LIVING VIOLET Cover Revealed!!

Hey guys!

Good news! The wait is over! Well, some of it anyway. I recently received the sample book jacket for LIVING VIOLET. My book now has an actual cover! A COVER, y’all!! On top of that, it’s available for pre-order. Yay!

I’m super excited to see all the work and effort come to fruition. It’s surreal—kinda like an outer body, this-isn’t-really-happening-to-me, thing. This high is going to get worse as the release date draws closer.

I do have mixed feelings about the cover art. I’ve never been a fan of covers with human faces on it. There are WAY too many in YA and it takes away from the reader’s imagination. The characters’ appearance really shouldn’t matter that much and the key focus should be the overall premise and plot. I mean yeah, the guy can be hot, but is he interesting, or does his abs do all the talking?

With that said…

The main character and narrator of the story is Samara (Sam) a biracial teen who works at a bookstore. This feisty chick is a force to be reckoned with and for some reason she’s placed in the background.

Caleb is a lovable flirt with a deadly secret and a weird eating habit. Though a major character in the book, he’s not the narrator, yet he is placed in the foreground like a Boss!  He’s described in the story as having messy brown hair that reaches his jaw. He also has (bluish-purple) eyes that cast a very interesting light. He looks a bit hard core and kinda reminds me of Eminem. Just sayin’. He’s still a cutie though.

It’s a provocative cover, no doubt, but I’m worried if it portrays my characters accurately. I’m on the fence about it because no matter how stoked I am about releasing a book, I want to do my characters justice. Or, it could be just me being picky.

On a more awesome note, the printed version of the cover has a reflective disk over Caleb’s eye so it almost looks like it’s glowing. I found myself staring at it for almost an hour, fascinated at how the light bounces off of it. His eyes suck you in just as it does in the story. Super creepy. Hella cool!!

I would love to get your take on it. Let me know what you think.

Cheers!!

Jaime Reed

Living Violet: The Cambion Chronicles

Dafina Books (Kinsington)  January 2012

Leanna Renee Hieber and DARKER STILL (Magic Most Foul book 1)

Hello friends! My name is Leanna Renee Hieber and while I'm not new to publishing, or to Gothic Victorian Fantasy / Paranormal novels, I am new to the YA shelves.

My Strangely Beautiful series is YA-friendly and I hope you'll check it out, in addition to my upcoming Magic Most Foul saga, beginning with DARKER STILL (coming 11/11 from Sourcebooks Fire)!

A bit about me:

I'm an actress, playwright, author and Goth girl. I grew up in rural Ohio obsessed with the Victorian era and spooky tales. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of scaring the daylights out of my girl scout troupe with my invented ghost stories. I graduated with a BFA in Theatre Performance and a focus in the Victorian Era along with a scholarship to study in London. I've adapted works of 19th Century literature for the stage and I've had one act plays selected for production around the country. All along the way I've had a ton of random jobs, from being in a Pillsbury Doughboy suit to being a licensed tour guide. My writing, including the Strangely Beautiful novels, has won awards and landed on booksellers' lists and things, and The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker has been optioned for adaptation into a musical theatre production currently in development with a team that includes talent from Tony Award winning shows like Memphis, Wicked, Tarzan and more. I'm a member of the Romance Writers of America (RWA), Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and the International Thriller Writers and I was honoured to have been named the 2010 RWA NYC Chapter Author of the Year.

A member of Actors Equity Association (AEA), the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), I work often in film and television. When not writing or on set, I love nothing more than a good ghost story and a decent Goth club, I love adventuring about my adopted hometown of New York City, where I reside with my real-life hero and beloved rescued lab rabbit Persebunny.

A bit about DARKER STILL and the Magic Most Foul saga:

The shadows deepen on the gaslit streets of New York City in the year 1880. Curses and spirits, demons and rituals, blood and faith, love and danger; such is the stuff of Magic Most Foul. Find your voice... or else.

Seventeen-year-old Natalie Stewart's quiet world is entirely turned upside down in one dangerous fell swoop. Chosen for a fate she can hardly begin to understand, she is beset by strange whispers, nightmares, curses, a haunted painting and an evil doppelganger. A dangerous demon has trapped a young man with whom she's immediately smitten, and Natalie is the only one who can help. Her eerie destiny is made frighteningly clear.

Spirited as Natalie is, her newfound fate is a lot to handle considering she has a major disability to overcome. Suffering from Selective Mutism due to a childhood trauma, Natalie must navigate between two realities; the New York she's always known, and the haunted room inside a painting where the soul of charming, young Lord Denbury has been trapped while his possessed body roams New York as a criminal. Natalie must solve the pieces of a grim supernatural mystery as it unfolds, follow an inhuman murderer into the dark underbelly of New York, reverse the curse and find her voice... or else she'll be the next casualty of a magic most foul.

I'm very active in the social media sphere and run lots of fun giveways, contests, teasers, etc.
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Cheers and blessings!