Need my Reader's Help in Choosing a Book Cover

My publisher submitted 7 covers for me to review. After running them past friends and family, it's narrowed to 2 and I'm having trouble deciding. Which do you prefer? (I took the photos of the trees) 

Back cover book description:  

 In Paolo Sorrentino’s film Youth, an elderly composer observes, with bewilderment, “I’ve become old and I don’t know how I got here.”

Best-selling author, commercial airline pilot, and retired air crash investigator L.B. Johnson knows exactly how she got here. She just never expected to arrive quite so soon.

In The Serenity Chronicles, Johnson turns her attention from wreckage to reflection. A bout of septic shock and its lasting consequences forced her to reconsider not only the future she had imagined after retirement, but the very meaning of time. Rather than measure life by what remained, she chose to live more deliberately in the days she had.

Written as a series of candid, sometimes irreverent vignettes, this literary memoir wanders through subjects that initially seem wonderfully random, yet gradually reveal an unexpected coherence. Johnson considers the changing landscapes of the body, the ghosts of family history, the persistence of faith, the enduring gifts of love, and the peculiar indignities that aging so generously provides.

There is grief here, and an honest reckoning with mortality. But there is also laughter, gratitude, and the recognition that even an imperfect life can contain extraordinary beauty.

Johnson writes frankly about what aging takes away—and what it gives in return. Readers may wince in recognition, laugh at life’s absurdities, and find some part of their own journey reflected in these pages.  Because being alive is an exercise in enduring surprise.

Sometimes, serenity is not found in knowing what comes next.

Sometimes, it is found in being willing to find out.

 

Cover Number ONE

Or Number TWO

This will be my fifth book, the first four all went to #1 on the best seller lists for Amazon for fiction and non fiction.  All proceeds have gone to animal rescue and Search Dog Foundation. 

Coming to a Bookstore by You (or at least your handy Amazon browser).

I started this book a year and a half ago, and it was only with the loss of Sunny that I felt the nudge to finish it and get it off the publisher.   Her story is in there, and mine, at least that part which is "how did I get old and what is this retirement thing?"

The cover shown is just a draft for a possible kindle cover to give my publisher some ideas what I like but the book is finally done and off to the publisher to start round 2 of editing, then formatting and all of that. 

It should be out by the first of the year.  So far, a few galley drafts went out for advance review. Thank you all for your patience with the blog - with household, the death of our Lab Sunny at age 3, and general medical going on's it's been hard to post  much beyond Facebook (I know "Facebook is for OLD people" - my granddaughters.)

Here is the back cover description:  I thought it would be shorter to just say "I got Abdominal Septic Shock and ended up on the Liver Transplant List and all I got was this Plushie Liver " (which I loved - Thank you Erin C.), but my publisher said "no".  (Acually I dont go into much detail on that whole ordeal from a medical standpoint, but the liver is healing and I'm off the list.  They checked the rest of me out beyond thoroughly, and even at my age I was in the running (non smoker, non drinker, normal weight, no medications and heart health of a 30 year old though gravity is winning).

In Paolo Sorrentino’s film Youth, an elderly composer observes, with bewilderment, “I’ve become old and I don’t know how I got here.”

Best-selling author, commercial airline pilot, and retired air crash investigator L.B. Johnson knows exactly how she got here. She just never expected to arrive quite so soon.

In The Serenity Chronicles, Johnson turns her attention from wreckage to reflection. A bout of septic shock and its lasting consequences forced her to reconsider not only the future she had imagined after retirement, but the very meaning of time. Rather than measure life by what remained, she chose to live more deliberately in the days she had.

Written as a series of candid, sometimes irreverent vignettes, this literary memoir wanders through subjects that initially seem wonderfully random, yet gradually reveal an unexpected coherence. Johnson considers the changing landscapes of the body, the ghosts of family history, the persistence of faith, the enduring gifts of love, and the peculiar indignities that aging so generously provides.

There is grief here, and an honest reckoning with mortality. But there is also laughter, gratitude, and the recognition that even an imperfect life can contain extraordinary beauty.

