Thursday Thirteen...covers I love

Thirteen...covers of mine, and why I love them 1. Duty and the Beast, Changeling This was a hard one to figure out, cover-wise. Sofie, the heroine, spends most of the book being terribly repressed and wearing awful business suits. Finn, on the other hand, isn't your typical burly alpha male--he's Elvish, quite slim and spry, and not conventionally good-looking. His appeal is all in his personality, his enormous charisma. So I didn't want a direct full-face shot of him, I wanted something a little more ambigious. I love the claw marks on his back--since Sophie accidentally gouges him on more than one occasion--and that gorgeous, luminous moon in the background. Simple, yet effective. 2. Unholy Trinity, Changeling I'm always being told that menage books sell best (and my royalty figures bear this out!). But I find it hard to come up with a situation where the polyamory actually works from an emotional point of view, and isn't just a couple with a gratuitous third person thrown in. In Unholy Trinity, there's a Master vampire, a fledgeling vampire, and a human, and they're all locked together, all needing each other for different reasons. While Rafa, the Master, might be the archetypal Alpha, when it comes to the bedroom he's no more in charge than Paige or Jamie. In fact, it's often Jamie, the human, taking care of the other two. So what I wanted here was something to show that the three of them are equal partners in their trinity. A forearm brace like this is a symbol of strength, plus it avoids the cliche of a clinch cover (snigger). 3. The Twelve Lies of Christmas, Samhain Now, for something completely different. This is a romantic comedy suspense (I do like to mix my genres), set just before Christmas, featuring a spy and a con artist. While most of the gun stuff happens with Nate, the hero, not Sam, the heroine, I rather like the idea that she's standing there with his gun--which is so personal to Nate that he named it--as a sort of image of trust. She looks a lot like Sam, too, slender and glamorous. The black background is nice--darkens the tone, because it is after all a suspense. 4. I, Spy?, Samhain Now weren't we just talking about glamour? See Sophie here with her lipstick and her evening dress--that is actually from a particular scene, but for the most part, she's distinctly unglamorous. It's sort of a function of her life. However, there's a limit to the realism you can have on a cover. Do I really want a girl who's a couple of pounds overweight, needs to retouch her roots, and gets blisters from high heels on my cover? No, I'd rather have the glam chick in the red dress. And since it's a cartoon cover, then she can look like Jessica Rabbit without censure. The other thing I love about this cover--well, one of the other things--is the font. It's got that sort of digital, techo-spy look about it. Helps clue you in that she's not just a blonde in a red dress. The basic requirement I had for these covers? I told the cover artist (Scott Carpenter, who deserves more praise than he gets!) to 'make it too much, then make it more'. Yes, it's pink. But it needs to be PINK. Bring it on. 5. Ugley Business, Samhain Sophie again! Again, looking glam. What I like here is Luke, and how he's charming Sophie with a rose in one hand, while the other holds his gun. This book picks up where I, Spy? left off, where Sophie and Luke had a 'happy for now' ending, and haven't really got far past it. Is it just sex? Is he trying to charm her? Why does he get to be good with a gun when she doesn't know how to work hers? Plus, I haven't mentioned the background yet. I LOVE these backgrounds. It was one of the things I mentioned in the cover request, that I wanted something to unify the covers and make them look like a series. This way, you can mess around with fonts, colours, and images, but with that striped background there's something to tie them all in. I got the idea for the stripes from the Hustle credits, incidentally. 6. Sundown, Inc., Changeling Ah, my first print book! See, here I am, holding it! We had some debate over which of the four Sundown covers to use on the anthology. My favourite was, and still is, She Who Dares, but we decided that with a title like Sundown and a girl with a stake on the cover, people might think it was a vampire book. And while there are vampires in it, only one story focuses on them. The thing is, I know vampires are popular. I know some people will go out and buy a book just because it promises fangs. But then I also know how uppity readers can get if they've spent their precious pennies on something that's not what they expected, and I know some of them aren't above flaming an author publically for misrepresentation, and we all know how authors can't fight back against criticism because People Have The Right To An Opinion, You Know. I am of course referring here to people, not to authors. Who don't have any rights. Anyway. Rant over. We couldn't use the She Who Dares cover for that reason, and my second choice, Blue Moon, didn't leave enough room for the text necessary on a print book cover (which I think needs slightly different proportions from the e-book version). So, we picked the What Wizards Want cover, which is, I think, the most intriguing one. Is that a girl in a fishing float? Why is she in a fishing float? How did she get in a fishing float? Et cetera, et cetera. 