How did you come up with the cover?

(Referring to the cover of my YA historical adventure novel, Robin: Lady of Legend)

It was very important to me that people be permitted to envision Robin Hood the way they wanted. Children especially love to imagine themselves as their favorite characters, and that’s harder to do if you have a picture to compare yourself against. I thought about masking her face in the shadows of her hood, but either she looked like the grim reaper, or else too much of her face was showing and destroyed the effect.

One day, I was testing out another picture I had placed over the main cover, and I erased where my main Robin figure was peeking out around the edges. When I removed the top picture, I saw that my erasing had left Robin with her head and shoulders fading into the sunlight, and I thought — how perfect! Not only was the image incredibly original and intriguing, but it did exactly what I wanted — gave people a picture of Robin Hood while still leaving them free to imagine Robin in their own likeness.