It's Getting Closer...

The cover image for A Good Community. (Purchased from istock;photo)

Sorry for the delay in getting this post up. Dan and I had to go to a funeral for the mother of a friend. While social media and websites and blogging are good activities, other things are more important. This was one of them.
 
Now for the good news.
 
We’re getting close to releasing A Good Community: Saint Maggie Book 5. I’m putting final touches on the manuscript and my designer Erin Vieth Brochu is working on the cover design.
 
Making decisions about this kind of stuff is difficult. It’s very nutsy-boltsy. I sent Erin all sorts of information about the story including thematic info: school, children, race, community, etc. Then she and I searched for appropriate images. We settled on a sketch circa the mid-1800s that features a schoolhouse with children gathered outside.
 
There were a couple of other images – photographs – that featured vintage school desks, chalkboards, and schoolhouses that Erin, Dan, and I liked. However, Dan pointed out that the overarching theme had to do with community as well as with Maggie’s struggle to push Blaineton into being a better (a good) community. He thought the children playing together picked up that theme more effectively than a photo of a series of desks or a schoolhouse.
 
Now we’re working on the design: image and cover color, how the title and my name will appear on the cover, and what the back cover will look like.

I also have written and polished the dreaded blurb. This how it reads at the moment.
 
 
Maggie Beatty Blaine Smith has a big heart and happily welcomes “down on their luck” boarders into her house. Maggie, who is white, also lives and works with friends Nate and Emily Johnson, who are black. Once Maggie ran a boarding house that sat directly on the Blaineton town square, where she and her household were clearly visible to all. Not surprisingly, the town folk wrinkled their noses at her establishment and saw her as an eccentric do-gooder.
 
But now it is 1864 and the members of her household are more prosperous. They have moved to the edge of Blaineton and into the spacious confines of Greybeal House. At last, Maggie is free to pursue her loving, welcoming lifestyle without having to face the town’s disapproval.
 
Then Mary and Addie, two orphaned girls of color, show up. Upon learning that the girls need an education, Maggie and Emily decide to enroll them in the Blaineton School. But there’s a problem: the school will not take black pupils and there is little in the way of education available for children of color.
 
True to form, the two women take matters into their own hands and start a school of their own, not just for Mary and Addie, but for all of Blaineton’s black children. However, as word spreads about the school, things start spinning out of control until a controversy threatens to blow Blaineton apart.
 
Maggie is called to stand a speak. Will she be able to bring her little town back together?
 
 
 
I still hate writing the blurb. *sigh*
 
 
Anyway, stay tuned. I sense a cover reveal coming our way!