7. A is for Apple, Samhain I LOVE those stockings. I WANT those stockings. Isn't she a sexy chick? Don't those stockings and heels tell you she's the girl in charge, here? This cover was slightly tricky, because Sophie spends half the book in New York City, being a spy, and half the book at school, pretending to be a teenager. But anyway, both of those provided me with a useful apple theme, which I'm delighted to see Scott used here on the cover. That's Scott Carpenter, by the way, who's done all my Samhain covers so far and I really hope he continues to do so, because he's absolutely nailed them. I like the shady guy in the background, too. He could be anybody. He could be Luke, or he could be Docherty, who is pretty shady. Or he could be any one of the other shady men in suits in the book. There are plenty. 8. East Side Story, Changeling Another cover with a difficult birth. Well, actually, the real problem was that I went way past deadline with the story, and all the blurb and cover things got rushed as a result. Poor Renee George got a rather stressed cover request from me, but she did it brilliantly. It is of course modelled on those West Side Story posters, with the dance motif and the blocky text. The hardest part here was trying to figure out what, if anything, they should be wearing, since both of them pretty much spend the book naked, apart from Maria in her sequinned dress and Ruarc in the ridiculous outfit the Unseelie Queen gives him. Here, you can't see if he's wearing anything at all, but you can see his wings, which are in the right sort of cool tones for a winter fae. I love the mist rising, too, like steam from the subway grates in Manhattan. 9. Drive Me Daisy, Changeling A new cover! Very hot off the press. What I was going for here was a scene that's mostly in flashback. The bulk of the story takes place in America, but the hero and heroine first met in Australia, when the faeries ejected her into the mortal realm at a weak spot between our world and theirs. The one they picked was Uluru, or Ayers rock. The hero's werewolf pack find her there, and take her in. The hero in this book is based on Hugh Jackman--those burly arms, and that smile! Oh, that smile... ahem, anyway. I think Fab did a great job on capturing him here, and the lighting is just gorgeous. 10. She Who Dares, Changeling My first cover, and still one of my favourites. It's so crisp and clear, and the colours are so warm. It really draws the eye. The figure here is the heroine, Masika, and this is almost exactly taken from a scene at the end of the book where she attends a masquerade dressed in her Egyptian collar and bracelets, and not much else. The tattoo is one I drew on a piece of paper and sent to Bryan, the cover artist--it's a tribute to Bast, the goddess Masika worshipped in life. The background of course is a clue to the era she lived in. Finally, the stake, which is a tool of her trade. Masika's a vampire, but she's also an assassin, and her current prey is the hero of the book, Dare. 11. Maneater, Changeling. I love this cover. Sahara Kelly captured Chloe perfectly. She's a siren, a real prpoer Greek siren, the kind Odysseus faced. In the book, she flies on golden wings--she can actually change her form to a giant eagle with a human head, but I figured this might be a little too weird for the cover! Instead we've got her (mostly) human form, in which she's completely physically perfect. Yeah, I know, we all have our crosses to bear. The other thing that's gorgeous about this is that background. Don't you just want to dive into that sea? Don't you know it's warm and clear and lovely? I guess it's like Chloe herself: too good to resist. 12. Almost Human, Ellora's Cave I'll let you in on a secret: I hated the first draft of the Almost Human cover. My wild and rugged leonine hero had a neat short-back-and-sides and my white-blonde heroine had dishwater dull hair. She was supposed to be glamorous, beautiful, elegant, and she looked like a dishwater blonde with no makeup on. Not good. Anyway, I got the cover re-done. The hero, Dark, is of a race that can take an animal form, and his is a huge lion with a dark mane. I wanted his human appearance to reflect this, with a mane of dark hair and whiskers on his cheeks. To me, he looks a lot like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. He's very dark and growly, too. As for Chance, my heroine, I did worry that she looked a little like a pornstar, and then I reminded myself that she's actually a courtesan, and she has sex for money. As for the knives they're both holding, they're a little shadowed but they get the message across: he wants her dead and she's not going to go down without a fight, even if they both desperately want each other naked. 13. Blue Moon, Changeling. This is one in the eye (pun intended) for all those people who reckon Poser is unrealistic. This is very nearly photo-quality, it's just gorgeous. Once again, with this cover I didn't want a full-body shot, because Magda, the heroine, wears a lot of suits and pearls and things. I guess we could have had Elek, but I wasn't sure Poser could quite convey the incredible beauty of this man with his soulful dark eyes. In my head, Elek is Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven. Beautiful, beautiful man. So here we've got Magda, who doesn't actually have purple eyes but that's artistic licence for you. I really love the reflection of the wolf in the moon--Magda is, of course, a werewolf, and so is her hero, Elek. Good Lord. How did I end up with so many books? This isn't even all of them!

