There’s a new publicity pic on the flap of the back cover of my new book, Love Potion Number 10.

Photo credit: Joanna Puza Photography

As for the title, here’s how that happened:

In the book, it’s 1961, and at the Giant Roller Skating Rink in the (fictional) town of Hamara Nagar, they’re always playing the Clovers’ 1959 hit, Love Potion Number 9. Abinath, the local apothecary, just can’t get the tune out of his mind. It seems like the perfect name for his new medicine.

Why don’t you go one better, Jana asks? Call it Love Potion Number 10—LPN10 for short.

So that’s what he does—and gives her a bottle of it to sample. It’s great for toothache, but will it help an aching heart?

Last year, when I was working on the book, I put up Holt editor Joanna Levine’s cartoon in this space:

Drawing by Joanna Levine

You’ll be happy to know that Jana’s parrot does not get into the LPN10, but I got a spam comment on my earlier post from a publication that covers adverse drug reactions.

The blogging software informs me that it has kindly spared me from 4,455 spam comments, but it seems some manage to slip through. At least that one was funny.