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I’m so excited to finally show off the cover of Book Three of The Traveller’s Path. This is the final book of the trilogy, and I’m taking my time to make sure I get it right. A couple of weeks ago my newsletter subscribers got the first glimpse of the cover, and now I’m revealing it to the world. Of course, along with the cover, you also get the title!
Ta-DAH!
My original idea for the book covers was to have the ravens get closer and closer to the foreground to illustrate the growing threat of Wulfram, the Ravenclan Fey, throughout the series. For design reasons we went in a different direction. But, I still wanted to feature a raven somehow on this cover, as this book features the final show-down between Thomas, the wilding Fey who has Crossed from our time to the past, and Wulfram. The other two covers feature objects that could be found in 7th-century England, when the book is set. Both the Celtic Cross featured on Wilding and the lyre featured on Bound are true to 7th-century Northumbria. I wanted to carry that idea to this cover, too. But it was harder to think of what might be appropriate this time around. Finally I had a brainwave: why not feature some kind of Anglo-Saxon jewelry with birds/crows in the design? You can imagine that I have looked at many, many pictures of authentic Anglo-Saxon clothing and jewelry, and I had in my mind that I had seen some jewelry with birds on it. A quick Google search revealed that my memory wasn’t wrong! Here are a couple that I found:
This is a reproduction of a bird brooch found in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery AD 400-800) in Finglesham, Kent. Image from ganderwick.com
Early 7th-century bird pendant, found in Kent. Image from the British Museum.
7th-century brooch from Dál Riata. Image from British Museum
As you can see, this last picture is closer to where the design ended up. Over at CraftyCelts they were inspired by this 7th-century brooch design and made a modern clasp that reflects it:
This is the image that the designers based the cover image on. I love the fact that it relates to an authentic brooch that was manufactured in Dál Riata in the seventh century, because some of the action of the book takes place in Dál Riata. And then we added some Anglo-Saxon bling in terms of the garnets and emeralds in the raven’s beaks and eyes.
I’m really happy with the final result…what about you? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Many thanks to the team at ebooklaunch.com who once again came up with a stunning design!
I will admit that coming up with a title was very hard for this book. Trying to capture a book in one word is difficult, let me tell you! But although “Choice” doesn’t seem like a very exciting word, it really does capture the heart of the book. You will find that the story revolves around a specific choice that one of the characters makes which reverberates throughout the novel. Along the way, you’ll see places where characters are backed into corners that force them to choose courses of action that sometimes help and sometimes hinder Thomas in his quest to stop Wulfram from changing history as he knows it.
And in the end, Thomas faces an agonizing choice of his own.
Choice is a powerful word, even though it’s not a fancy one. It fits my book just fine!
As I work on the final edits for the book, I’m getting excited to share it with you all. Getting to the end of this journey has taken a long time, but I’m nearly there. I’ve wanted to get Choice out in 2021, but the edits aren’t quite done, and I don’t want to stress myself too much trying to meet a deadline. Which is the nice thing about self-publishing! So, I’ve pushed the publication date back to early 2022, because I want to make sure the book is truly ready to go before I hit “publish”. I want to give you the best book I’m capable of producing!
We are almost there, folks! Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter (see link at the bottom of this page) to be kept up to date on all the details as the launch draws closer.
