If you know nothing about a book or its author, how else can you judge it? When I’m perusing bookstore shelves, it’s often the split-second appeal of the jacket that makes me pick it up or pass it by. It’s sort of like an impulse buy—an impulse gander.

I first saw the cover of my novel SHELTER ME at my agent’s office. I arrived at that moment with the kind of semi-psychotic mix of hope and trepidation one reserves for blind dates and college entrance letters. Would it be great? Or would it be ugly, cheesy, boring and/or misleading? Would anyone gander?

I think it’s pretty great. Readers often say they picked up SHELTER ME because of its colorful, evocative cover. However, they also mention with striking regularity that the woman’s hair doesn’t quite match the description of Janie’s, and the boy is a little too big to be Dylan. Readers really care if the cover matches the story.

And why shouldn’t we? A book is an invitation, and we want to know if it’s to a hoedown or a minuet. And further, we want to be beguiled into believing the characters exist somewhere in reality. When the cover doesn’t match, it lets a little air out of that sweet bubble of enchantment.

“That’s not really her,” readers often say of Janie’s cover shot. “Her hair is curly.”

“Yes,” I was tempted to reply the first time I heard it. “But that could never be ‘her’ because I made her up. She’s fictional.”

That’s the wrong answer. The highest praise for any fiction writer is when readers believe. The worst thing we can do is remind them not to. So I agree and apologize, because I really do wish the art department had found a photo that was just as beautiful, but with a curly dark-haired woman. (In fact I had to ask them to darken the hair of the woman on the cover because she’s actually blond.) Publishers don’t set up photo shoots for each cover—it’s far less expensive to search stock photo sites for pictures that already exist.

For my second novel, DEEP DOWN TRUE, it was harder to find one that reflected the story and had that elusive gander-worthy appeal. They finally chose a photo of two kids whispering, a scene that wasn’t in the book. Knowing this would let the air out of readers’ enchantment bubble, I added a few lines to make it happen. The publisher may have thought I was a little nutty, but I knew readers would rightly ask, “What’s with the cover? That never happened in the book.”

The sales reps (a group you really want to make happy) loved the story—but hated that cover, in large part because it showed the kids’ faces. Readers have strong feelings about what characters look like, and we don’t want to be contradicted by someone else’s version.

Back to square one, this time searching for pictures that might not strictly represent the story, but would be beautiful and evocative. The minute they showed me the final cover of DEEP DOWN TRUE, I had the gut reaction I’d been waiting for, one I hope readers will share: “I want to be in that lovely scene and find out what’s going on there.” It made me want to gander.

In the end I kept the little scene where the kids whisper to each other. Apparently storytelling inspiration can come from the most unlikely sources … even from a book cover that doesn’t exist.

I love the cover of Shelter Me, and I can say that without a hint of self-satisfaction because I had nothing to do with it. Not a thing. In fact, I had no idea of where the photo had been taken, who’s in it, or where that gorgeous rainbow of an afghan came from …

Until last week. Last week I got an email from a man named Raymond Forbes who told me:

“I am the photographer who took the photo on the front of your book. It was a pleasant surprise to be walking through my local Barnes & Noble and see your book on the shelf.”

He went on to tell me that it had been taken in Marshfield, Mass. — which, while not quite on Cape Cod as I had suspected, definitely has that South Shore/Cape feel, with the marsh grasses and the hydrangeas. The woman is his wife, Elizabeth, and the boy is his nephew, Luke.

I replied with many thanks for his wonderful picture, which I feel so fortunate to have gracing the cover of my book. But what about the afghan?

“Do you own it?” I asked.

His reply: “The afghan blanket was knit by my wife’s grandmother back in the 70s. It is a one of a kind … kind of a mish mash of whatever leftover yarn she had.”

There went my thoughts of offering to buy it. Better for his wife to have such a warm, colorful remembrance of her grandmother. I have my grandma’s dining room set; Elizabeth has the afghan. As it should be.

If you’d like to see more of Raymond’s work, his website it www.raymondforbes.com.

Target department stores has given Shelter Me a huge vote of confidence by choosing it as one of its six Bookmarked picks of the year. It’s an unexpected honor for me because it puts my little old novel in the company of some really wonderful, well-written books, like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Loving Frank, and Three Cups of Tea. Hit the link below to see all of Target’s picks:

http://bookmarked.target.com/clubpicks/list.vtl;jsessionid=A3697E9160E53DFBC4F25F342E603DF8

One of the greatest perks of publishing is that people you haven’t been in touch with in years see the book in a place like Target or their local bookstore and find a way to check back in. It’s been a huge delight to be “found” by old college friends and others from my younger, wilder days. (Not that my days aren’t wild anymore—but as any parent can say, it’s a distinctly different flavor of wild.)

One more thing. My friend Karen Kiefer and I came up with an idea for readers who want to test drive the powers of Pology Cake. Check out the details of Baking Amends in the BOOK section of this website, as well as on the Spread the Bread website at www.spreadthebread.org.

I’m new at this. By “this,” I mean This Whole Thing. The novel-getting-published, eponymous-website, people-might-want-to-know-what-I-think-about Thing. And though there are lots of blogs out there that seem based upon the presumption that people want to know details like what the blogger ate for breakfast, or the disagreement she had with bagger at the supermarket about whether the cantaloupe should go on top of the eggs … I’m guessing you don’t. Not really.

So, I’m going to give blogging a whirl. And knowing it’s my first time, you’ll read it and smile indulgently and think, “Isn’t that cute,” as if I were wobbling down your street, the training wheels on my blogging having just been removed, with a look of exhilarated panic on my face. Trust me when I say, that’s exactly how I look.

Not surprisingly since I’m a writer, what I want to talk about is books: those I love, at least at the moment. On vacation in Vermont last month, I read Belong to Me by Marisa De Los Santos. It’s the sequel to Love Walked In, which I haven’t read yet, the experience of Belong to Me being complete in itself. It’s about three women in the suburbs and the unexpected ways in which their paths cross. Ms. De Los Santos writes with juicy lyricism—the woman knows her way around a metaphor, let me just say. She explains an image or a feeling or an experience as you’ve never heard it described before, but nonetheless makes you think, “Yes! That’s it exactly!” I also love the way she offers up the most brilliantly awful character and by the end you are absolutely rooting for her.

At the moment I’m reading The Geography of Girlhood on the reliable advice of my teenaged daughter. It’s young adult fiction at its best, especially if you want to know what teenaged girls are freaking out about and hoping for and ignoring. Also, it’s written in verse, which I thought would be distracting, but isn’t. Instead, Kirsten Smith uses poetry to boil everything down to the pure essence of the main character’s experience. It’s a deep, fast, funny, heart-rending read. See if you can find those four adjectives strung together in any other book review.

Okay, look at me: my helmet is slightly askew and my hands ache from clutching the rubber grips on the handlebars so hard my fingerprints are practically imbedded in them … but I did it. I don’t know if I’ll get any better at this blogging thing, but you’re a kind cyber-neighbor—you’ll wave as I teeter along and call out, “Keep going!”