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Ask for the butter

HARRIET
I got a laugh at the table read when I asked for the butter in the dinner sketch. I didn't get it at the dress. What did I do wrong?

MATT
You asked for the laugh.

HARRIET
What did I do at the table reading?

MATT
You asked for the butter.

Seeing as the Matt in this scene from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is being played by Matthew Perry, best known for a sitcom that degenerated into asking from the laugh shortly after the credits rolled, this is doubly brilliant to me.

Jennifer Crusie wrote a while back about setting up in jokes (it was on her site, but I think she took some of her essays down because she was putting them in a book). She's absolutely right--"I want to open the West," isn't funny unless you've read What The Lady Wants--and it's something I strive to do.

But, as always, I'm learning. I think asking for the laugh is something to be wary of.

What's in a name?

Okay folks, I need some help. I need a title! I'm working on a slightly new angle, a romantic comedy, but I haven't a clue what to name the frigging thing. For a long time it was called Rock Me, but I'm not in love with that title. Here's the blurb:

Loli Campbell’s mother always told her not to fall for a music man.

The last one left her broke and living in a VW camper van. And when Ben Montagu, hotshot music manager, crashes said van, she doesn’t even have that.

Still, at least he tries to make amends—installing her in his swanky beach villa and replacing all the band equipment he’s just destroyed. Oh yes—Loli’s band. The one she manages. The one that’s on the cusp of stardom. Ben thinks they’re great, and they are—but that can’t be the only reason he’s interested in Loli, can it?

Can it?

It's set in north Cornwall at a swanky new resort outside Newquay, during a long, hot summer. Ben is blond, green-eyed, and has the build of a rugby player. He works for a huge international talent agency, and he's on the trail of a popstar diva who doesn't want to go on tour. Loli is a surfer chick, who's filling in as her band's drummer--at least, until the car crash that sprains her wrist. Years ago, when they were both at university, Loli went out a couple of times with Ben's twin brother--and Ben fell for her. But since he didn't want to risk his relationship with his brother, he kept his distance and allowed them both to think he just didn't like Loli. He was, of course, lying.

Themes include: music of the rock/pop variety (Ben finds Loli dancing to early Beatles), surfing, summer, and two people who can't admit they're crazy about each other. Part of me wants to call it Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer, except that a) Loli's not particularly tiny and b) a certain Mr. John might sue me.

Any suggestions?

Escape

You can run, you can hide, but you can't escape my new short story from Changeling Press!

Okay, apologies to Signor Ig. But look!



Some people just can’t switch off.

Take Samantha, who even on a fantasy vacation can’t help reorganising the hotel’s housekeeping department. But when she delivers room service to the rock band Vampires, she gets a little more than she bargained for. Especially when she meets Sully, the band’s sizzling hot lead guitarist. He’s gorgeous. He’s sexy. And he’s really good with his hands.

But when it comes to Vampires…that’s just a name, right?

Right?

