When I revealed the cover of Tattered Heart, I had a whole story behind it. The images that eventually became incorporated into the cover were such an inspiration and focus while writing the novel that the final cover would have seemed incomplete without the story.

It wasn’t the same with Enchanted Storms.

I came across the images for Tattered Heart. I would have had to search for Enchanted Storms.

And it felt like if I had searched, I would have somehow been defining the story by those images; making it fit into their frame and scope. Something in me needed to let this story be whatever it needed to be; to discover the words first and then, when they were solid and real and nearly final, find the images that captured them instead of the other way around.

While I did find images that capture so much of Enchanted Storms when the time came, I don’t know that I would have without my journeys into deviant art. They didn’t simply provide the practice to improve my photomanipulation skills, they gave me a wealth of stock photos to work with.

Like Tattered Heart, the girl is from a photographer more talented than I am. In this case LienSkullova graciously gave me permission to use her photograph of a girl who is remarkably reminiscent to my heroine. And also like Tattered Heart, the background images are my own photographs (except the ship). Knowing I was writing a novel about storms, I’ve spent the past several months taking random pictures of clouds, gorgeous skies and the ocean every chance I get.

And now it’s all come together. I can only hope it captures the wildness, the beauty and energy with more than a hint of magic I hope you’ll also find in the novel.