Shadow Eyes Anniversary Blog Tour: Guest Post with Dusty Crabtree

Today I'm thrilled to be a part of the Anniversary Tour for Shadow Eyes. We've got an awesome guest post ahead from the author, herself!

The Story of My Cover Art

Shadow Eyes Blog Tour and Kindle Fire Giveaway

Thank you for hosting me, Melissa, and thanks for your amazing review of Shadow Eyes back in July!  Click here to read the review!

(Everyone, don’t forget to enter the rafflecopter below for a chance to win a print copy of Shadow Eyes, your full name in the sequel, and a KINDLE FIRE!)

The cover of a book, even if it is primarily an eBook, is one of the most important marketing tools an author has in his/her tool belt.  Just think about it.  When you’re skimming through book shelves (real or virtual) or book blogs with covers plastered everywhere, what’s the one thing that will make you pause long enough to stop, pull the book out or click on it, and read the synopsis?  The cover, right?  Generally, from the cover you can tell whether or not it looks like something you might enjoy, often before you even read the title. 

That’s why I was so picky with my cover.  I’d been dreaming about what the cover would look like almost since the idea for the story first came to me.  It was absolutely perfect in my mind, and I knew exactly what I wanted.  The problem is, when you’re working with a cover artist over emails (no matter how amazing that cover artist is – and mine was and is amazing!), it’s extremely difficult to describe the image in your head well enough so the artist can replicate it.  And I’m a very wordy, descriptive person…I mean, I’m an author and an English teacher.  Of course, I’m wordy and descriptive.  But I still found I wasn’t describing it well enough as mock-up after mock-up was sent to me that wasn’t quite right.  I felt bad for continuing to ask for changes, but in the end, after a total of 8 mockups with the final one being absolutely wonderful, I’m so glad I did!

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, so let me show you the progress my cover artist and I made together.

To be honest, I kind of liked this first one and toyed with keeping it, even though it wasn’t what I had pictured.  The main thing was I wanted both eyes, and I wasn’t sure about the font of the title.  It also seemed a little too creepy for the book.

I loved the color of the eyes on this one, but I wasn’t getting the shadow effect I’d wanted.  I wanted the black fogginess to curl around her face like the shadows in the book might.

New font – wasn’t sure about it. Still working on the shadows and blending.

Getting closer…

Better title placement and larger eyes.

Working on the shadows…getting closer…

This was almost perfect!  The color was much better!  The eyes were darker!  The font was perfect (One of my students actually found it)!  I think I had tried to have the cover artist make more defined swirly lines like tendrils for the shadows, but I realized that having the top just like the bottom would be much better.  And that brings us to…

Ta da!!!  I can’t tell you how ecstatic I was when I saw this picture!  I loved it!  I was in between classes at the time, and I couldn’t help but show my next hour and the teachers next door.  I was so proud and excited!  I think it gives off the perfect mood for the book – mysterious and intriguing yet not overly creepy.  Just enough to catch the reader’s eye and entice them to click on the cover and check out the synopsis.  Speaking of…

Shadow Eyes Synopsis:

Iris Kohl lives in a world populated by murky shadows that surround, harass, and entice unsuspecting individuals toward evil.  But she is the only one who can see them.  She’s had this ability to see the shadows, as well as brilliantly glowing light figures, ever since an obscure, tragic incident on her fourteenth birthday three years earlier.

 Although she’s learned to cope, the view of her world begins to shift upon the arrival of three mysterious characters.  First, a handsome new teacher whose presence scares away shadows; second, a new friend with an awe-inspiring aura; and third, a mysterious and alluring new student whom Iris has a hard time resisting despite already having a boyfriend. As the shadows invade and terrorize her own life and family, she must ultimately revisit the most horrific event of her life in order to learn her true identity and become the hero she was meant to be.

Book Trailer:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out Dusty’s blog at http://dustycrabtree.wordpress.com/

Find her on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/dusty.crabtree.1

Follow her on twitter at https://twitter.com/dustycrabtree

Buy Shadow Eyes at http://musapublishing.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=176

(also available at all major online bookstores)

View the book trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7UP9A0Fm78

The Sunday Salon: Reading, Challenges, & More

Happy Sunday, everyone! It's hard to believe another weekend is winding down and another work-week is getting ready to start! It may be even more difficult to believe that we are already in the month of March!

