New Look for the Blog!

Do you like the blog’s new look? I’ve been intending to change it forever but just haven’t taken the time. Today I decided to play a bit, inspired by the French setting in Refiner's Fire, and I really like this theme. (By the way, I just discovered that if you're looking at it on a smart phone, it looks somewhat different, and the image in the header doesn't show.)

A while back I happened across some wonderful paintings by Italian artist Arturo Ricci, and for the header image I decided to use one I particularly like, L’Attesa or “The Expectation”. It reflects my characters and parts of Refiner’s Fire quite nicely. I’m thinking the couple on the left could stand in as Elizabeth Howard on the arm of Lucien Bettár, le comte de Caledonne’s son and thus Jonathan Carleton’s cousin. Ideally her hair would be darker since it’s a dark auburn, but good enough. Her escort does look like I envision Lucien.

The little girl with the older woman could sure be Abby and Tess Howard, though Abby is 13 in the story so would be a bit bigger. Then the man seated behind them would be Caledonne, and the couple seated beside the doorway would be their hosts, Caledonne’s daughter and son-in-law le marquis and la marquise Cécile and Eugène de Sevieux. This is undoubtedly as close as I’m going to get to these characters.

The more I look at this painting, the more I’m thinking about using it for the Refiner’s Fire cover. It’s in public domain and I found a fairly large image on Wikimedia that Marisa might just be able to do her magic on and make work. 

I originally intended to use a naval battle painting for book 6, but what do you think? Would you like to see this scene gracing the cover of Refiner's Fire? Please leave your comments and let me know yay or nay—for both the cover and the new blog design.