A New Cover for "Helen at Westfield"

Helen at Westfield was a story that had a lot of simple living packed into it.  Helen had got her first real full-time teaching job at a small four-year college, and I found myself presenting it as a lot of fun.

As anyone who has read any of the Helen books knows already, pretty girls just naturally gravitate towards Helen!  In this story, all the women who are prospective partners for Helen are people whom she meets legitimately; not one of them is a student.

Our artist HALCHROMA has done a bang-up job with the artwork, and is responsible for representing these characters fairly accurately.  I was torn between having her paint four generic women for the cover, versus representations closer to my mental image of them.  The problem is that, as most people agree, the images readers create for themselves are just as valid, if not more valid, and the more detailed the depiction of the characters in the illustrations, the more they could clash with those in the reader's imagination.

Clockwise, starting from the right, are Helen herself; Lorna; Sophie; and Rain.

Lorna is a young ballet dancer, and she and Helen have known each other for around 3 years.

Sophie is a professional tennis player.  A friend of Helen persuades Sophie to meet and get to know Helen, and steer her away from woman admirers.  This friend (who urges Sophie to be Helen's Jiminy Cricket) is a former lover, a movie star Marsha Moore, who really has no hidden agenda.  She selects Sophie for the job, since Sophie has a good head on her shoulders, and she believes that Sophie herself will not fall victim to Helen's fatal attraction!  This is borne out by the facts, as you will learn.  Sophie does play a significant role in rehabilitating Helen when she loses her memory.

Rain, a.k.a. Evelyn Woodford, is a language instructor at Westfield, and Helen and Rain fall hard for each other.  Rain invites Helen and family out to England for the holidays, and the Woodfords are completely charmed by Helen and her four children, Gena (15), Erin (12), Alison (3), and James (1).

Our artist HALCHROMA has done a bang-up job with the artwork, and is responsible for representing these characters very accurately.  I was torn between having her paint four generic women for the cover, versus representations closer to my mental image of them.  The problem is that, as most people agree, the images readers create for themselves are just as valid, if not more valid, and the more detailed the depiction of the characters in the illustrations, the more the images could clash with the reader's imagination.

Finally, these four people are a large part of what happens in the story, but are by no means all there is.  Both Lorna and Rain are young enough that their parents have a lot to do and say in the action.

Happy reading, everyone, and feel free to download a new copy, if you would like the new cover; it's free.

Kay

[Added Later:]
Helen looks a little more Scandinavian than I imagined her, but how was Halchroma to imagine the sort of face she had?!  My description was that her face was Finnish in essence; but no one knows what that would be!!  This Helen does perfectly well, for our purposes.

Lorna looks just as we would image a young, grey-eyed ballet dancer would look.  I did not want her to look quite as icy cool as she looks here; but I guess a ballerina could look icy cool, why not?  She is supposed to be a spectacular beauty, but this highly elfin Lorna looks a bit forbidding.  Again, I couldn't have asked for more.

Sophie is right on the money!  She is just as I imagined her!

Evelyn ("Rain") is also close to perfect.  She looks English (I think she does); she has ornaments; she looks approachable, but a little cautious; and she has spiky black hair!