Books and Things: Blog Tour: Gaia by Karen Ann Hopkins

B&T: Welcome Karen to Books and Things! I'm attracted to a great cover. I love yours and I know Jenny (Supernatural Snark/ Seedlings Design) collaborate on the cover. How do you collaborate with her? What was essential for this book?

Karen: I’m the same way! It’s the book’s cover that catches my eye, making me pluck it from a bookstore shelf or in the e-book format, clicking on the picture. The color theme is probably the most important element to me, followed by the scene itself. I’m drawn to covers that don’t show a person’s face, but have a vivid landscape and other details that give an instant impression about the book’s content. I love clouds—fluffy, happy ones and brooding, dark, ominous ones. There’s so much do with the sky.

Jenny Zemanek of Seedlings Design Studio has designed all my Indie covers and I can’t praise her creativity and professionalism enough. She amazes me with every single cover she creates.

When I first contact Jenny for a new cover, I have a pretty good idea about what I’m looking for. She’s a master of taking my visual wish list and turning it into reality. Embers was a difficult cover. I knew I wanted wings of some kind, but was afraid they’d look out of place or cheesy. Jenny came up with the idea of flaming wings to define Ember’s fire element in the first book. She designed the wings from scratch and I love the way the orange pops out from the creepy, dark forest scene. When it came time to design Gaia’s cover, we decided to focus on Ember’s growing earth power. It’s important to have a theme to the covers, so the reader identifies it immediately as part of a series. Jenny is brilliant at doing this, while at the same time giving each cover its own personality.

You can see the creepy, countryside elements in all of my Amish mystery books. The shading and stormy sky in Lamb to the Slaughter makes the corn look dangerous and imposing. The stark, lonely barn on the cover of Whispers from the Dead, combined with the bright blue of the winter sky and snowy landscape, convince you that something very terrible has happened there. And the old, leaning tombstones in Secrets in the Grave are eerie and pretty at the same time. The bold font Jenny used for this series immediately signals to the reader that it’s a mystery and the horse and buggy logo at the top informs you that there’s an Amish element within the story.

When I went to Jenny with a fourth book in the Temptation series, I asked her to blend the new book in with the previous three to keep continuity in the series. She did a marvelous job capturing the feel of a Temptation novel, while still making Rachel’s Deception special. The clash of the vibrant blue sky with the warm, golden grass is eye-catching, as is the troubled-looking girl. The font matched the previous books perfectly.

Developing the covers is my favorite part of publishing. I’m especially excited to begin work on TEMPEST (coming in 2016), the third book in the Wings of War series and HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT (2016), the fourth book in Serenity’s Plain Secrets. I haven’t told Jenny yet, but I’m hoping to get a horse onto one of these covers.

Thank you for being a part of Gaia’s blog tour! I love to connect with readers on my Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram or at www.karenannhopkins.com. Please be on the lookout for the release of SECRETS IN THE GRAVE, the third installment in my mystery series, Serenity’s Plain Secrets, in early September! Thanks for reading!

Karen Ann Hopkins

B&T: Sweet! I cannot wait to see those upcoming covers. Jenny, get busy! LOL

About Karen Ann Hopkins:

Karen Ann Hopkins resides in northern Kentucky with her family on a farm that boasts a menagerie of horses, goats, peacocks, chickens, ducks, rabbits, dogs and cats. Karen's main job is home schooling the kids, but she finds time to give riding lessons, coach a youth equestrian drill team, and of course, write. She was inspired to create her first book, Temptation, by the Amish community she lived in. The experiential knowledge she gained through her interactions with her neighbors drove her to create the story of the star-crossed lovers, Rose and Noah.

Karen grew up about a mile from Lake Ontario in Upstate New York. She was bitten by the horse bug at the age of five, and after diligently taking riding lessons for several years, was rewarded with her first horse when she turned eleven. The feisty horse's name was Lady, a Quarter Horse-Thoroughbred cross, who became Karen's steadfast companion. Through the years, the constant force in her life was horses. Eventually, she found her place as a riding instructor herself. Before accepting her fate in the barnyard, she worked a short stint as a paralegal, traveled abroad, and guided tourists on horseback riding tours in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.

Karen is currently working on her Amish mystery series, Serenity's Plain Secrets, along with the YA paranormal/fantasy series, The Wings of War. Karen is also excited to announce the Temptation series has been optioned for TV by Pilgrim Studios and is available on Audible. More books in the Temptation series are in the works.

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Gaia
by Karen Ann Hopkins
Series: Wings of War #2
Published: 7/26/15

Goodreads

Amazon

As the Demons grow bolder and the walls between the planes of existence weaken, Ember is forced to develop her powers as quickly as possible, and she seeks out a powerful earth Watcher to continue her supernatural lessons. Her glimpse of the future demands she fight the dark forces spreading across the earth.

But her new mentor has his own agenda, making her question everyone and everything she ever trusted.
When Ember is thrust into the world of the Watchers, she learns of their plans—ones that defy the scripture and make them enemies of the Celestial Host. Ridding the world of evil gets complicated when it becomes impossible to take sides.

As Ember struggles with morality, she soon discovers that there’s something more frightening than anything she’s faced before.

Book 1:

Goodreads

Amazon

Giveaway!

One lucky winner will receive a $50 gift card (Amazon, B&N, iTunes), as well as a complete set of Karen’s YA books, including Embers, Gaia, Temptation, Belonging, Forever, and Rachel’s Deception! Please enter via the Rafflecopter form. Giveaway is open internationally. Giveaway is sponsored by Kismet.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Stops: (for full tour dates please goto: Gaia Tour Page)

Monday, August 24th

Bittersweet Enchantment (Review)

a Bookish Escape (Review)

Tuesday, August 25th

Behind The Pages (Guest Post)

Lose Time Reading (Review)

Wednesday, August 26th

Taking It One Book at a Time (Guest Post)

Thursday, August 27th

Such a Novel Idea (Review)