Johnson writes frankly about what aging takes away—and what it gives in return. Readers may wince in recognition, laugh at life’s absurdities, and find some part of their own journey reflected in these pages.  Because being alive is an exercise in enduring surprise.

Sometimes, serenity is not found in knowing what comes next.

Sometimes, it is found in being willing to find out.

Here are a couple  author blurbs for the back cover. 

There’s a reason that LB Johnson has a loyal and even passionate following, and this book shows why. Other writers try to write down the bones, while she loves those bones, polishes them, and gives them life through storytelling. --Latayne C. Scott, award winning author of The Conspiracy of Breath

L.B. Johnson, possesses a sure lyrical style that opens the reader frankly to emotions otherwise neglected. Johnson’s poetic words do not fly off all unattached but plaster themselves to the realities of grief and hope, leaving the reader to sit back and try to account for that which is unaccountable.--Larry Sommers, Author of The Price of Passage

But the one that made me smile the most was this shout out in the substack column for an author that is one of the editors - who is reading it now.

"The past few months have been full of other people’s words. Right now I’m editing The Serenity Chronicles, a memoir that Legacy Press is publishing for a bestselling author I’ve long admired. My favorite of her books is The Book of Barkley. Until now.I can’t wait to tell you more, and trust me—I will. For now: I cannot put it down. I can’t. It’s deep. It’s rich. It’s funny. If this were my last publishing project, I’d retire happy."

This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

My husband continued his morning walk, but without Sunny.  The first week so many people asked about her and there were a lot of tears at the news.  She was much loved in our little neighborhood.

So I bought him this T shirt to wear on his walks so hopefully people will see it and smile in remembrance.  

Sunnier Days

A small box arried in the mail last week.  It was a Sunny suncatcher from Dr. Maura, the Vet that took care of her in her final hours.  She's cared for all 3 of our last rescues and has a heart bigger than the sun.  That is why Sunny loved her.

The Storm Before the Calm

Honey was her rescue name. A purebred puppy with bowed legs, left at a rescue as she wasn’t “perfect". After we brought her home, it hit me. What was I thinking? I’m 66; she’s a PUPPY, with no socialization, and the urgent energy of a furry Velociraptor.  There were moments I wanted to say, "wait, I change my mind", but like that moment when that first labor pain starts, there's no calling it off.

Her first night was great; she cuddled with our senior rescue Lorelei, and she napped. As my younger husband left for another 5-day business trip, I waved goodbye and thought, "I can do this!"

It was the calm before the storm. I likened it to those long, late flights over the ocean when I was an airline captain - storms forecast but not yet visible, the engines humming in a drowsy sky, senses alert to what could be a sudden change in the weather.  When the first spray of rain hit the windscreen as lightning flashed in the distance, you knew it was too late to turn back.

So, I well remember the first expression of small puppy teeth in my flank.  Sunny had discovered that people have bottoms, and she could bite them. If I showed surprise, she thought it was a game. The next thing I knew, she was running and jumping off the recliner, launching herself at the couch like one of the Flying Wallendas, knocking over a plant in the process, while Lorelei looked on, taking notes.

The typhoon had arrived, and we renamed her "Sunny".

The coming months were marked by continued mayhem, including stolen tools and shoes, shredded rolls of paper towels taken from the counter, as well as one late-night trip to the Vet when a dew claw was torn in the Zoomie to end all Zoomies. There was laughter and later tears as we said goodbye to Lorelei.  There were many days I would have gladly dispensed myself of the regrettable opportunity of "guess what I have in my mouth, Mom?"

In the mornings I’d approach her crate like it was the den of some wild beast, with bravery but some bluster. I'd open the door while singing the notes of "Ride of the Valkyries", and our day would commence, measured not in hours but by the kinetic energy of flying fur.

But, as with any storm, the skies clear, the winds calm, at least in the land of Puppy-Ville.

