Sometimes authors come to me with very little idea of what they envision for their cover…and other times, they know exactly what they want. Now, knowing exactly what they want can occasionally be difficult, if that “what” is complicated. 😉 But other times, it makes it oh so easy to deliver a cover they love, quickly.
Pepper Basham has come to me several times with a very clear, very doable idea of what her next cover should be–she’s done several herself, and she has a great eye for what works. Occasionally she just needs me to handle some of the details.
Such was the case for her WWII novella, Facade.
She knew exactly what she wanted. This model…

…over this background.

Pretty simple. So arranging that and sizing it correctly, we have this.

Not bad from the get-go, right? But Pepper hired me to punch it up a notch, so I figured I’d get punching. 😉 A quick one-two. First, I traded out that blue sky for something a little more interesting–a bit of sunset, golden flare.

Then, of course, I had to tweak the model’s coloring and brightness to match.

There was also a little bit of fine-tuning in there. The background image is an original WWII image, so it’s a bit grainy. I put a surface blur on it to smooth it out and then fooled with the highlights a bit to reflect my new sun as well.
One more small touch–an airplane. We added one of those to the top corner, tweaking lighting to make it reflect that sunset.

A little bit of work, but honestly, not a whole lot. This one came together very quickly. I was happy with the overall image, so it was time to turn my attention to the fonts. I figured something art deco would look great, so I chose Fragile, which I’d purchased in a package of fun fonts. I decided to keep it simple and put both the title and author name in the same font, separating them with an art deco bar. Then I just added a bit of a filter to the bottom to make those words pop.
And there’s our front!

 For the full cover, I used the same background image as the front, with a paper texture overlay. Added on all the type and logos and author info, and voila! Full cover.

What do you think?

About the Book

A reclusive academic
who would do anything to save her brother.

A reluctant spy


willing to risk his life to save the woman who broke his heart.


Olivia Rakes has the unique gift of observation, which suits her well since she prefers her books over the general populace, but when her brother goes MIA over France, Livy’s unique skills and her determination to save her brother force her into a world of espionage, deceit, danger…and the most frightening of all–romance.



Agent Christopher Dawson has never forgotten his childhood friend, and first love, Livy Rakes, but since she broke his heart, he’s avoided seeing her for years…until the search for his best friend brings them both together in the most unlikely of ways.



In a world where war changes the rules of life and love, can Christopher and Livy work together work together to unveil the mascarade before the enemy catches them?


You can also find Façade in the Timeless Love Novella Collection NOW AVAILABLE! (And whose cover I also designed, LOL)

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