After writing the post I went and finished my cover design for the third book in the trilogy, Stay Away from the Altar. All three books have the same basic design, only changing the font colors and of course the front cover image. Now I want to just post a little bit about my thought process for the designs and of course I will also post the covers and the back cover blurbs as well.
All of the cover images are photos that I took myself and they were all taken at the real shrine that I have based Fairhaven Shrine on. In Do Not Drink the Holy Water I also spend a little bit of time talking about Inara's house, which actually is a real house belonging to one of my roommate's from when I was an undergraduate student at university. Through the first couple years of school I spent quite a bit of time at my friend's home and it stuck with me...not to mention the fact that it actually was right around the corner from the shrine as well. We went to the shrine a few times over the years and every time it simply captivated me. When I had an assignment for my Digital Photography class on landscapes and buildings I had to make a special trip to the shrine just to take pictures. Despite not being a Catholic, I felt comfortable and at home there.
Will I mention where this shrine is or anything? No, probably not. For one, it is a part of my private life and giving that information out would give certain clues as to the general area I live. For another, Fairhaven Shrine was based on this place and is not an exact replica so I don't want people to go on about what I altered and so on.
Inara Cooper always dreamed of going on an epic adventure, but she never dreamed that a rule she broke when she was five would be the event that would change her life forever. When the truth comes out, Inara finds that she is swept off from everything she thought she knew, and is set down right in the middle of a resistance trying to protect their realm from a dangerous man calling himself The Hood.
Now, with the help of her Guardian and mentor--a warrior monk named Calder--as well as her Protector Kellan, Inara will have to harness her new abilities and pull together the struggling resistance. If she fails then The Hood will destroy everyone she has begun to care for.
I enjoyed this past month working on Holy Water, but now I know that it is time to take a little break from this world and return to another. Hopefully sometime in the near future I can return and both finish the story completely as well as edit it. The funny thing with writing this was that--as usual with certain stories/characters--they don't tell me everything about their lives. I never knew Kellan's last name because he didn't see it as relevant to the story line. It wasn't until I was working on the summary for the third book that everything sort of fell into place, so I'm looking forward to moving on with this series and working on the other two books as well as the novellas I have planned.
Do not go outside alone after dark. Stay with friends or family as often as possible. Some things should not be discussed with anyone. These are just a few of the rules that dictate Shiloh Samuelson's life.
Her family does not discuss a number of things, including the disappearance of her father when she was a child, but Shiloh knows there has to be something to it, something that may be connected to her birth in the Realm.
To learn the truth, this shy and often clumsy girl must first visit Fairhaven Shrine. From there Shiloh starts on a journey to discover the truth of her father, her own abilities, and possibly what it takes to save those she cares about.
When writing the summaries for both Holy Water and Ritual Sacrifices it became apparent that rules are very important to both of the story lines, whereas the third book has a protagonist who has basically followed orders, which are rules but tend to have very different consequences. In Holy Water Inara had to deal with the unique ability that developed because of a rule she broke as a child, and in Ritual Sacrifices, Shiloh has to break the rules set down by her family in order to learn a great number of truths. A fun little tidbit I have already learned about book two is that Shiloh is prone to accidents; it became obvious the first time she told me her name--Shiloh Olivia Samuelson (S.O.S.).
With the disappearance of The Hood, things appear to be crumbling at the camp. A struggle for power seems apparent but not many of The Hood's followers wish to step forward.
Jennsen Alcott has been a faithful companion to The Hood for many years and must decide whether to pull together the crumbling group or strike out on her own.
Two people stand in the way of Jennsen's path: her estranged brother Kellan and her former best friend Gabriel, both of whom have pledged their service to the Resistance.
The final book in this trilogy doesn't deal with someone from our world going to the Realm, but instead someone who was born and raised there, so Jennsen sees things a little differently. It was this summary that really ended up telling me a lot about several characters. I knew from early on that Kellan had a younger sister, and here she popped in and announced that the final book was all hers and then she gave me her name. It will be interesting for me to see the dynamic between Jennsen and Kellan because at this point they really are on separate sides of this struggle for power.
Another interesting thing that came out of this story line is that I found a home for a character who I thought was going to be a big part of Holy Water initially but then it turned out that putting him in the story would have made things far too drawn out and complicated, so Gabriel found his home here and I'm really glad for it.
Now, it may be that as I write the novellas that they will end up getting their own covers but I don't quite know yet. I'm thinking that the two prequel novellas (Inara's and Kellan's) may be combined together and released as one book. Theoretically I'm thinking that these novellas will end up being about 25-30K so two of them together would be about the equivalent of one novel. I still need to figure out what I'm going to do with Shiloh's novella and Jennsen's novella, but I believe I have plenty of time to figure all of that out.
So, there's a little insight to what is going on with the series, and I still need to find a name for them. Now that the covers and summaries are posted, maybe a good idea will come from it. Again, it is something where I still have a little bit of time to figure it all out. Anyway, I'm going to get back to my edits for Project Death: Resurrection. I believe I will try to continue with my once-a-week updates on my writing progress and I will probably post information about the rest of the Project Death series as I get ready to fully focus on them (Jan/Feb 2013 for Revelation, March/April 2013 for Redemption, and May/June 2013 for Restoration). I've already created the covers complete with back cover blurbs and such for all of them so I should be ready when it is time to just sit down and write.
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