Even as storms occasionally blew through our lives, I took comfort as the shadows gathered again, with the little things of joy I had around me. I learned to appreciate the simple pleasure of a young dog. She did not know loss; she did not know the word "cancer".  She was once as I was, living in advance of an end she will not fear coming, because she doesn't conceive of its existence, that beautiful continuity of joy that knows no limits and no introspection.

 I wouldn't have traded this decision for anything.

Goodbye for Now, Sunny.

Sunny left us yesterday after a short battle with a very aggressive T-Cell Lymphoma.  She had just turned 3.  We adopted her as a puppy when she was released to a shelter with bowed legs that made her "unwanted" in some's eyes.

A Vet from Indy, where Barkley got his care for years, had moved to the Chicago area as her husband got a position with a big hospital here as a doctor.   She took care of Lorelei and Abby Lab at home at the end for us and did the same for Sunny.  In a moment that reminded me that even with this pain, God's watching over me - she told me her husband's new job is at one of the biggest hospitals in Chicago, one known world-wide for it's transplant services.

He's on my Transplant team.

In Memory

Sunny D. Lab

May 11, 2023 - July 29, 2026

Words from my husband:

"Back when we hadn't had her very long, I was just getting her past the overstimulation phase so I could walk her all the way to the tracks and back.  On one of these trips, I ran across a neighbor from the next block.  He and I had spoken before when Lorelei was still happily begging for pets up and down the street.  He liked dogs; he used to have great Danes, and he had fitted his little shoebox SUV with a bulldog hood ornament from a Mack truck.  

That day he was walking with his wife.  They stopped and waited patiently for Sunny to go through the cautious sniffing phase.  After a few minutes Sunny decided they were her new best friends and was happily getting pets and doing little jumps when she wanted more attention.  The wife was particularly enthralled with Sunny and praised her, saying she loved how, "She looks you right in the eye!"  After more pets and wags we went on our way.

You wouldn't notice it from a distance, but if you watched carefully, you could tell the lady was a bit frail.  It was several months later when I saw them both again.  They were going up the steps to their bungalow and she was leaning heavily on her husband.  They apologized for not being able to stop and pet Sunny, but I told them Sunny was just happy to see her friends and she wagged and gave a little woof.

Back in the spring I bumped into the husband on the street.  He stopped me to let me know that his wife had passed.  He didn't say what the illness was, but it had been a long journey.  He said that she had her favorite comfortable chair next to the front window of the house and that she would always smile and remark when she saw Sunny on the street.  It was always a moment of happiness for her.

That's how I would like to remember Sunny the most.  The dog who always brought a smile to a neighbor's face in her dying days."

Pool Party

It's been in the upper 90's all week, unusual for Chicago most years (there are still quite a few people that don't have central ac as the median summer temp is 81)  

So time to drag out the kiddie pool.  Like her Angel Sister, Abby the Landlocked Lab, Sunny is NOT a fan of the pool except for fetching cold and wet toys out of it.  If she can do so without getting completely wet she is happy. 

National Cheese Day

Experts say "don't leave your cheese in the refrigerator, leave it out on the counter".

Holiday Play Dates

 

Road Trips

Oh Boy, a Trip to the Vet for my booster vaccines.  I'll get kisses and scritches and treats!  I love my Vet Techs.

Seriously Dad, 25 mph?  Grandma drives faster than that.

We are NEVER going to get there.

MMM,  I small Burger Barn. 

Dad, you missed the turn off for Burger Barn.

Why are we going a different way?

I hate construction detours.

We're finally at Countryside Vet Center~~

Sunny has arrived.  Where are my adoring fans?

I'm being good Dad, do you have a treat for me.  

It's Springtime

Gnaw, eat or chew your flowers?  Who?   US? 

You again!

With a very soggy late winter/early spring, there weren't any playdates for Sunny and her best friend Napolean as the yard was just too muddy. 

So when we had a few days of warmth and things dried out,  Nap's Mom called when she got home from school (she's a teacher's aide in special education).  Both of us were tired and ready for dog's that were worn out, after several attempted "Zomie-thons" in the living room during the rainy weather. 

Tired Doggos = Happy Dog Moms