{"id":1112,"date":"2021-04-06T19:00:32","date_gmt":"2021-04-07T02:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/?p=1112"},"modified":"2021-04-06T19:06:42","modified_gmt":"2021-04-07T02:06:42","slug":"rca-book-4-cover-reveal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/rca-book-4-cover-reveal\/","title":{"rendered":"RCA Book 4 Cover Reveal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Well, it\u2019s been a trip! Ya know, working from home for over a year now, I thought I would have accomplished so much more by now. Instead, I feel like I\u2019m at least a full year behind my own publishing schedule on my first published series, The Rose Cross Academy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not to say I haven\u2019t been writing at all since COVID hit. Just the opposite, actually. I just haven\u2019t been writing a singular story. I\u2019ve been writing four.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bad writer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the fourth book in my Rose Cross Academy YA series is coming along, mostly because I\u2019m forcing myself to sit down and work on it several times a week. It\u2019s tough to do, especially when my other works are drumming at my brain. So yes, I must force myself to work on RCA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that self-imposed slave labour, I have conquered the self-edit in about half of the book, I think I have completed about 85% of the novel, and most recently I have nailed down the cover art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Tah dah!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

With the fourth book in the series, I\u2019m continuing on with the \u201cmirror\u201d silhouette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I split previous covers between Above and Below. The top portion of the \u2018reflection\u2019 so far has always represented Above, or the human world. The bottom portion has always represented Below, the demon world. I made this choice because much of the novels took place in one of these two realms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up until this installment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the fourth book, Blood & Water<\/em>, a location known as the Bastion takes a more prominent role in moving the characters and plots around. In this cover, the human world portion of Above is replace by a scene from the Bastion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bastion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As I\u2019ve mentioned before, I modeled the Bastion after the Ukrainian city of Pripyat, a city evacuated after the Chernobyl disaster<\/a>. When the population of Pripyat abandoned the city, the buildings, the bus terminals, and even the amusement park had been abandoned as they were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the creepiest aspects of this ghost town is the amusement park, so much so that Pripyat and the amusement park have been featured in movies and video games. I added the amusement park into the landscape of the Bastion, but not just because it\u2019s spooky. The amusement park plays a role in the fourth book, and as such I feature it on the cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My stand in for the demon world, Below is a world much like our own. Just inhabited by creatures you wouldn\u2019t want to find under your bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As June Bae, the main character of the series, flees false persecution from the Rose Cross Academy, he teams up with the Faust brothers and travels through Below\u2014the demon world known as Eops. Throughout the series, Below has always carried a negative connotation. In this installment, Below will provide the only safe haven for much of the cast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Elan Zeal, our troublesome antagonist, kidnaps one of the Fausts, the remaining brothers, Petra, and June take refuge in an abandoned tavern in the forests in order to organize their rescue mission. This tavern, which I modeled after an old Victorian-style house in my city, serves as their home base and thus deserved a place on the cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each cover also featured splash of colour to break up the monotony of the black-and-white art. For Blood & Water<\/em>, I chose green \u2026 mostly because I had already used red and blue on the other covers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is also the second cover designed 100% by me with my own catalogue of images, whereas the previous two used the silhouettes of Vancouver and Washington, D.C. used under license from Shutterstock<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, let me know what you think! I\u2019m really hoping to get back on a proper schedule with this novel, and then start churning out my other works in good order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until next time!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Rissa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, it\u2019s been a trip! Ya know, working from home for over a year now, I thought I would have accomplished so much more by now. Instead, I feel like I\u2019m at least a full year behind my own publishing schedule on my first published series, The Rose Cross Academy. That\u2019s not to say I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rose-cross-academy","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6odz9-hW","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5312,"url":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/where-the-heck-have-i-been\/","url_meta":{"origin":1112,"position":0},"title":"Where the heck have I been?","author":"Rissa Renae","date":"March 9, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"I'd like to think I can use the excuse of life getting in the way, but in reality, it really hasn't. I've been writing. A lot. And also reading a lot. I think it's the reading that's been taking me away from the social aspect of being a self-published author.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Updates"","block_context":{"text":"Updates","link":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/category\/updates\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/QnFairyFarts.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3540,"url":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/new-book-release-news\/","url_meta":{"origin":1112,"position":1},"title":"New Book release news","author":"Rissa Renae","date":"June 6, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2026 or why a write-a-book-in-a-month challenge isn\u2019t necessarily a good challenge. Welp, it\u2019s been a while, I know. I wish I could say I\u2019ve been furiously writing, but alas, I have not. In all honesty, the pandemic threw a wrench into my writing. I\u2019ve been trying to re-establish my writing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Gamemasters"","block_context":{"text":"Gamemasters","link":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/category\/gamemasters\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/roses.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/roses.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/roses.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/roses.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":403,"url":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/once-more-with-feeling\/","url_meta":{"origin":1112,"position":2},"title":"Once More With Feeling","author":"Rissa Renae","date":"September 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Holy cow; I haven\u2019t made a blog post in a really long time. As with last periods of blog-less-ness, this time is no different. Living here in the Oil and Gas capital of Canada, we\u2019re slowly succumbing to the failing price of oil. This means job losses, increases in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Day to Day"","block_context":{"text":"Day to Day","link":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/category\/day-to-day\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/best-online-friend.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1322,"url":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/cherry-blossoms-and-nano-prep\/","url_meta":{"origin":1112,"position":3},"title":"Cherry Blossoms and NaNo Prep","author":"Rissa Renae","date":"March 28, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"April is Camp NaNoWriMo time. Here in the Lower Mainland, it's also cherry blossom time. Sakura trees line a small park in Burnaby (Photo: Author) If I were to tell you that self-publishing my 4th novel, Blood & Water, book #4 in my Rose Cross Academy series, was a slog,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"spring\"","block_context":{"text":"spring","link":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/tag\/spring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/FrogGuardian.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/FrogGuardian.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/FrogGuardian.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/FrogGuardian.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1225,"url":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/covid-19-and-new-years-resolutions\/","url_meta":{"origin":1112,"position":4},"title":"COVID-19 and New Year\u2019s Resolutions","author":"Rissa Renae","date":"January 16, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019m late to the game on the whole New Year\u2019s Resolutions thing, but I have a good excuse. With this most recent variant, the probability of catching the virus went up a substantial amount. Going by numbers in my city, it appears to be about a 20%-25% jump. 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