Highgate Cemetery - Is This Where My Heroine Will Meet Her Doom?!

It looks fairly innocent, doesn't it, basking in the sunshine and seen from this angle, but once you're down those steps and surrounded by high walls on either side, it's pretty creepy. The West section of Highgate Cemetery is wild and overgrown. The photo below was taken in bright sun, but imagine what it might feel like at dusk on a cold, overcast day. Graves line every pathway and stretch into the distance wherever you look. Some of the graves seem to pop out at you when you're least expecting them, some have cracked open, and some are tilted at odd angles because of land slips.

I've just begun the second part of the 'Indian' trilogy I'm writing - although this book, in fact, is set in wartime London. My heroine, Daisy Driscoll, is due to face dire peril in the book's finale and I've been wondering just where that should take place. I had thought of the London sewers but a recent visit I made to Highgate Cemetery may have sealed her fate!

I know I’ve been picky about the book covers I’ve been given, so when the North American cover art arrived for my next Regency, I thought I should redress the balance. The book is called The Major’s Guarded Heart (no, not my title!) and is due be published on Nov 1. I can’t say I love this image but for once I quite like it, though I’m not entirely sure about the chap’s expression. Still, he is dressed in correct Regency gear and the hero he’s playing, Justin Delacourt, does have a library just like the one pictured. His hair is roughly the right colour too. In the book I describe Justin’s hair as ‘abundant and gleaming, challenging the dreariness of the place and the day. Even the dim lighting could not suppress its bright glory, catching at highlights and dancing them in the air, until it seemed the man’s head was circled by a veritable halo.’ I suppose it would be asking a bit much to find the right image for that! So I’m reasonably content - though this is only the North American cover and there may be a nasty surprise in store when the UK one arrives!

I’d be interested to know what you think. And all you writers out there, do you get some say in your covers and if not, how do you rate the ones you’re handed?