COVER REVEAL AT LAST: SONG BREAKER!

What's a cover reveal without a story, right?

Friends and long-time readers know that I have a love of Scandinavia, and in particular, Finland. A big part of that is the fact that my mother was born and raised there. Another is that my father did church service there for 2 1/2 years as a young man.

And no, they didn't meet then. Five years after his mission, he returned to Finland on a Fulbright scholarship to do research for his dissertation. That is when they met and courted, and the following autumn, they married.

Dad is a retired linguist (again, something long-time readers will already know). In addition to speaking Finnish, he taught Finnish literature at the university where he served as a linguistics professor. Throughout my childhood, we regularly had Finnish visitors, heard stories about the country, and so on. Christmas in particular became a time for family traditions centered around Finland.

When I was 6, my family visited Finland for three months, each in a different city for the summer. While I have some wonderful memories of that time, my true passion for the country came to life a few years later, when we returned to live in Helsinki for 3 years. I attended public school and eventually learned the language. I still have several dear friends there (and some who have immigrated to the States). And my love for all things Finnish has only continued to grow.

It was only a matter of time before that love informed my writing.

The fall of 2008, I finally had the chance to return to Finland for the first time since 1987. WOW. I felt like I'd returned home! Leaving was harder than I anticipated; I cried at the airport. But as I flew back to the States with my husband, I already had a story idea percolating in the back of my mind. I didn't know the details yet, but I knew I wanted to write a retelling of one of the stories in the Finnish mythology, known as the Kalevala.

So I did. I read large sections of the Kalevala and spent a long time working on expanding the story of Aino into a full-length novel.

And I'm thrilled to say that after many delays (a lot of them professional obligations that pushed this project to the back burner, many others family things because, well, family trumps, as well it should), my retelling of the story, now titled Song Breaker, will be released this fall!

I don't have a final date yet, as a few variables still need to be worked out, but I hope to have it available for readers no later than the first week of October (hopefully sooner!).

In the meantime, here's the amazing cover, designed by the immensely talented Sarah Beard:

Isn't it gorgeous?!

If you want to be kept up to date on the release of Song Breaker, be sure to sign up for my newsletter (do that in the white box in the sidebar).

And in the meantime, take a peek at the reviews coming in for the Annette Lyon Collection from Timeless Romance Anthologies, featuring five stories that are fan favorites plus one all-new novella.

The collection is available HERE.

A blog tour for the collection is going on right now. Here are some of the stops so far.
Katie’s Clean Book Collection
Bookworm Lisa
I Love to Read and Review Books
Literary Time Out

(Find the full list of blog tour stops HERE.)

I love gazing at the cover. 
It's just so awesome in so many ways!