Do any of you set your annual Reading Challenge over at Goodreads? Last year, I got into the reading swing a little late in the game and just missed my goal of 100 books read with 91 completed in 2012. So, this year I decided to set the same goal -- 100 books read by the end of the year. If January and February are any indication of how the rest of the year will go, I should well exceed that goal! But I don't want to get TOO ahead of myself... Here's where I am as we begin March:

Now admittedly, I fully expect March and April to be slower reading months because of some other commitments I have lined up. So it may be that getting off to such a fast start is what I needed to do to reach 100 books this year. Time will tell.

In other "Challenges News," I have signed up to participate in the "Take Control of your TBR Pile" Challenge that takes place all month.  That is actually what I am trying to do all year, with a few new releases thrown in for series that I am keeping up with. But this month, I'm taking it a step further than the challenge, because my goal is to only read books that I've had listed on my TBR lists over at Goodreads (books owned and eBooks owned). We'll see how many I can get through -- should be interesting since I'm not expecting to have a heavy reading month. But even if I read just a handful of books this month, if every book is a TBR book, I will be happy!

Two other bookish challenges that should also appeal to all you Photo-A-Day challenge junkies are the book-themed Photo A Day Challenges that are being hosted at The Estella Society (#EstellaGram) and Book Soulmates (#BSMPhotoaday). Be sure to check it out and join in the fun -- it's okay to start late -- using the indicated hashtags to tag your photos. I already participate in the Fat Mum Slim Photo A Day Challenge, so we will see if I can keep up with THREE this month!

If you haven't dropped by the blog lately (for those of you reading this via a feed reader), I did a lot of Spring Cleaning a couple of weeks ago. I hated my sidebars -- they just seemed junky and not very useful. Now, I still have plenty going on in those sidebars, but I find them to be MUCH more functional and better-looking (but that could just be me). Here's what I decided to do to spruce things up:

• I moved my Blogroll and Blog buttons to a page that you can link to from the top navigation bar, conveniently titled "BLOGROLL." With buttons of all shapes and sizes, it's tough to make that page pretty, but I've been working on it. :-)
• I got rid of the label cloud. I loved it in the beginning but hated it over time. Instead I created "buttons" that link to labels that I felt were the most important, ie. genres and paranormal character types (vampires, werewolves, etc.) since I read a lot of Paranormal books. I also left a short list of other useful labels to navigate my posts. And for the heck of it, I linked up my daily themed posts (Sunday Salon, Teaser Tuesdays, etc.) with images in the sidebar, as well.
• Now, everything in the right sidebar is devoted to navigating my blog, seeing what I'm reading and how I'm doing in my challenges, along with any important posts I want to highlight. Nearly everything in the left sidebar is related to me: my grab button, social networking, my favorite series graphics. I did keep my blog archive over there just to have some kind of navigation from that side, haha.
• If you haven't been able to tell, I have become obsessed with Goodreads this year. I am in love with cataloging my books over there, no joke! I don't go crazy with labeling/shelving -- in fact, beyond designating TBR books, I only use the default "to read," "currently reading," and "read" labels. One of my favorite widgets I found to go in my sidebar is the one that displays a shelf of your choice. Hello, "Currently Reading"! Now instead of manually updating a picture of a book cover in the sidebar, I am letting Goodreads do all the work. (Don't tell me how behind the times I am, LOL. But for me, it was life-changing!)
• One other thing I did... I learned how to add "infinite scroll" to my blog... No more "Older Posts" and "Newer Posts" links! Personally, I hated those, so I hope all of you who visit are pleased by the change!

