Thank you SO much for all of your kind words about the cover for STAY! You guys are amazing!

I really love that Argo is on the cover. It wasn’t the original plan, but apparently finding a stock photo of a black German Shepherd isn’t super easy. Since we happen to have a black German Shepherd lying around the house, it worked out well. We took over 1,000 pictures of him and sent them off to Dutton so the amazing designer could work her magic and make that cover.

Since Argo was such a huge part of writing STAY, having him on the cover just feels perfect. Not only was he the inspiration for Van’s dog, Joe, but he was my writing buddy. He sat next to me and snored while I wrote. He went hiking with me when I needed to work through story hiccups in my head. He was there for every rejection and every celebration in the submission process. And it is a hell of a lot easier to put yourself out there and deal with rejection when you have a big furry cheerleader who loves you no matter what.

Argo has taught me so much in the past five years, and I am who I am now, in large part because of him. I think STAY is, among other things, a tribute to the importance of pets and having that kind of unconditional love waiting for us at home. So it’s fitting that the cover is (in addition to being a brilliant way to sum up the story visually) a secret little tribute my trusty dog, Argo.