Wednesday Flourish: Hidden in Plain Sight

I always love sharing my design work with all of you, so I'm really excited today to reveal the cover for Hidden in Plain Sight, the fourth book in the Serenity's Plain Secrets series by Karen Ann Hopkins. Karen is one of my longtime clients, and we've worked together on so many projects now that we've become a bit of a well-oiled machine which is really fun.

Usually Karen shoots me an email before we start a cover with a few key things she's looking for, and then lets me run with those ideas as I collect various images and group them into basic concepts to submit for approval. With this cover though Karen didn't have the same kind of specific imagery in mind as she's had for previous designs, and I'm grateful that she trusted me enough to let me try and point us both in the right design direction.

Amish stock imagery is poor at best, so it's always a bit of a challenge for me to create a cover for this series that suggests an Amish country setting while still having that ominous murder mystery feel. With this newest cover Karen wanted the Amish element to be a bit more front and center than in previous books, so it took a little extra magic to help me find my way to the final cover and I couldn't be happier with the result.

I hope you guys love how it turned out!

When a cold case heats up, Serenity won’t stop until she discovers the truth.

In the fourth installment of the bestselling Serenity’s Plain Secrets’ series, Serenity must work with US marshals to uncover the truth behind a shockingly brutal fifteen-year-cold murder.

Desperate for answers, Serenity finds herself in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where she unravels secrets that threaten to tear her and Daniel apart. But digging up the past is dangerous, and the quaint Amish settlement isn’t as safe as it seems.

If Serenity chooses to trust the man she’s come to love, it could mean a happily ever after… or her final act.

Goodreads 

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Be sure and check out the previous books in the series!

SECRETS IN THE GRAVE

Serenity's Plain Secrets #3

Just when Sheriff Serenity Adams thinks life is getting back to normal, the death of a young, pregnant Amish woman rocks the community. Is it circumstance…or murder? It’s up to Serenity and her ex-Amish boyfriend, Daniel Bachman, to discover the truth about the new shaman-type medicine man who’s brought his dark secrets to Blood Rock.

But Serenity has secrets of her own, and if she and Daniel don’t work it out, the reappearance of a woman from his past could threaten to ruin their relationship.

The deeper Serenity delves into the magical world of Amish herbal medicine, the phenomenon of laying of the hands and other cultural healing oddities, the more she wonders if miracles are real. What she witnesses with her own eyes may be too fantastical for her to believe.

In this riveting third installment of Serenity’s Plain Secrets, beliefs are challenged, a way of life is questioned and family skeletons are unearthed, leaving no one untouched.  

Goodreads • Amazon

WHISPERS FROM THE DEAD

Serenity's Plain Secrets #2

Some Amish communities aren't so cozy.

Whispers From The Dead is the powerful and thrilling sequel to Lamb to the Slaughter, in the Amish mystery series, Serenity’s Plain Secrets.

Sheriff Serenity Adams and Daniel Bachman are once again partnered up in a criminal investigation, when they travel to a northern Amish settlement that has been riddled by arsons for the past two decades. Serenity quickly discovers that there is much more going on than just barns being set on fire in the touristy community, and that the new group of Amish has their own secrets to hide. She begins to unravel an extensive criminal underworld that threatens to destroy everything that the simple people of Poplar Springs hold dear and once again puts her own life in jeopardy.

And even though Serenity tries desperately to avoid it, things begin heating up between her and Daniel, making her wonder if true love and happiness are really within her grasp.

Goodreads • Amazon • B&N

LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER

Serenity's Plain Secrets #1

Lamb to the Slaughter is a story about the intertwining lives of three unlikely people in an Indiana Amish Community and the devastating results when a rebellious teenage girl is found shot to death in a corn field during the harvest.

Serenity Adams is the newly elected young sheriff in the country town of Blood Rock and besides dealing with the threatening behavior of her predecessor, she now has a dead Amish girl on her plate.  At first glance, the case seems obvious.  The poor girl was probably accidently shot during hunting season, but when the elders of the Amish community and even the girl’s parents react with uncaring subdued behavior, Serenity becomes suspicious.  As she delves deeper into the secretive community that she grew up beside, she discovers a gruesome crime from the past that may very well be related to the Amish girl’s shooting.

Serenity enlists the help of the handsome bad-boy building contractor, Daniel Bachman, who left the Amish when he was nineteen and has his own dark reasons to help the spunky sheriff solve the crime that the family and friends who shunned him are trying desperately to cover up.  Serenity’s persistence leads her to a stunning discovery that not only threatens to destroy her blossoming romance with Daniel, but may even take her life in the end.

Goodreads • Amazon • B&N

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You can find more of my cover design work at Seedlings Design Studio!