I'm now in the process of changing up the look & feel of my review posts and other posts. For awhile, I was copying/pasting the code from Goodreads to my blog posts, but that doesn't really work very well if I want to schedule out posts. It rather defeats the purpose of having a blog if my review is going to be out on Goodreads for all to read long before it shows up here! So I have gone back to something very similar to my old review format, just made it prettier... I find I am loving the "quote" feature in Blogger -- how was I not aware of its awesomeness until just recently?! Somehow I feel like it makes my posts much more "eye-catching" and even more professional-looking, if that makes any sense. That may not be important to you, but it is to me! Something else I discovered and have just started using in my review posts (and may start using with other posts about specific titles): Goodreads has a widget that lets you add a book to your shelves right from my posts! I just set it up with the title I'm reviewing, pop it into my post, and voila! Now, if you aren't using Goodreads, I'm sure you couldn't care less, but I know I love coming across that on other sites when I am reading about new books that I'm interested in... (I told you I've become obsessed with Goodreads!)

All of this work on cleaning up the blog has gone great lengths to re-energizing my blogging. Well, that and Goodreads, and the fact that I no longer pressure myself to review Every. Single. Book. I read, nor do I take up many review books anymore. All of the sudden I have found new life in reading and sharing about it here! I only hope I'm not setting myself up for a crash and burn later this year! ;-)

Well, I ended up rambling along more than I originally planned... If you made it all the way through to this point, here's a virtual cookie for you! Happy Reading and see you next Sunday!

Saturday Snapshot: My name is Melissa...

...and I'm a Photo-a-Day-holic. At least I am going to be this month! I have been participating in Fat Mum Slim's Photo a Day challenge since the start of the year, but this month I am adding on two different bookish Photo a Day challenges, as well! What better place to highlight them than Saturday Snapshot, which is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books.

The first bookish photo challenge I signed up for was #EstellaGram, hosted over at The Estella Society.

Here's my pic for #EstellaGram March 1st (Bookshelves)... We've got them in every room in our tiny townhouse, except the bathrooms! I would have even more books except there's just no room so I had to resort to buying a Nook and using the Kindle app for iPad, haha!

And here's my pic for #EstellaGram March 2nd (TBR)... Pretty self-explanatory, though I will admit to needing to add the books I want to read but don't own to my "to-read" shelf. I think I'm afraid to see that number, though, LOL.

The second bookish photo challenge I'm participating in is #BSMPhotoaday hosted by Book Soulmates:

So here's my #BSMPhotoaday March 1st picture (Blog picture, which seems a little silly if you're here on my blog reading this, I suppose, haha):

And for #BSMPhotaday March 2nd we've got what I'm currently reading, which I guess is also a little obvious if you're here on my blog reading this, since it's posted in my sidebar, LOL.

Next week I will post the pictures I took for the week for these two challenges, but I will try to be less wordy about it! ;-) Happy Saturday!

Review: A Light in the Window by Julie Lessman

Genre: Christian Historical Fiction
Release Date: November 2012, Ten Talents Press
Format: eBook (Nook)
Source: Purchased from BN.com

One Woman.

Two Men.

One stirs her pulse and the other her faith.

But who will win her heart?

Marceline Murphy is a gentle beauty with a well-founded aversion to rogues. But when two of Boston's most notorious pursue her, she encounters a tug-of-war of the heart she isn’t expecting. Sam O’Rourke is the childhood hero she’s pined for, the brother of her best friend and a member of the large, boisterous family to which she longs to be a part. So when his best friend Patrick O’Connor joins in pursuit of her affections, the choice seems all too clear. Sam is from a family of faith and Patrick is not, two rogues whose wild ways clash head-on with Marcy’s—both in her faith and in her heart.

While overseeing the Christmas play fundraiser for the St. Mary’s parish soup kitchen—A Light in the Window—Marcy not only wrestles with her attraction to both men, but with her concern for their spiritual welfare. The play is based on the Irish custom of placing a candle in the window on Christmas Eve to welcome the Holy Family, and for Marcy, its message becomes deeply personal. Her grandmother Mima cautions her to guard her heart for the type of man who will respond to the "light in the window," meaning the message of Christ in her heart. But when disaster strikes during the play, Marcy is destined to discover the truth of the play’s message first-hand when it becomes clear that although two men have professed their undying love, only one has truly responded to “the light in the window.”

