Once Upon a Time...

Every now and then I am reminded that my adventure with TWCS Publishing House is still quite new, and once upon a time, not so long ago, I was laboring away as a self-pub author, begging, borrowing, and stealing help wherever I could get it. Many of you who purchased my books before I signed with TWCS know that I had three students working on cover design for me. What you may not know is that they finished the cover for book 4 before I signed with TWCS, which nullified my need for the cover they had created for me as we changed the covers entirely. I thought perhaps some of you might be interested to see the original cover for book 4, however, because the girls did an excellent job of bringing to life my description of an item from the book: Tellius's coronation crown. I believe I described it something like this when I explained it to them. "It's like, sorta, a cross between an Olympic victory crown with olive leaves and a medieval-type simple crown with a single point in the center. It should be gold, and the leaves should touch top and bottom. Simple, but rich-looking. No jewels." And from those scattered thoughts, they created something pretty much exactly like I pictured it in my brain:

It's a beautiful picture, and hopefully it fits what you imagined when you read the coronation scene. I'm glad, however, that I didn't decide to have the crown on the cover of the official version of book 4. As The Enchanted came together, it became a much darker story than I once envisioned it, and the coronation sequence figured in less prominently. Still, though, I love having this image saved on my computer, and I thought it was high time to share it with all of you!