Book Cover Design – Forgiven by Carol Ashby

by Roseanna White | Nov 16, 2016 | Cover Designs

It’s been a while since I’ve gone behind the design, and this week one of my designs just released, so it seems like a great time to feature it. =)

Forgiven is author Carol Ashby’s debut novel–an impeccably researched tale of love in first century Judea. Obviously I was excited to work with Carol, this being one of my favorite genres and settings. And as I worked with her, I quickly discovered that Carol knows her history very well. If you check out her website, you’ll find a TON of extras on the history.

For the cover of this first book in her Light in the Empire Series, she wanted something that showed her Messianic Jewish heroine, her Roman centurion hero, and the distance/tension between the two.

Now, there aren’t a ton of stock photos out there with women in biblical era dress. Trust me. I’ve searched and searched for it. And I wanted to give Carol something very unique for her cover. So rather than go with one of the photos of a woman in a head scarf that I’m seeing on covers everywhere, I actually started here.

Now, there are a lot of things wrong with this photo. Her jewelry. Her makeup. The fact that the sash crosses over her chest. The shoes. The dress has no sleeves. And she’s not wearing a head covering at all.

But thanks to the wonders of Photoshop, I could turn her into this:

How? Honestly, it took a lot of work. I started by cleaning the makeup off her face and duplicating some of the folds of the dress to create a v-neck. In this version, I’d also used the fabulous clone-stamp and smudge tools to eliminate the jewelry.

Changing the sash to red, per the author’s instructions, was actually quite easy–red is one of those colors that you can add with a few clicks in Photoshop, but which it’s a pain to try to get rid of.

Of course, our Rachel here needed sleeves too. So I added those by copying and reshaping parts of the dress, and then changing their transparency.

And then the veil. For this, I actually borrowed a veil from a lovely Indian model…

Did a bit of adjusting, of course, and got this:

The only thing left to change was her shoe. It was a pretty simple matter of switching out the original toe —

with one in a sandal.

At this point I was happy with Rachel, and it was time to turn to the hero, Lucius.

Oh. My. Gracious. He was complicated. Why? Because no stock photos have centurion garb right, and the author is a stickler for authenticity (understandably!), so I had to do a LOT of manipulation and combining of photos.

So I started with this guy…

Used the leather bottom part of this guy…

The face of this guy…

And then had to give him a scar from this lovely fellow.

The author actually has a collection of swords and daggers (or her son does, anyway), so she provided the photo of the appropriate weaponry to have at his side.

Putting him all together (and off-setting for correct positioning on the cover), we get this.

Now we had our characters, so it was time to turn to the background. I wanted to keep part of the stone archway Rachel is leaning on–I loved how it framed the cover, and it gave a nice old-world vibe. But to have stone completely behind her as in the original photo was too dark and boring. So I took out that back wall and replaced it with a view of the Galilean countryside.

So here’s our complete picture, minus the words.

For the title, I combined two fonts (Cinzel Decorative and Maphylla) and used a cool design to set it off.

I echoed the design behind the series title up top, added the author name in one of my go-to, favorite fonts (Linux Libertine) and voila!

When it came time to do the full cover, I went RED. It echoed both his cape and her sash, which I loved. I did a fairly simple combination of red with that archway, and framed the text within it.

So here’s the official blurb!

Are  some  wounds
too  deep  to  forgive?

With a ruthless father who murdered for the family inheritance, Marcus Drusus plans to do the same. In AD 122, Marcus follows his brother Lucius to Judaea and plots to frame a zealot for his older brother’s death. But the plan goes awry, and Lucius is rescued by a Messianic Jewish woman. Her oldest brother is a zealot and a Roman soldier killed her twin, but Rachel still persuades her father Joseph to put his love for Jesus above his anger with Rome and hide Lucius until he heals.

Rachel cares for the enemy, and more than broken bones heal as duty turns to love. Lucius embraces Joseph’s faith in Jesus, but sharing a faith doesn’t heal all wounds. Even before revealed secrets slice open old scars, Joseph wants no Roman son-in-law. With Rachel’s zealot brother suspecting he’s a Roman officer and his own brother planning to kill him when he returns, can Lucius survive long enough to change Joseph’s mind?

Sounds great, doesn’t it? I read little bits and pieces while I was laying out the interior, and let’s just say it’s a book I’m looking forward to purchasing and reading when I have some time!

You can find the digital on Amazon now, and the paperback will be available November 20.