MY THOUGHTS
Julie Lessman is the author who really solidified my love of Christian Fiction. After going through many inspirational fiction stories that left me with a bad taste in my mouth, her books gave me hope that there were books out there that weren't trying to preach at me or convert me to a specific way of thinking or practicing Christianity, and at the same time read like a work of epic fiction that I didn't want to put down. While Lessman's books are perhaps more heavily influenced by faith and Christianity than some other authors' books I enjoy, I don't feel like she is preaching at me. As she refers to her books, they are about "passion with a purpose."

With A Light in the Window, we finally get to read the story about the couple at the heart of the Daughters of Boston and Winds of Change series (and I'm not naming names for those of you who haven't read any of the books yet). I really enjoyed the Daughters of Boston books, but have yet to finish the Winds of Change series. So yes, this book is a prequel novel and in my opinion, if you haven't read any of Lessman's other books yet, I highly, HIGHLY encourage you to start with this one!

I found that my enjoyment of this book was tempered a bit by the fact that I already knew who Marcy would choose and I really just wanted to hurry up and see how it all happened. It is probably just as well that this book is not as chunky as her other books are, since I'm not sure I would have had the patience to work through one of that length. That said, I still enjoyed the story that started it all, so to speak. I will say, though, that I found the ending to be a little confusing -- I had to go back and see if I accidentally skipped some pages on my Nook, tapping the screen too many times. But no, for me it just seemed to skip ahead a little awkwardly from the question of who Marcy would end up with to a scene of them already together. Even so, I loved finally getting to see Marcy's story play out!

Read this book... - if you enjoyed any of Julie Lessman's books - if you like Christian/Inspirational fiction - if you haven't yet read Lessman's books but want to give them a try. And seriously, start with this one!

Booking Through Thursday: Currently Reading?

My goodness, it has been a long time since I have participated in this meme, but I'm so glad to be back!

Here is this week's question: What are you reading right now? (And, is it good? Would you recommend it? How did you choose it?)

Right now, I am reading the Kindle edition of Untraceable by S.R. Johannes, an independent author. Here's the cover and blurb:

Grace has lived in the Smokies all her life, patrolling with her forest ranger father who taught her about wildlife, tracking, and wilderness survival. When her dad goes missing on a routine patrol, Grace refuses to believe he's dead and fights the town authorities, tribal officials, and nature to find him.

One day, while out tracking clues, Grace is rescued from danger by Mo, a hot guy with an intoxicating accent and a secret. As her feelings between him and her ex-boyfriend get muddled, Grace travels deep into the wilderness to escape and find her father.

Along the way, Grace learns terrible secrets that sever relationships and lives. Soon she's enmeshed in a web of conspiracy, deception, and murder. And it's going to take a lot more than a compass and a motorcycle (named Lucifer) for this kick-butting heroine to save everything she loves.

I have to admit that I'm only about 10% of the way through this book, so I've barely just begun it and it may be a little too soon to recommend it one way or the other. However, what I can say is that I am really enjoying the way S.R. Johannes writes -- she is very descriptive and puts a lot of imagery in your head without being over the top. So in that respect, this book is off to a great start, but I just haven't gotten into the meat of the story to be able to tell you if I'm going to love or hate (or just feel "meh" about) the book. :-)

In fact, the story of how I chose this book is probably much more interesting than what I can say about it so far! I heard about an upcoming Indie Author event that is actually going to be in a town about 15 minutes from where I live. I live in a suburb well north of Atlanta, Georgia, and it seems author events just usually don't happen close by, or I don't know about them enough in advance to make plans to attend. So when I heard about this one, even though I'd only read books by one of the authors who was going to be there, Nichole Chase, I decided I wanted to familiarize myself with the rest before going. Johannes's book is the last one I'm reading in preparation for the Meet & Mingle, which is a two-day event March 9th - 10th. I can't wait! If you live anywhere within reasonable driving distance of Woodstock, Georgia, you should think about going! See all the details at Into The Night Reviews!

Thanks for stopping by today and happy reading!