Ooh! And!! Who subscribes to the Just Erotic Romance Reviews newsletter? And if not, why not? Because those wonderful people at JERR had the good taste to not only award my first ever book a Silver Star (their highest award for a novella), but they also requested--requested, look you--to interview me for their latest edition (it's a Yahoo group, but it's only used to send out the newsletter). Want to know what I really think about talking vibrators? Of course you do! Head on over and take a peek...

Who is this guy?

Isn't he gorgeous? He's the closest I've ever seen to Luke from the Sophieverse (yes, it's a 'verse now. Deal with it), even down to the stubble and loosened tie. I've had this guy in my head (sadly, that's the only place I've had him) for about four years now, and I've never one hundred percent truly visualised him. This delicious slice of manhood is about 99% perfect for Luke. Well, he's about 99% perfect anyway, so far as I can see. Except for that damn bottle.

But I don't know who he is! I've Googled 'til I can't Google no more. Doesn't anyone know?

Oh yes, and I forgot

Look what I've got!

Costumes

Okay, anybody who knows me know I love this dressing up stuff. It's probably because I spend most of my life wearing jeans and t-shirts, sitting behind this keyboard. But anyway. All the recent stuff about authors wearing costumes at the RWA Literacy Signing (See Vivi Anna for pictures) made me think. What would I wear?

(Because yes, it is all about me. If you want to know my opinion on the authors in question, then it's this: Marianne Mancusi and Liz Maverick looked really cute and I wish I had legs like that. Sherrilyn Kenyon has sold more books than most of the other authors there combined, so I guess she can wear what the hell she likes. She'd certainly be easy to pick out of a crowd in that hat. So long as the swan wasn't real, I've got no problem with it. As the guy in Garden State said, "Don't make fun of my hobbies, man, I don't make fun of you for being an asshole.")

So, anyway. I actually posited this idea at an RNA gathering a few years ago (inspired, I think, by Kate Allan's book launch for The Lady Soldier, a story set in the Napoleonic Wars. While the author wore ordinary clothes, she had soldiers from a local historical recreation society in full regalia, explaining their costumes and weapons to the guests). Wouldn't it be fun, I thought, if authors came to one of the conference dinners or parties, dressed as one of their own characters? For the contemporary authors, of course, this is a lot easier than for the historicals, or the paranormals. Probably less fun though.

So, I was thinking. The problem with my characters is that they necessarily spend a lot of their time with their kit off. and when they're dressed, it tends to be in mostly ordinary clothes. I could dress up as Masika, but I'd need a ton of fake tan and a black wig. I have the clothes, though, and it might be fun to get someone to draw her tattoo on my back.

I could dress up like Magda in her cute little pink suit and pearls, but then I'd just look like I was...well, wearing a suit and pearls. Lily? Ordinary clothes. Aura? Usually naked, and I don't have the budget for Manolos.

Chica, ordinary clothes. Sofie, suit and heels. Paige. Naked, except from when she's wearing a burqa, and I don't reckon that's the right tone here at all. Chloe? Well, I could wear a Sirens of TI shirt, I suppose.

Maria has a long red sequinned dress, but I'm afraid I'm all out of those. Even Daisy, the heroine of my newest book, wears ordinary clothes when she's not nekkid.

Damn. So, on the Sundown front, I'm not getting very far. Aha! But what about Almost Human? I could dress up like Chance! Sure, because she spends most of the book either naked (see, I told you) or wearing sumptuous velvet gowns. There is one scene where she has the stockings and basque, but you know, I don't think I have the legs for that. At the end she wears leathers and armour. We're back to the Masika look again, although this time with the advantage of me having more accurate colouring.

Of course, there's always Sophie. Who dresses like me most of the time. Lemme see...there's always the red silk ballgown from I, Spy?. Or the Lara Croft outfit from Ugley Business. Or the rock-chick get-up from A is for Apple.

Which brings us back to the leather jeans again...

Just a little trivia

Okay, not trivia. But I don't have a lot else to post. So...


1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current street name);
Lady St John

(I LOVE this! I'm gonna use this...)

