Yesterday was the full cover reveal of my soon-to-be-published historical fiction novel, Hatfield 1677. My publisher, Acorn Publishing, used the services of Damonza to create a beautiful cover.

I was part of the process, and sent them assorted images I found online that shared my vision but never completely, and vague descriptions such as “I have always envisioned the cover as something intriguing but ambiguous, like a hoofprint and a feather in the snow, or a woman’s linen cap hanging from a bush beside a trail, or smoke rising from a distant village or wigwam at the end of a trail in autumn.“

“You can’t judge a book by its cover.” Google leaps to the Bo Diddly Song (?!) from the early 1960s, but Goodreads claims it is in a piece of dialog from the novel The Mill on the Floss, published in 1860 by George Eliot. I’m going with the 19th century.

A beautiful cover can certainly portray the story within, the themes and setting, the characters and season. “My” cover (I love saying that) hints at a long journey in the late autumn wilderness, perhaps by canoe, and the promise of sunlight ahead.

Please read Hatfield 1677 and judge for yourself if the pages tell the story of the beautiful cover. Coming in May 2024.