Whew! Mike's photo plus Julie's skills equal success!

Stolen in Paradise cover reveal will knock your heels off! Stolen in Paradise, A Lei Crime Companion Novel,  is on track for an April release. The pieces are coming together, starting with the cover!

So, I had this idea for a different sort of “feel” to the cover, because as you will see, Stolen in Paradise has a different main character. Marcella Scott, Lei's friend in the Lei Crime Series, is passionate, hardworking, more cautious than Lei but also intuitive, and did I say passionate?

This is a sexier book, a funnier, lighter book, but still primarily a crime novel/mystery. I told my designer, Julie Metz, “I want a shoe on the beach, because Marcella loves shoes. Can you make that creepy?”

This idea really energized Julie, who's an unabashed shoe person, and she told me to find the hottest, sexiest pair of red heels I could and if Mike could get a classic beach scene, she was excited to get across the “sexy, dangerous” feel I wanted.

So I bought the shoes. An adventure in itself. I even walked in them, ten or twelve whole steps, my first time ever in stilettos.

On Valentine's Day, I thought it would be “romantic” to go do the photo shoot and then go out to breakfast. (Well, let's just say breakfast was the high point of the morning.) The beach, while gorgeous, was hot and we weren't dressed for swimming, and we hadn't eaten breakfast, and if you've ever photographed a shoe before…

Well, we hadn't. And if you had, you'd know how challenging they can be, all awkward angles and “bad sides.”

We got done, or rather decided to stop trying when tempers grew short, and I was fully prepared to have to go out again…but we got the shot! An amazing one too, that Mike composed without my help, that included the ocean for a wraparound cover.

Hope you love it as much as I do. What a team Mike and Julie make, thanks you guys for another great cover!