2. YOUR "FLY Guy/Girl" NAME: (first initial of first name, first
three letters of your middle name)
K-Eli

(That makes me sound like...I'm not sure. A hick supermarket?)

3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Purple Cat

(No...that's my psychadelia name)

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)

Elizabeth Leeds

(Not a particularly exciting soap opera, then)

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name,
first 2 letters of your first name, first 2 letters of mom's maiden)

Johkamc

(I think that's in Namibia)

6. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favorite color, favorite drink)

The Purple Aspalls

(uh. This sounds obscene)

7. NASCAR NAME: (the first name of your grandfathers)

Harry Maurice

(No...I don't know how he ended up with a name like Maurice either)

8. FUTURISTIC NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne and
the name of your favorite kind of shoes)

Rose Boot

(Again... I sound like someone off Coronation Street)

9.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother & father's middle name )

Um...my parents don't have middle names. They reckon they were too poor. So...I guess I'd be either Barbara Keith (their first names) or McLoughlin Johnson (I like this!)


There! That was fun, wasn't it? What are yours?

Passionate Plume

Great googamooga. I won. Look, it says so here and everything.

I read a list of final placements on an email via my mobile phone on Saturday, on the way to Clovelly, feeling mildly carsick because me + reading + cars are unmixy things, but Cornwall's version of a main road was the only place I could get mobile signal. And no, I wasn't driving.

I didn't really believe it though until I read Vivi Anna's blog. I'm still astonished she didn't win it: seriously, when I saw she'd finalled in the same category, I just went, "Oh hell, I'll never beat her."

Apparently there's a prize, but I can't remember what it is. I think all the other winners--and most of the finalists--were with big New York print houses. Little ol' e-published me is still blown away!

Congratulations to Saskia, Jade, Anna and Mackenzie for their wins in the other categories. And hats off to Vivi, Melany, Lara, and Jory for being very worthy competitors!

Look! New cover!

God, I love these! I'm supposed to be working on galley proofs for I, Spy? and Ugley Business, but instead I thought I'd share with y'all the cover for the third Sophie book, hot off the press from the wonderful Scott Carpenter:

Cosmos, gays and guns—it’s murder on a girl’s love life. Cosmically inept spy Sophie Green is dispatched to the Big Apple on the trail of an invisible man. What she finds is an artist, a conspiracy and some very large men with guns.

Meanwhile, her gorgeous partner, Luke, is getting worryingly intimate. Could it really be time for him to meet her parents?

Sophie, spy extraordinaire, isn’t overwhelmed just yet. Until she’s informed of the new terms of her assignment. No longer Sophie Green: Spy, now she’ll become Sophie Green: Teenager.

Yep, she’s being sent to the scariest place on earth. Back to school.

Warning, this title contains the following: graphic language, violence, strong sarcasm and lots of orange eye shadow.

Wordless Wednesday: Really Nice Alcoholics

I mean Romantic Novelists Association. Of course. As our esteemed chairman pointed out, when a member of the RNA goes to the bar for some wine, she doesn't want a glass, she wants a bottle. I reckon I had that and more on the Friday night...

Hmm, that's not wordless any more, is it? Well, anyway. RNA conference, everybody!

Wordless Wednesday: The amazing eight-legged, two-tailed, two-headed cat!

A hundred and seventy-six days

Hundred and seventy-five, today.


That is, until the Christmas episode of Doctor Who. Because the current series has just ended: waah! Although, it has provided me with a new soundtrack to a book I'm supposed to be writing, the Scissor Sisters' I Can't Decide, which fits pretty well for Bael, the hero of the sequel to Almost Human. "I can't decide whether you should live or die...Oh, you'll probably go to heaven, please don't hang your head and cry." Brilliant!

Although I will forevermore have this image of John Simm dancing round the bridge of his spaceship with his moll and his prisoner. A charming, enthusiastic psychopath, my favourite knd of villain.




Normal service will return soon. Well, probably. Busy week while I try to finish the next Sundown book, work on the galleys for the first two Sophie print books, and pack for the RNA conference at the weekend. I'll try to pop by!