Hunter’s Snare was born in 2013, but it was published under a different title. I was a fledgling author then, and I struggled to come up with a title that reflected the personality of the male protagonist, William Evers, Lord of Daniel’s Fork.

My original title, A Whore and a Rogue, came from a line in the original manuscript. I thought it, at the time, very daring! The original cover was a premade cheapy. It was awful!

It was a learning time for me as a newbie author; editors, reviewers, and other authors were instrumental in those formative years. It was not long before I began to re-edit, rethink my covers, and realize that ebooks are not written in blood. I began to make changes.

First change: New title and new cover. The title is taken from the name of the village of Daniel’s Fork (a fork in a river). The cover was my own creation using a picture I took in a redwoods forest in California. It’s still a terrible cover but an improvement over the previous one.

Over the years, there were several rewrites as well as several covers. The one below was made by a cover artist using a stock picture I absolutely loved. The model was my image of Setiyah, the healer who is the thorn in the side of Will Evers.

The cover above still kept the model I thought of as Setiyah. The girl with the apple is Susannah, the beautiful and lush heiress who is doomed to lose all her lovers at the hands of a vicious killer. I loved this cover.

Somewhere around 2018, I realized the title was not understood by many readers perusing the book. The word “fork” had a very different popular meaning than the one in the title. Young people especially envisioned an eating utensil.

Also, classifying the book for promotion had always been difficult. The novel is set in the future, which screams science fiction. It depicts a society struggling to rebuild, and many readers described it as dystopian. There are several romantic threads and even LGBT elements, as well as several explicit sexual scenes, which to some readers may seem erotica. However, the main theme is the catching of a killer, which makes it a mystery. The new title was chosen with this in mind.

Daniel’s Fork became Hunter’s Snare to this day. However, I kept Daniel’s Fork as the name for the series.

This is the short blurb which appears on Amazon.

Set in a speculative future earth where humanity has lost most of its technology, Daniel’s Fork is an old-world village where vestiges of the 21^st century survive. Its characters are fresh, daring, and passion driven. But a cunning, vicious killer lurks in the dark woods of Daniel’s Fork. Driven by powerful passions, he kills with impunity. But now, a new lord has arrived, and the hunt is on!

Not suitable for younger readers or adult readers who object to strong sexual content or taboo topics.

Of course, this novel is so much more than just a mystery. It’s a tale of new beginnings, a vision of a brave new world. One error you might make as a reader is to consider the setting as a historical novel. It is not! The people of Daniel’s Fork live two hundred years in the future. Their way of life is the result of the loss of technology, but their history is fresh in their minds.

Pick up Hunter’s Snare and enter the world of Daniel’s Fork. You won’t regret it!