The three covers of The Second Life of Ava Rivers

The Second Life of Ava Rivers was my second published novel and it’s still near and dear to my heart. This book is a mystery/thriller about a missing child who returns after twelve years gone with no memory of where she’s been and you can read more about it here.

Since it was published by Penguin in 2018, it’s been through a lot, ending with me gaining back my rights to the book and re-releasing it last year.

When a writer gains the rights back for a traditionally published book, one thing they don’t retain the rights for is the original cover, so last year I got a new cover made. At the time I liked it but the more I’ve learned since doing more self-publishing, the more I started wishing I had gone with something a little more eye-catching. Here we are, in 2023, and The Second Life of Ava Rivers now has a new cover that I’m really happy with. Check out the three covers below and let me know if you have a favorite!

Here’s the first cover, from the book’s original release in 2018:

The second cover, from the re-release in 2022:

And the most recent redesign from 2023:

This new cover is by Tim Barber of Dissect Designs, who’s done many covers for me now and who is just amazing at what he does.

Despite the rocky road this book has been on, I’m excited to refresh the face of it in hopes that it will find new readers and get a new life of its own!

Announcing my Kindle Vella story "The Poisonous Woman"

Have you heard about Kindle Vella? It’s Amazon’s newish publishing platform for serial fiction, and as a writer who’s embraced both long and short forms, I’ve been curious to try it. Well, the day has come.

I now have an ongoing story on Kindle Vella called “The Poisonous Woman” about a young woman with a lethal touch engineered as a weapon by the government. It’s a thriller, it’s dystopian, it’s soft sci-fi, it’s got a coming-of-age vibe to it. I’ve been holding onto this story for years now, not quite sure where it fit, so I’m excited to finally have it out there.

She's gone by many names: Donna, Queenie, Bell. But no matter what you call her, she's poison. The government made her as a weapon. When the experiment went awry, she was locked up in a zoo. She's grown up in here, alone. And all she dreams of is escape.

Check out “The Poisonous Woman” here! I’ll be aiming to update it twice weekly.

AMEN MAXINE

Guess what, friends? I have a new book coming out next month called Amen Maxine. While it’s always a joy and a pleasure to release a book, this one is very special to me because it’s my first novel for adults and represents a new direction for my writing. I’m expanding from traditionally published YA to indie publishing novels for adults via my new imprint Mirror House Press and I am THRILLED and I hope to thrill you too.

Amen Maxine is a domestic suspense/psychological thriller with a dystopian twist. It’s about a woman whose smart device begins giving her sinister warnings about her new husband. It’s twisty, it’s creepy, it’s set in the near future and filled with marital tensions and AI technology and features a snarky, neurotic protagonist. It will be available July 23 and ARCs are currently available on Netgalley.

The Second Life of The Second Life of Ava Rivers

This month, I released a new edition of The Second Life of Ava Rivers with a gorgeous reimagined cover designed by Emily Wittig.

While it’s been almost four years since its first release, this book remains close to my heart. I’m so excited to once again share this book with the world, and hope it ends up getting discovered by new readers!

You can order it as a paperback or ebook on Amazon, and I’ll be releasing it on other platforms in the near future.