Upon finishing THE GIRL FROM DIANA PARK, I began work on my next book, SICILIAN MURDER. I have a vague outline and I've begun writing the story to be set in Sicily, Italy. My favorite part of starting each new book is creating the cover. My covers always say something about the murder. The way my writer's brain works is first I decide on 'where' in the world my murder victim dies. My second question is 'how' they die and my covers usually fulfill these two questions. Much later, as the book progresses, I figure out the 'why' of the murder.
So let me introduce the newest cover.
My victim is going to be found dead in a crater at Mount Edna, an active volcano on the island of Sicily. Mount Edna has five craters and 300 vents. It's nickname is “Fire Mountain”, and it's been erupting for half a million years. The soil below the volcano is rich from the ash and other volcanic nutrients. In fact, I'm sure Jill and Nathan will be visiting wineries on the island while they're solving this mystery. The regions grows dry white and dry red wines which are some distance from Jill preferred Moscato, a sweet white wine.
The picture on this book cover is one of the five craters and if you look closely, you'll see hikers on the rim. I don't think I would want to walk on that rim for fear of an earthquake and eruption causing me to lose my footing and tumble down the crater. I have a dark sky adding menace to the living and belching volcano and at last, my victim will die from blunt force trauma when he's shoved off the crater. Who wants him dead? We'll find out in SICILIAN MURDER.