world upside down. Can she still solve a potential death while she’s dealing with her own emotional fallout? 

Designing a book cover is a fascinating process. It involves my identifying the important elements of the story without giving too much away. The actual inciting event in the story has a great deal more detail than the cover reveals. For example, the lake was crowded with boats  and people, all looking up waiting for the laser light show. I opted to leave the boats out to highlight what’s going on in Mary’s boat. 

The splash of something falling from a cliff at twilight is probably larger than it would be, but I wanted that emphasized to be congruent with the book title. In the story, houses are on the cliff, but then again, I think that would make the cover too busy. Instead, I opted for less is more. You can’t see the Lake Diner or the dock or another restaurant either. 

Book cover designers don’t have time to read all their clients’ stories. It’s up to us writers to convey what the essential elements are. An author can say “lake, mountain, cliff, splash, rowboat, etc.” but can you imagine all the different possibilities? Additionally, the graphic artist needs to take into consideration the colors, font, as well as the look and feel of the previous novel in the series. It’s a tall order! (BTW, here’s the designer I use, DLR Cover Designs, and I highly recommend Donna!) There’s a little back and forth as the nebulous vision in my head becomes a reality I couldn’t have imagined. 

I can’t wait for you to read Twilight Splash! I just got feedback from the editor, so I have some work to do to address her suggestions and concerns. I’ll be working on that this fall, and then my final version goes to the proofreader. So look for Twilight Splash to come out later this year.

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