Arthur and his mates are at the gym, then out for brunch – a typical catch up. Arthur hasn’t told them he’s gay. He’d thought he was comfortable in the closet… But with events conspiring against him, it’s getting increasingly awkward in there!

This is a prequel short story, kicking off Arthur’s tale just a few hours before the start of Duck and Dive. It’s the first in a series of four short stories set before, between, and after the books of the Rise and Shine series (gay romcom novellas) – more info here.

The stories will be released to the wonderful people on my mailing list (for free!), so if you’re not already there, jump on board now then so keep an eye out for my next email (ETA 25 June 2022) to read the first story! But before that, we needed to pick a cover design for it…

The options

I prepared a shortlist of four cover image designs for my new short story, Squat Lifts and Smashed Avocado, then asked those on my mailing list, Facebook page and on Twitter what they thought.

Note: Please disregard the image watermarks, they’ll be removed once I’ve purchased the selected winning image.

The results

Two cover designs led the charge – Options 2 and 4 – gaining more that five times more votes than either of the other two. However, neither of the favoured designs stood out as the clear winner with only a few votes between them. That being the case, it looks like I might need to tinker and interrogate these a little further to come up with the final design before the story is released in a few days.

If you have any last minute thoughts, please drop me message – I’d love your input. Otherwise, to be sure to see the end result – and read the actual story! – jump on my mailing list.