Help Me Choose My Novel’s Back Text

My latest mystery novel, LOOK THE OTHER WAY, is written. My trustworthy beta readers have sent me their comments, and I’ve updated the novel. Each beta reader provided different input on the story, and each person helped me make it better.

So why not ask my beta readers for help with the book description? They’ve read the book and will know if the description is accurate. So ask, I did. After receiving feedback from 5 people, my two favorite versions are below.

Please vote on your favorite. Which description would entice you to read LOOK THE OTHER WAY?

OPTION A:

Bobby Hall’s body washes up in the surf on a remote Bahamian island. His death is declared accidental. His grieving wife, Debi, hires Captain Jake Hunter, a former cop fleeing personal trauma, to sail with her on A Dog’s Cat and retrace Bobby’s final weeks at sea.

Shannon Payne is fired from the job she loves. Her engagement ends in disaster, and she no longer trusts her judgment of men. Giving up the life she knows as a reporter, she joins her aunt on A Dog’s Cat. The tranquility of life on a sailboat is what she needs. A tumultuous journey with the handsome captain is what she gets.

As tensions heighten on board, so does the attraction growing between Jake and Shannon. When Shannon learns a shocking truth about her childhood, a truth that might mean Bobby was murdered, the only thing clearer than the crystalline waters of the Bahamian archipelago is that someone is not telling the whole truth and hasn’t for a long time.

OPTION B:

A year after her uncle is lost at sea, Shannon Payne joins her grieving aunt on a journey through the idyllic Bahamian islands. She needs to recover from a devastating breakup with her fiancé. And sailing the turquoise waters, tracing her uncle’s route as a tribute to him, may just repair her heart. But instead of tranquility, she uncovers dark secrets from her past that may destroy any chance she has at happiness.

Captain Jake Hunter joins the duo on the thirty-eight-foot catamaran, A Dog’s Cat. He’s running away from painful memories. He dreams of escaping his life as a cop but finds himself embroiled in an investigation. He’s sworn off women, and now he’s living in close quarters with his boss’s niece, a blue-eyed beauty he can’t resist but should. Could his life get any more turbulent?

Shannon and Jake suppress the attraction they feel for each other, Bobby’s mysterious death hangs over them, and someone out there doesn’t want the truth uncovered.

 

I sailed on Mattina, a 38-foot catamaran, for five years in the Bahamas. She’s the sailing vessel used in LOOK THE OTHER WAY, and this is her, one beautiful day in the Exuma Islands.

Mattina sailing

 

Thanks for voting! Comments are most welcome.