It’s cover reveal day!! Always an exciting day in the life of an author…right up there with that day when, out of the blue, an email arrives in your inbox with the subject line of “Worthy of Legend Cover!” (or whichever book I happen to be waiting for my glimpse of, LOL.)

My heart rate always increases. I click into that email. And then I click on the attachment icon. Oh, the flutters in my stomach every single time as I wait for the image to download–it’s one of those moments where the seconds it takes stretch out soooooo long! But finally, it loads. I may quite literally hold my breath.

Am I going to love it?
Am I going to hate it?
Will it look anything like what I imagined?

For Worthy of Legend, the third and final book in the Secrets of the Isles series, I’d given them some ideas and of course knew it would follow the same general look as the other two books. We’d have the heroine front and center, an island background. My special requests this time: (1) Could we have a night sky, or first-breath-of-dawn sky perhaps? And (2) she could be wearing green, as it’s the only color mentioned for her clothes.

Of course, I gave them some ideas for items she could be holding and also described Lady Emily Scoffield and provided some inspirational photos.

But one never knows how that’s going to play out in the cover designer’s mind. One never knows if our visions will perfectly match. And to be quite honest, both covers for the other books in this series surprised me–but I adore them both!

So finally, that image downloaded, all those questions rampaging through my mind, and I clicked it open, trying not to peek at the thumbnail, honestly, so that I could get the full impact.

And there she was! Lady Emily, holding a small leather-bound journal that plays a critical role in the story, in a puffed-sleeve green dress that would have made Anne Shirley gasp is exaggerated pleasure. With an island backdrop with that lovely starry sky I’d requested (yay!!!!)

Are you ready to get YOUR first look?? Here it is!

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What do you think??

I admit that the model wasn’t exactly how I’d pictured Emily, but I always get over that really quickly, LOL (because this is pretty much ALWAYS the case, ha ha). She looks lovely and sweet with a touch of insecurity–SO EMILY!–so I quickly adjusted my own mental image to match! I love that she’s holding that small leather journal, and the background…spot on. Overall, I’m so excited to add this one to my “My Covers” folder and think it’s the perfect complement to the rest of the series!

Now, a bit about the story itself. Lady Emily has been cut off from her family after siding with the Tremaynes in the whole treasure hunt thing, and she’s got some heavy questions she’s dealing with: Why can’t they just love her? How is she to love them as God does? Will the opinions of these friends change when they realize exactly how little her own family esteems her?

And then we have our hero, the grumpy, candy-loving Bram, Earl of Telford. Bram has already been well established as an over-protective big brother, and he takes that role very seriously. When he sees what a terrible brother Emily has, he pretty much decides that someone has to protect her, and if her brother won’t do it, he will. We also finally discover what he’s hiding behind that gruff exterior–a heart that longs for true nobility and is more than a little inspired (okay, obsessed) with tales of chivalry, especially the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. So when a new treasure hunt seems to have a link to Arthur himself…well suddenly he’s more intrigued by archaeology than he ever expected to be.

I hope everyone is looking forward to this ending to the Scilly-set tales! I greatly enjoyed digging deep into these two characters and really examining what makes anyone worthy of legend. Spoiler alert (okay, not really, LOL): Both of these two characters live up to it!

And of course, now that I have a cover, that means I also can make the pre-order available in my shop! Order your copy now, and it *will charge your card right away and then I’ll ship the orders as soon as I get my author copies, which is usually 3-4 weeks before they’re available from other stores. =D In this case, release day is early September, so you’ll *probably get your book sometime in August.