Cover Reveal for Book 2 in The Path That Takes Us Home Series

Last night, I sat beside the fireplace in the Carnegie Hall at the Owen Sound Library where I delivered the promised exclusive cover reveal to a crowded room of… two.

Participating in free programming through a public library certainly has its pros and cons.

Pros

• free event space

• ability to piggyback on all library communications, getting your name out there

• access to a network outside your own

Cons

• people are less likely to invest their time into something you didn’t have to “invest” in or that is touted as “FREE!” (a free offering makes people assume it’s not worth anything)

This is not to say that my appearance did not involve personal investment. Time, travel (I don’t want to make this about gas prices but… 😳), marketing efforts. It all adds up, not only financially but as part of the heavy mental/emotional burden of the author hustle.

Presenting to a room of two takes the same effort as presenting to a room of 50.

And I’ll still show up and do it.

In a room of 50, I’d be lucky to sell 15 books. That’s a 30% rate of return. Last night I sold one copy and that’s a 50% rate of return (don’t come at me - this is author math 😏). In a smaller group I can address more pointed questions, make eye contact with a potential reader, and charm them with my openness. This is the same reason why book signings in bookstores are so effective. One on one connection and allowing space for real conversation makes room for actual sales conversion.

Did I have visions of filling every seat? Of course! Earlier this week I watched the video of an author’s debut book launch that showed her standing on a stage in front of a crowded room and I felt deeply jealous. Funny how easily I forget that once upon a time I too stood on a stage in front of a crowded room as I presented my own debut to the world.

As an author, we have big wins and small wins. Emphasis on the wins.

We keep showing up. We keep being loud. We keep writing. We keep trying.

I don’t need the stage. I want it, but I don’t need it - which is a wild thing coming from someone who, a decade ago, would have described herself as horrifically shy and socially awkward. (You should probably know that it took a Texan cowboy literary agent to tell me I was charming and a workplace conflict resolution specialist to tell me I spoke eloquently before I started to believe that I didn’t have to live my life as a wallflower - two different stories for another time.)

Giving a first look at the cover of Where The Ashes Find Their Grave during an author talk at the Owen Sound Public Library

How do I approach a low attended event? Exactly the same way I approach a full house. I’ve done the prep work, so you can bet I’m going to over-deliver. I look at it as a dress rehearsal for the next big thing. Last night, I replied to questions about my world building and research as if I was answering Antonio Michael Downing on CBC’s The Next Chapter - with the confidence and surety of a bestseller. I came here to play. Why would I ever make myself small?

And I did what I promised to do: I gave an exclusive first look at the cover of book 2 in my apocalyptic series.

This is a cover I’m incredibly proud of, and I can’t wait to see it added to shelves beside When The Trees All Burned.

Where The Ashes Find Their Grave picks the story up where we left our characters in the first book: on Labour Day. Fires have all but destroyed the world, and it’s up to the survivors to figure out how to navigate this new earth.

Currently, the back cover blurb stands as follows:

Rajiv Montgomery Noah spent his life building a sanctuary for the worthy. He chose two hundred souls, wrote them a constitution, and sealed the gates against everything that burned.

On paper, it was beautiful.

But a house built on a cracked foundation will always find its fault line. Inside Eden, a man with a borrowed name carries old world appetites into the new one. The batteries are draining as the sun refuses to show her face—and the only man who can see her is trapped four hundred kilometres above the earth, utterly beyond reach. And beneath the surface of Rajiv’s perfect system lies a catastrophic secret—one he buried before the fires came—that may render everything he built, every sacrifice, every soul he saved, meaningless.

Beyond the dome, the silence may not be as total as they feared. But even the fragile hope of other survivors only sharpens the question Rajiv can no longer avoid:

What does it mean to save humanity if you have already broken the thing that makes it human?

There is only one answer. And it will cost him everything.

It had been my intention to share a reading from the opening of Book 2 last night, but the conversation took its own pathway, and we ran out of time. Perhaps I’ll save that for my next event. Who knows… maybe you’ll even be there…

a first look at the cover of Where The Ashes Find Their Grave

Take a closer look at the cover - do you see what I hid in there?

Where The Ashes Find Their Grave is scheduled to release on Labour Day 2026. Make sure you’re on my newsletter list so you never miss an update!