Covers, Covers, and More Covers!

by Roseanna White | Jan 12, 2017 | Cover Designs

I’m up to my eyeballs in galleys for A Name Unknown right now, so I can’t spend much time on the ol’ blog this week. But I did want to check in real quick. So I thought I’d do a quick share of the covers I created last week.

WhiteFire just acquired some of Melody Carlson’s backlist contemporary titles–all previously published, but we’re giving them a fresh new look. I’ve had fun repackaging these MC classics, and since the first batch of them are processing and will be available today/tomorrow (I’ll update with links later), I figured it would be cool to share!

I tackled them in an, ahem, amazingly brilliant order. Alphabetical. 😉 So here they are in that same order.

First up is actually the most recent of the books, Armando’s Treasure

Dora Chase is an eighty-year-old widow whose
family finds her frustratingly independent. Her son no longer trusts her
judgment and constantly pressures her to sell her rural home and rundown farm
to a huge computer firm.

When a young stranger shows up, Dora is
suspicious, but before long Armando Garcia wins her trust. And Armando supports
Dora’s independence, causing the conflict within her bickering family to
escalate. Dora’s son abhors Armando’s interference and is determined to send
him away. He suspects the charming young man is running from something or
someone. And he’s not far from wrong.

The unlikely friendship that grows between the
elderly widow and the young man with a past leads them both on a journey toward
hope, healing and forgiveness.

For a young widow, the stone mansion she once
dreamed of owning, offers the promise of a new beginning.

After the death of her husband, Kestra returns
to her hometown of Port Star. With the purchase of her childhood dream house—a
stone mansion along the rocky Oregon coast—it appears she has found a way to
rebuild her life.

Kestra begins to transform the old house into an
elegant, yet charming restaurant. But as the renovations begin, a mysterious stranger
moves into her caretaker’s cottage—and eventually into her heart.

Suddenly life is full of promise and new opportunities,
until a contractor’s jealousy threatens Kestra’s new romance.

Jayne
Morgan has a lot to learn about love. Harris McAllister has a lot to learn
about tolerance. When they meet they have lots to teach each other.

Jayne
feels betrayed when her fiancé suddenly
dumps her for his high school sweetheart just weeks before the wedding. She’d
love to leave Paradise, Oregon, but she’s signed a teaching contract and the
kids in her classroom need her.

Cassanda Maxwell has had a life filled with
pain. Her mother died too young, her father is an abusive alcoholic, and she’s
a misfit everywhere she goes.

After being shuttled between various foster
homes, Cass struggles to find her identity and finds herself caught up with
Scott Jones (aka “Sky”) and his group of friends who start a Jesus commune in
California. But before long, the group is more interested in pot and sex than
they are spiritual growth.

Once again, Cass finds herself trapped in
unhappiness—and she longs for escape.

Will Cass find the life and love she craves on a
California commune—with the charismatic Sky and his followers? Or
can she fulfill her dreams—and find her real future—with her childhood
friend Joey?

First there are shades of sorrow, then shades of
hope. Will Gwen find shades of light?

When her only child leaves home for college,
widowed Gwen Sullivan discovers just how lonely an “empty nest” can be. How
will she adjust and fill her empty days? 

At the urging of friends, Gwen takes a job with
an interior designer—whom she soon discovers to be domineering and jealous of
Gwen’s creativity. Suddenly she’s stuck doing menial tasks. When a sleazy client
starts to harass her, Gwen begins to wonder if she’s cut out for the working
world. 

She eventually meets Oliver Black, who gives her
an opportunity to use her decorating skills, and suddenly Gwen sees herself in
a more confident light. But Oliver is a man of many secrets, and Gwen wonders
if she can trust her heart to him.

Emma has always been “the practical one” in the
family. But that is about to change as she embarks on the adventure of her
life.

Emma Davis wants a new life now that she no
longer needs to care for her grandmother. A spur-of-the-moment visit to a
travel agency sets her on a journey far from her Iowa home.

Emma takes a cruise to the far islands of the
Pacific, but it isn’t until she arrives in Papua, New Guinea, that she begins
to realize her true calling. Emma regains her sense of purpose by caring for
three motherless children and befriending their father, Josh Daniels.

Josh’s troubled pass and
the loss of his wife have left him vulnerable, but can the love Emma has
discovered in her own heart, awaken his heart to all Emma has to offer?

 So there we have it! I still have four more covers to design for a series from Melody that we’ll be re-releasing, but that will have to wait until after galleys. Speaking of which . . . BYE!