And the grand prize winners are…

First, the twin “butterfly” swords showcased at RWA 2010 as part of my costume:

And the winner is: Stephanie Hyacinth

Second, the color poster of schumy330’s original Butterfly Swords artwork:

And the winner is: Anne Wijaya

Third, the one-of-a-kind annotated version of Butterfly Swords:


And the winner is: Desere of South Africa

Thank you everyone for joining. I meant it when I said that this experience has been beyond my wildest expectations. I will continue to give you updates via the newsletter. Next month’s edition will have the first sneak preview of the sequel, THE DRAGON AND THE PEARL, so don’t miss out!

BUTTERFLY SWORDS will continue to sell on bookshelves for the next two weeks only so grab a copy quickly. And if you liked Butterfly Swords, take a look at THE TAMING OF MEI LIN, a linked short story from Harlequin Historical Undone full of sword fights and romance.

Congratulations and thank you everyone for your support!!

To the winners: Winners can contact me here. I also have your e-mails and I will be in touch by the end of the weekend. If any of the winners would rather have  a nice print copy of Butterfly Swords for your reading pleasure, let me know and I’ll happily exchange. If any of the winners opt out, the items will be donated to the next Brenda Novak online auction for diabetes research or a similar charity.

Cover Art

The going statement is that writers have absolutely no say over what goes on their covers, but my publisher did ask me to send some images that I thought might be useful for the covers, though they already had many images in mind. I wish I was more artistic! I sent a couple of images that have inspired me in terms of the period and clothing but now I’m wondering if I should have sent more in the way of setting and location? Then again, I was a afraid of sending too much since they have an art department that thinks about these things and I’m so not a graphic artsy person that I didn’t want to mess with it.

Of course there’s the swordwoman in red that I use as my avatar. I’ve always loved that since my heroine starts and ends the book wearing a red wedding dress. It’s also very flowing and dramatic.

swordwomen2

There are a couple of other artists I found on deviantart whose style I quite like.

schumy330’s work captures the ethereal quality of Tang dynasty costumes. Her portraits are so fresh and innocent.

http://schumy330.deviantart.com/gallery/

Feimo is a bit edgier and more seductive

http://feimo.deviantart.com/gallery/

http://feimo.deviantart.com/gallery/

I’m quite excited to find out what the covers will look like. It has me quite giddy. That also means that soon, hopefully soon, I will have definitive news of a release date. 🙂