Cover Reveal – A Noble Scheme

Cover Reveal – A Noble Scheme

A missing child.
Friends (or more?) turned enemies, forced to work together to save him.
Disguises and theater training and hidden, buried corridors beneath a manor house.

Welcome to a new aspect of the world of the Imposters! Here, nothing is quite what it seems, but the bonds of blood and friendship run deep, faith lights the path forward, and the quest for Truth underscores everything they do.

I am so excited for the first book in the Imposters series to launch in just a few short weeks! And, yes, okay, it feels odd to be sharing a cover for book 2 before you’ve even read book 1. But I’m gonna do it anyway. Because I can. 😉

In book 1, A Beautiful Disguise, we focus on the Fairfax siblings, with all their acrobatic skills and derring-do. In book 2, A Noble Scheme, they’re obviously still around, but the focus shifts to the other two members of the Imposters team: Gemma, journalist and shorthand expert who excels at theater, and Graham, whose architectural prowess helps them get into and out of a lot of literal tight (and secret) spaces.

In this part of the adventure, these two–who are CLEARLY at odds in book 1, though we don’t know why–are thrown together to rescue a kidnapped child. And sparks–and tears–fly. This one deals with some heavy topics of grief and loss, but as always, there’s also some lighthearted humor, clever wit, and lots to smile about.

This cover came in while I was in the middle of a writing retreat for another book, which naturally meant that I was terribly, wonderfully distracted. Because OH. MY. GOODNESS.

I’d given some specific-ish wants. It’s winter, and there’s snow. So a nice snowy background would be great. Most of the action takes place on-assignment on the southern coast of England, in Weymouth, which boasts the same white chalk cliffs as Dover, being very near it. I wanted to see Gemma in a blue or green dress, to keep with the cool scheme. Though her hair was actually “dyed” red with carrot and beet juice at that point in the story, I did NOT want that on the cover, LOL. I asked for her actual blond (and then said the natural dye was fading at one point, to appease all the readers who haven’t read this note, ha ha).

And man, did they deliver! Are you ready to see?

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VOILA!

Gaaaahhhhh! Right?? Don’t you just love that cool, icy blue, offset with gold and white? I sure do. And I love the dress. And that gorgeous archway! Zero changes requested from me on this one! I’m in love!

What are your thoughts?

Here’s the official back cover copy:

Gemma Parks is known throughout high society as G. M. Parker, a columnist renowned for her commentary on the cream of society. Behind the scenes, she uses her talent to aid the Imposters in their investigations by gathering intel at events and providing alibis for the elite firm’s members through her columns. Yet her clandestine work would be more exhilarating if it weren’t for the constant presence of the gentleman who broke her heart.

Graham Wharton has never had eyes for anyone but Gemma, and she left his soul in tatters when she walked away from him. When the Imposters take on a new job to recover a kidnapped boy mistaken for his aristocratic cousin, Graham is determined to use the time with Gemma not only to restore the missing boy, but also to win back the only woman he’s ever loved. As they trace the clues laid out before them, Graham must devise a noble scheme to save the boy’s life and heal their hearts.

Christy Award-winning author Roseanna M. White whisks you away to Edwardian-era England in an exhilarating tale of glamor, intrigue, and romance set among high society’s most elite–and most dangerous–families.

Cover Reveal – A Beautiful Disguise

Cover Reveal – A Beautiful Disguise

Edwardian circus.
Aristocratic private investigators spying on their own.
A brother and sister using acrobatic feats to get into–and out of–impossible situations for their investigations.

Welcome to the world of the Imposters! Here, nothing is quite what it seems, but the bonds of blood and friendship run deep, faith lights the path forward, and the quest for Truth underscores everything they do.

I have been so excited for this series and absolutely LOVE how it’s going so far! The funny thing is that even before I started writing book 1 (as in, MONTHS before), I had to turn in a very thorough document for the cover design team. I had to come up with a title, describe the characters, tell them about the plot and write summaries of it, pinpoint all the setting details, figure out what she’d be wearing on the cover…and I had no clue. As in NO CLUE. This was due while I was still working on Yesterday’s Tides, and you can well imagine me looking at the due date with wide eyes and a bit of panic as I realized, “I know none of this!!” LOL.

