Kate & Ruger's New Hidden Valor Covers! 🐾

Hi, all—

I hope everyone's having a great July. It's been busy on my end—but productive. My editor finished the final proofread for Kate & Ruger's coming Beneath the Bones. I've already created the advanced reading copy & sent it out to my ARC team. 🎉 The eBook is now available for preorder everywhere. For those who prefer print, I'll be loading the soft and hardcover versions ASAP.

I've also wrapped up the creation of my new eBookstore—a one-stop shop for all my thrillers, mysteries & even my older RS novels. It's located at store.candaceirving.com. You can read the opening chapter to any of my books on that book's page on the site. Take a peek!

As you all know, I've been writing for years. But I've only been Indie these last three. I've learned a lot about the business end of writing during the latter span, particularly about branding. (Basically, how to let a reader know right off what they can expect from a particular novel.) Naturally, a huge part of this involves book covers.

Because of my lessons learned, Ivan & I went back to the drawing board to re-think Kate & Ruger's Hidden Valor covers to better reflect what's inside the current & coming books. Since I've been busy writing & Ivan had other awesome covers to create for my fellow authors, the rebrand project simmered in the back of his brain for a few months. I wasn't worried; I knew he'd come up with an utterly brilliant concept. And—wow—did he ever. I'm still blown away by the new look he's created for the series. So much so, I wanted to take a newsletter to share the covers with you.

I also wanted to give you a heads up as to what's coming in the near future, book and series-wise. As you know, Beneath the Bones will be released on Aug 1st. I'll be sending out a special sneak peek for this latest Kate & Ruger installment in place of your regular Aug 2nd Reader Crew newsletter.

Next up: I'll be writing a Hidden Valor prequel novella called Invisible Wounds. The novella will be set shortly after Kate's return to Arkansas following her POW experience—and 3 years before the series opens. Yes, we're going to get to see how Kate & Ruger met! I haven't put the book up for preorder yet, but I'm working toward a November release date.

From there, I'll be switching back to Regan & Mira for the next book in their Deception Point series, Pitch Black, due out in 2024. This DP installment will be followed by another full-length Kate & Ruger Hidden Valor suspense—and then the final book in the initial Deception Point suspense arc.

As for those gorgeous new covers I want to share, here you go! They've already been loaded across my eBookstore & all the major eRetailers. Amazon automatically downloaded the covers on the older test books that I had previously purchased for the series on my Kindle. Hopefully, the same will happen with Apple, Kobo & Nook.

As for the older soft and hardcover art for The Garbage Man & In the Name Of—those print books are now collector items. 😁

—Candace