Cover Reveal!

Woot, woot!  I can now reveal the cover of my debut novel, Finding Claire Fletcher (how weird and cool is it that I can say that?  My "debut novel"?!)

Voila!

I can't believe it!  It is so surreal that the tattered pieces of looseleaf I was scribbling furiously on all the way back in 2004 when I started writing FCF have now led to this!

I want to give a big shout-out and thank you to the cover artist, Chad at Sapphire Star Publishing and my publisher for bringing my vision to life.  From the time that I realized that Finding Claire Fletcher might actually be something I could show to other people, might be something I could approach agents and publishers with, I had this image of a woman in silouhette walking or running away down a lonely stretch of sidewalk--or in this case, an empty city park at night.  But I also wanted red in the cover somehow.  I wanted the cover to have a haunting, hazy kind of feel to it.  (Is it Claire?  Is it not Claire?)  It is amazing to me that SSP could take my "vision" and actually create it.  I'm extremely happy with what they've done.  Ecstatic actually.  I also love the ghostliness of the letters in the title.  Like Claire, they are there but they seem to be slipping away . . .

The hubs even likes this cover which is saying a lot since his standards in just about everything are way higher than the average person's and also since he is an artist himself! 

Anyway, the really cool thing about this is that it makes this whole publishing thing way more real for me.  Here is tangible, visual proof that a publisher believes in my book enough to want to put it out there for all the world to read!  I am simultaneously humbled and overjoyed!

Here is the synopsis to go with this fabulous cover:


Newly divorced and with his career in jeopardy, Detective Connor Parks takes solace in the arms of a beautiful woman he meets at a bar. The next morning, Claire Fletcher is gone, leaving nothing behind but an address and a decade-old mystery. The address leads to the Fletcher family home where Claire’s siblings inform Connor that their fifteen-year-old sister was abducted from a city street ten years ago and is presumed dead.


During those ten years, Claire endured the cruel torture and depravity of the man who abducted her. Paralyzed by fear and too ashamed to return to her family, Claire is resigned to her life as Lynn, the identity her abductor forced upon her. Every time she attempts escape or betrays him in the smallest way, someone dies. Even now, her clandestine run-in with Connor Parks may have put his life at risk, as well as the lives of her family.


Connor is convinced that not only is Claire Fletcher alive, but that she is also the woman he met at the bar. Driven to see her again, he begins his own investigation, off the clock and without the police department's consent. He is determined to find her and unravel the mystery of her abduction and odd reemergence. But finding Claire Fletcher proves more dangerous than he anticipates. In fact, it may be deadly.

The book will be available 12/6/12!

So tell me, have you ever bought a book based on its cover?