This new year is the beginning of a new book for me, and I am having so much fun with the research and writing. Who Stirs Up the Sea will be the second novel in The God Who series and in case you missed it, the first book is now available in print and e-book formats (and we hope to have it available as an audiobook soon.)
I want to share this early glimpse of the cover my husband, Ken Raney, designed. All four of the books I’ve planned for this series have beautiful book covers, and I can’t express how much it helps me in the writing to have that book cover as inspiration!
The most exciting thing for me is that we just planned a research trip to Saint Simons Island where the story is set. We’re doing a lot of traveling this year and I wasn’t sure we’d be able to find the time to go there again. We visited the island in Georgia four years ago and I’ve wanted to set a novel there ever since! But we carved out a little slice of time later this spring and I know it will help me get the details right when I’m describing the beach and the sea air and the various things that grow on the island. This is important since my heroine is a flower farmer and not everything that grows here in Missouri grows in that very different clime.
One of the things I like to do as I’m beginning a novel is collect images of how I picture my characters and setting on a Pinterest board. Here are my hero and heroine, created in the AI program, Midjourney. It took me at least a dozen prompts each before the characters looked the way I imagined them. (If you click on the images, you’ll link to the entire Pinterest board for my inspiration.)
One fun thing I’m doing in this new series is using a rather uncommon name for one of my characters in each book. I love coming up with character names, and having written over forty books, I’ve used up a lot of my favorites. But it’s always fun to find new favorites.
The heroine in Who Touches the Mountains, above, is named Liesl (some of you are thinking of Liesl from The Sound of Music, right?) I don’t mind unusual names in novels as long as the author lets me know exactly how to pronounce it early in the book! My hero in Who Stirs Up the Sea is named Tadhg McKay. Have you ever heard that name? When I first saw it and learned that it’s Irish and is pronounced Tige (like Tiger without the R), I knew I had to have a character with that name. And it turns out that my Tadhg’s Irish heritage and his pride in it will be important to Emma, my heroine, as she goes through a crisis of identity. Oh, I can’t wait for this story to be out!
P.S. This is a day of hundred mileposts. This is my 800th post for Inspired by Life and Fiction! (Don’t be too impressed, since many of those were the Sunday Scripture posts.) And also today, I received my 100th rating/review for Who Touches the Mountains. I love mileposts like that! And thank you SO much to those of you who have read or reviewed my books. You’ll never know how much that means to an author!
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Congrats!!! Having read Who Touches the Mountains, I’m so excited for readers to get their hands on this book. I loved it! And the covers truly are works of art. Major kudos to Ken! Wish we could join you on that trip. What fun we’d have riding our bikes! 😉
Congratulations on those milestones, Deb—you are amazing!
I am so excited about this book, especially since my oldest sister lives on the island! Such a gorgeous place. And Ken did a great job with the cover! Anything featuring a lighthouse always grabs my attention. 🙂
Hugs from Georgia, Patti Jo
How cool that your sister lives there, Patti Jo! It is a gorgeous place. I remember reading about historical Saint Simons Island in Eugenia Price’s books when I was a teen and later, young wife/mom and always dreamed of visiting there.
Oh, yes! Ken and I rode on the beach at Jekyll Island right “next door” to Saint Simons Island and it is still #1 on our list out of 17 great bike trails we’ve ridden on! We’ll meet you and Joe there with our Lectrics! 😉
Love both of those covers!! Like you, I love to have graphics of my characters and setting. It does make a big difference.
It really does. We are visual writers so anything we can look at inspires! It certainly shows in your books, Robin, and I always love seeing your inspiration images!
This series really intrigues me.
Love the covers! Congratulations!
Thank you, Betty. I always appreciate your encouraging words!
Congrats, Deb! Those are amazing milestones. And those covers are stunning.
Thanks so much, D’Ann. God really blessed me when he gave me Ken Raney. (And not just as an author, but certainly there too!)
Congratulations on the milestones I try to review every book I have finished on Amazon and Bookbub. Frankly, it’s the only new resolutions I have kept for two tears now.
Oh, I love that resolution! Thank you for having that idea, and thank you for keeping it for two years! Bless you!