heya-

So, this isn’t the final. The artist is still making some changes. Mostly to the style, rather than anything else. We’re trying to make it closer to the rest of the covers in the series, which are all by the same artist:)

But- As you can see, Fern and Kadaris aren’t having the best day. They’ve gone from strangers to enemies to allies to friends to… getting their asses kicked… together:)  This is the concept sketch we started with

We’ve seen the dynamic between the two characters evolve over the past six books, until they have become strong allies and friends… a long way from… you’re evil, and magic should be destroyed:) Now, Fern has come into her own power and trusts Kadaris to do the mostly-right thing. And Kadaris realizes she does, in fact, have people she can turn to and count on, and who respect her ability to do magic.

I wasn’t really sure what to do with this cover. When you get this far into a series, it’s a little tricky. We don’t want to repeat a concept that’s been done. Without spoilers, most of the story has them on a quest, working together against a range of obstacles. Another shot of them fending off bad guys? meh. Then I realized that I might be missing an opportunity here. I began to think about what was different in Relentless Mage. And once I thought about things from that perspective, we came up with a couple of ideas. I presented them to the artist, with an overview of each one. This is how we’ve done a number of the covers. And from there, he says, I think this one works the best, and sends a concept sketch of his vision. We tinker back and forth, but usually at this point, after this many covers, I can trust what he will produce. He now intuits what makes a good cover, who the characters are, and has a good style!

Stay tuned this week for a full cover reveal!

TJ