A cover reveal!

well, a new cover for an older book

I’m working away on the new Rev. Thomas Book Mystery, which is called The Book of Christmas Joy. Here’s what I can tell you about it:

Rev. Tom is serving a new church, in a cozy little town on the shore of Lake Erie, in Essex County, Ontario. His daughter Hope is home from university. They’re caring for Zeke, the German Shepherd search and rescue dog, while Annika visits relatives in Europe, and looking forward to watching their favourite holiday movies.

But as Christmas gets closer, Tom, Hope and Zeke are caught up in a deadly, many-layered mystery involving the legacy of a long-dead rumrunner, a cantankerous church matriarch, an ambitious politician, a World Poker Tour contender, and the unsavoury underside of the multi-billion-dollar greenhouse industry.

They’re aided in their amateur sleuthing by familiar faces from The Book of Answers, and some new characters, including an Elvis tribute artist who helps Tom take care of business.

I wrote that blurb as an introduction to the preview chapter I’ve added to the print and digital editions of The Book of Answers. I’ve also been working with a wonderful artist, Grace Enns, who has designed a new cover.

To be honest, Grace has done all the work. I just email her with tweaks and changes, and she patiently solves the problems I create.

I really, really like the new cover. I brought it to one of my writer’s groups today, and they all saw it as a vast improvement over what I cobbled together two years ago.

Grace has agreed to do the cover for The Book of Christmas Joy, with the idea that these first two in the Tom Book series will resemble each other.

Now I just need to get back to writing that one. The goal is to have it out in time for a couple of events I’m booked for in the early fall.