Critical Conditions

Published by Lemon Grove Press

BRONZE WINNER: Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year

FINALIST: National Indie Excellence Awards

WINNER: San Francisco Book Festival Awards

WINNER: Allbooks Review Editor's Choice Awards

BEST HEALTH BOOK OF THE YEAR: Book & Authors.net

WINNER: DIY Book Festival Awards

HONORABLE MENTION: Reader Views Readers Choice Awards

WINNER: Pinnacle Book Achievement Award

FINALIST: Next Generation Indie Book Awards

If you've ever lost a loved one due to hospital error or negligence, as I have, this topic hits home. The author hits it home so well that many awards came fast. With the information and advice in this book, you can be an effective advocate for someone in the hospital and get better care. More than 150 interviews with nurses, doctors, social workers and families are included.

For the cover, I chose a hospital room for the background, then blurred it and added shadows to make the title easy to read, but also to give it a greater sense of distance. The monitor, to the right, is sharply focused and obviously in the foreground. Combining these gives a strong sense of depth which pulls you into the room. it's a powerful subtitle so it has the strongest color.

Click the cover to see it enlarged, as with all my posts.

Stealing Trinity

Oceanview Publishing

FOREWORD MAGAZINE'S BOOK OF THE YEAR

Gold Winner

NATIONAL IPPY AWARDS

Silver Winner

NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARDS

Winner

On July 16, 1945, the world's first atomic bomb is tested — code named Trinity. In the days that follow, four people: a tenacious British investigator, a determined young woman, a killer, and the German spy who could compromise America's greatest scientific endeavor, will have a fateful rendezvous, all vying for control of the secret that will shape the world.

Brisk and expansive, this solid spy story inspired New York Times bestselling author Gayle Lynds to endorse it by saying, "Richly characterized and beautifully written, Stealing Trinity by Ward Larsen is a compelling tale of hot adventure and cool spies in the nail-biting weeks before the close of World War II. If you enjoyed Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett, you'll love this book."

Did the cover need the swastika? Oceanview Publishing thought so, and I agreed because combining it with the atom makes such a clear and compelling image. The swastika is foggy, fading around the edges, enveloped in the white light of the nucleus, in control of immense atomic power. This scary concept is a new approach for using that old nazi insignia. Blue makes it cool (and not to be mistaken for the sun) which allows the hot-colored title to compete successfully for attention underneath. The power of the atom invades the title, shown by the white glow in "Stealing".