A Thin Slice of Heaven by p m terrell has so much going on, I couldn’t help but check it out. A mass haunting and a new love, even though he does not belong in the land of the living.
I love this cover. I see it as a digital painting and think is is very creatively done. I am a “cover girl” and I am so happy to have p m terrell here today to tell us about her covers.
GUEST POST
A BOOK AND ITS COVER
When asked to select my favorite cover from my nineteen released titles, I find myself wavering. I have several favorites and for different reasons.
The Pendulum Files is the most eye-catching cover, and it placed as a finalist in the Best Cover Design in 2014. For that reason, when all my books are displayed together, my eyes always gravitate toward that one. It shows a ship at sunset on the open seas, which factors into the plot of the book where ships are being destroyed at sea but no one is taking credit for the action, leaving the United States government to unravel the mystery. The pendulum is on the cover as well; CIA psychic spy Vicki Boyd continues to hear a pendulum and knows it will lead to the culprits.
The White Devil of Dublin has a white background, which is unusual in today’s market. It depicts the image of a man’s eyes, brows and nose, which is meant to represent the albino Viking invader of Dublin, Hvitr Bard, or The White Devil. The image is taken from an actual photograph of Hunter Dorton, the son of John Dorton, a renowned international photographer (www.johndortonphotography.com). John took the photograph of his son himself.
I have sometimes had input in the cover design but sometimes I will see the cover after the book is in production. My least favorite cover is a pink one. It was released eight years ago at a time when I truly disliked the color pink—I think it had more to do with my efforts to be taken seriously as a suspense novelist than with the color itself—and I was horrified when I saw the cover. Unfortunately, I had no decision-making influence.
Other covers have depicted places where the book is set: Vicki’s Key shows a haunted house in which CIA psychic spy Vicki Boyd moves; Dylan’s Song shows a cemetery based on an actual photograph taken in Ireland—the cemetery is central to the unraveling of Dylan’s story; and my latest, A Thin Slice of Heaven, shows the castle in which Charleigh is stranded for the weekend due to an unusual snowstorm. Her room is in the turret and the castle begins to come alive with ghostly hauntings and secrets from centuries past.
A Thin Slice of Heaven by p.m.terrell
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BLURB
She had arranged to meet her husband in Northern Ireland for a second honeymoon, but when Charleigh arrives at the remote castle, she receives a message that he won’t be coming—and that he’s leaving her for another woman.
Stranded for the weekend by a snowstorm that has blocked all access to the castle, she finds herself three thousand miles from home in a country she knows nothing about.
She is soon joined by Sean Bracken, the great-grandson of Laird Bracken, the original owner of the castle, and she finds herself falling quickly and madly in love with him. There’s just one problem: he’s dead.
As the castle begins to come alive with secrets from centuries past, she finds herself trapped between parallel worlds. Caught up in a mass haunting, she can no longer recognize the line between the living and the dead. Now she’s discovering that her appearance there wasn’t by accident—and her life is about to change forever.
EXCERPT
He moved closer to her until he was leaning over her, looking deeply into her eyes. She felt his presence more than she recalled feeling any living being, and yet she knew… She didn’t know what she knew, she realized. It was beyond her comprehension.
Her eyes traveled along his shirt. It appeared custom made and fit him like a glove. She reached out to stroke the fabric. It felt coarse and yet soft, as if the fibers had originally been more abrasive than modern-day clothing, but it had been worn into a suppleness like her favorite pair of slippers. Her fingers traveled along the sleeve. She felt his muscle beneath it, rippling slightly as her fingertips pressed more deeply against him. The seconds passed as she continued moving along his arm until she felt the short, fine hair on the back of his hand. Then she traveled upward once more, memorizing the contours until her palm rested across his shoulder.
He never said a word but his eyes didn’t leave hers, even when her own scrutinized the hand-sewn seam of his shirt sleeve that lay a few inches below his shoulder, or the folds of fabric in the sleeve that was just short of billowing, or the carefully constructed cuff with the slightly misshapen, handmade buttons.
When her palm reached his face and her fingers followed the line of his jaw, she asked hesitantly, “How is it that I can—?” She stopped herself. Maybe she didn’t want to know. Maybe if she knew, he would disappear and she would be left alone in this massive castle. Perhaps if he wasn’t here, the moon and the stars would seem to disintegrate as well until she was left with nothing but the inky blackness of a night that would feel too long and too painful to endure.
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ABOUT p m terrell
p.m.terrell is the pen name for Patricia McClelland Terrell, a multi-award-winning, internationally acclaimed author of more than twenty books in five genres: contemporary suspense, historical suspense, romance, computer how-to and non-fiction.
Prior to writing full-time, she founded two computer companies in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area. Among her clients were the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Secret Service, U.S. Information Agency, and Department of Defense. Her specialties were in white collar computer crimes and computer intelligence, themes that have carried forward to her suspense.
She is also the co-founder of The Book ‘Em Foundation, an organization committed to raising public awareness of the correlation between high crime rates and high illiteracy rates. She is the organizer and chairperson of Book ‘Em North Carolina, an annual event held in the real town of Lumberton, North Carolina, to raise funds to increase literacy and reduce crime. For more information on this event and the literacy campaigns funded by it, visit www.bookemnc.org.
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GIVEAWAY
p.m.terrell will be awarding a Celtic Butterfly Suncatcher similar to the one mentioned in the book, symbolizing both the never-ending cycle of life and the metamorphosis of a butterfly to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found HERE
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