Taking their shot at love.
University of Kentucky senior Kit Parkins has his life planned out. He’ll graduate, get a good job, find a better apartment, meet the guy of his dreams, and settle down to a happy life near his brother and uncles, the only family he has left. But meeting Lincoln Joyner, UK’s star basketball player, calls all his priorities into question.
Like Kit, Linc knows exactly where life is taking him: to the NBA and as far away from his hardscrabble childhood as possible. There’s just one problem. He falls in love with Kit, who can’t imagine life anywhere but in Lexington.
Can they find a way to keep their relationship going without giving up on their dreams?
I’m a writer, not a visual artist. I can look at something and find it appealing or unappealing or see how it would be appealing to certain people. I can even look at an image and feel like something’s missing, but I can’t say what or why, so receiving my cover for a book always feels a bit like a miracle.
For Home and Away, I actually had more to say to the artist upfront than I usually do, but even that was not much.
I stumbled across the picture of Linc when I was browsing a stock photo site looking for something else entirely, but the minute I saw him, I knew who he was. I’d been waiting for Kit to grow up so I could give him his own story since about ten pages into writing Stage Two, and now I’d found the perfect man for him. And fortuitously, University of Kentucky basketball players travel to away games wearing suits, so I didn’t even have to worry about what he was wearing.
Because Linc is wearing a suit, not a basketball jersey, we needed something to make it clear what the setting was, and the obvious choice was the inside of a basketball arena. My artist found one, and other than it having too much red on it (red is a bad color in Lexington), I thought it worked. The artist changed it to blue, and I said great.
Then a couple of weeks later, I got the actual cover, and I was blown away. First, Linc’s suit was blue instead of black, which I really should have thought of myself, given how long Linc dreamed of going to UK before he was accepted. But it was the background that had really changed. Gone was the generic arena with the fully lit and empty court. In its place was a darkened arena with the spotlights on overhead and people beginning to fill the seats through the brightly lit entrances. This was Rupp Arena, where the Wildcats play, in the minutes before the game starts. This was the vibrant energy that fills the space as the announcer calls the team onto the court amid pyrotechnics and wild music and a sense of anticipation. This was the eRUPPtion Zone, UK’s sixth man and student section, with their Kentucky blue and their favorite player’s number painted on their cheeks or their chests. This was alive and powerful and appealing in a way I can feel but never could have asked for.
This was the cover Home and Away deserved. And I am so grateful to Alex Corza for bringing it to life
She now lives on the outskirts of Houston with her husband (who also speaks French), her kids (who understand French even when they’re too lazy to speak it back), and their two dogs (who steadfastly refuse to answer any French commands). The cat pretends they’re all beneath her, no matter what language they’re speaking.
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Website: www.arieltachna.com
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love the post today
jmarinich33 at aol dot com
Love the post and the cover.
Great post and cover.
Nice to see a POC on the cover!
Congratulations on your upcoming book! I love the cover.
Congrats on your upcoming release!
Love the cover and the explanation! 😉
Linc looks very intriguing!