Christine Amsden has been
writing fantasy and science fiction for as long as she can remember. She loves
to write and it is her dream that others will be inspired by this love and by
her stories. Speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but great
speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through
extraordinary situations. Christine writes primarily about people and
relationships, and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction
and fantasy meaningful for everyone.
At the age of 16, Christine
was diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, which scars the retina and causes a
loss of central vision. She is now legally blind, but has not let this slow her
down or get in the way of her dreams.
Christine currently lives in
the Kansas City area with her husband, Austin, who has been her biggest fan and
the key to her success. In addition to being a writer, she's a mom and
freelance editor.
Social
Media Links:
About the Book:
Apparently, life
doesn’t end when you get married.
When a couple freezes
to death on a fifty degree day, Cassie is called in to investigate. The couple
ran a daycare out of their home, making preschoolers the key witnesses and even
the prime suspects.
Two of those
preschoolers are Cassie’s youngest siblings, suggesting conditions at home are
worse than she feared. As Cassie struggles to care for her family, she must
face the truth about her mother’s slide into depression, which seems to be
taking the entire town with it.
Then Cassie, too, is
attacked by the supernatural cold. She has to think fast to survive, and her
actions cause a rift between her and her husband.
No, life doesn’t end
after marriage. All hell can break loose at any time.
Buy Links
Frozen (Cassie Scot Book Seven)
Print Release: July 15, 2018
Audiobook Release: TBA
Cassie Scot: ParaNormal
Detective (Cassie Scot Book One)
Please tell us about your
book cover below:
Designed by Lou Harper, the
beautiful cover art for Frozen is far more than it appears. It is
actually the culmination of years of struggle, of adversity, and of serious
backlash over misleading, inadequate, and unprofessional series covers.
Let me back up, because this
story doesn’t begin with Frozen at all. It begins with the first book in
the Cassie Scot series, which has recently had an incredible makeover.
Many of my reviews for the
early books in the series say, “Don’t judge this book by its cover!” They go on
to say that the cover is awful, but the book is great. Well, obviously, I’m
glad they liked the book, but I’ve been discouraged for years by the flack I’ve
received for the covers.
One of the worst consequences
of my original covers was the mistaken belief (by some) that my books were
mid-grade novels, or at least young adult. They are not! These were written
with adult audiences in mind.
As a picture is worth a
thousand words, let me show you the before and after images, one over the other:
Take Secrets and Lies,
for instance, the second book in the series and the one with the greatest
backlash. “It looks too romantic,” many or my readers said to me. And maybe it
does. None of these books are romances, exactly, but there is a strong romantic
subplot (like it or not), and that pose on the original Secrets and Lies perfectly
captures the tension in that book – Evan wants Cassie; Cassie is unsure.
Photo manipulation is
incapable of creating such a scene. To do the same thing with photography, I
would have to hire my own models, and a photographer, and do a prohibitively
expensive photo shoot to make it happen.
But I get it. I really do.
The original cover artwork has terrible, manican-like faces, and they lack the
sharpness, the zing, the edge of professionalism that people are used to seeing
on urban fantasy novels.
I asked my publisher to hire
a new cover designer for Madison’s Song and Kaitlin’s Tale, two
spin-offs following secondary characters, and she did a nice job. Not so nice
that I wanted her to redo my whole series, but definitely an improvement. And
at that point, I thought I was done writing the series.
When Cassie told me, “Life
doesn’t end when you get married,” and made me write Frozen, the first
book in her new plot arc, I knew I needed something different for the cover. My
publisher gave me some choices, knowing I was unhappy with the earlier artwork,
but ultimately I refused them all and asked her if she would hire Lou Harper,
who was recommended by some fellow authors.
Enter the cover art for Frozen,
the intended subject of this blog post! :)
We found a stock photo model
for Cassie, and when I did, I tried to find someone with enough poses that she
could be used on additional books and maybe … if I liked Frozen well
enough, on a series overhaul. I told Lou about some magical creatures that
appear in the book, including a hellhound, which she depicted beautifully
standing atop a frozen lake. The mist obscuring the background is another
important plot element, and really holds the scene together.
When I revealed the cover art
for Frozen to my loyal readers, I got immediate, positive feedback. Some
claimed that Cassie looked just like they’d pictured. Many said it was
beautiful, and professional, and when I floated the idea of the series
makeover, I was met with enthusiastic encouragement. So I went for it.
The result is … breathtaking,
I think. I particularly love the covers to Mind Games and Stolen
Dreams (books three and four), though I am enthusiastic about all of these.
They are obviously more professional, cleaner, and state clearly, “These are
adult urban fantasy novels.”
I hope you like the new
covers half as much as I do, and that regardless, you’ll give the books a
chance. You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but we often do. I sometimes
do, even though I know how the process goes, and how hard it is to find the
right representation for a book!
I present these
before-and-after covers proudly, but know the books are far more than their
covers. Cassie Scot is a labor of love that only comes alive when you peak
inside.
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