But I took a day and sorted it all out. I plotted and planned and researched and fell more deeply in love with the concept. I chose a beautiful, rugged setting in Northumberland. I learned all I could about the Edwardian circuses that had informed so much of my characters’ childhoods and, ultimately, their lives. I researched espionage and the spy mania that had seized England pre-1910 thanks to novels (!!!!) by a fellow named William Le Queux. I explored the world of haute couture in 1909. And I turned in that document with a big grin on my face.

Cue the months of waiting. I wrote the book. I loved the book. I loved especially that Lady Marigold, my heroine, chose fashion as her mask for her work. She wears the most ostentatious gowns and hats any time she goes out in public, so that people notice the clothes instead of her face…and then the clothes can appear somewhere else on a friend, and it provides an alibi for her while she’s about her clandestine work. Because if Lady M’s hat was in Hyde Park on that afternoon, then surely she was too, right?

In truth, Lady Marigold Fairfax and her brother, Yates, an earl now, are in dire straits. If they don’t earn a living, they’ll lose everything and be unable to support the retired performers who they love like family and who have made their home now at Fairfax Tower.

When the email arrived in my inbox with the cover for A Beautiful Disguise, I had one of those jaw-drop moments that I always hope for. Gorgeous background of a Northumberland manor house–check. Beautiful dress in vibrant colors–check. Enormous hat–check. I absolutely LOVE that we can’t see Marigold’s face here, because that is such a key part of the story–she always hides her face in public under her hats. The only addition that I asked for was peacock feathers on her hat (which had ostrich feathers already). Both kinds of feathers are featured in the book, so I hoped they’d agree…and they did! Which made it PERFECT!!!

So…are you ready for your first glimpse? Here it is! A Beautiful Disguise!

I am 100% in love with this cover, from the lighting to the background to the colors to those requested feathers. It’s definitely one of those that I keep pulling up to stare at whenever I need a bit of inspiration to finish my work on the story (which I’m revising right now). I can never really rank my favorites of my book covers (so many gorgeous ones), but this is right up there, not only because of its beauty, but because of how perfectly it captures the story. Yay!

What do you think? I’d love to hear your opinions! Post your comments below!

Behind the Design of Bring Her Home

Behind the Design of Bring Her Home

Behind the Design of Bring Her Home

Okay, so it’s been approximately forever since I took the time to create a behind-the-scenes post about one of the book covers I’ve done…even though I still get requests for them…and even though the response has always been pretty amazing. Why? Because they take time, and that’s something I haven’t had much of in recent years, LOL.

But I’m taking the time now. Yep, that’s right. I’m doing another Behind the Design post, taking you step-by-step through the cover design process of Bring Her Home by Hannah Currie, which will be releasing this October from WhiteCrown Publishing. I thought it would a fun way to highlight not only this AMAZING book, and the fun cover, but also to share a bit more about WhiteCrown, now that the website is up and we’re getting some products in the shop.

Have you perked up? Do you love royal fiction? Stories of princesses and princes and knights, kings and queens and courtiers? I know I do–and it’s not just because of the beautiful gowns and sparkly things (although I admit it–I love the beautiful gowns and sparkly things!). It’s also because stories of royalty always remind me that we are the beloved daughters of the King of kings. We are always on display in the eyes of the world, our every move watched. We are never not responsible for the kingdom. And while sometimes that’s overwhelming, it also calls us to remember in every moment Whose we are, and so who we are. It ought to remind us always to be as noble and righteous and just and selfless as a heavenly princess ought to be.

So first–go check out the pretty new WhiteCrown website!!! Some of the features are still in progress, but you’ll at least get a glimpse of what will be there this fall as our titles begin releasing. There are going to be free short fiction, full-length books you can purchase, tours through our settings, reviews of royal books and movies and television, and a shop that will carry not only OUR titles, but other royal fiction and also royal items–everything from tiaras to blankets to jewelry boxes to tie-in items for our books!

Okay! So for our launching title, we definitely needed a cover that was pretty iconic “princess story!” right? Flowy gown, castle, the works. We needed royalty to be front and center. So with that in mind, I turned to author Hannah Currie’s cover questionnaire to see what she had in mind and then got down to business. =)

Bring Her Home is the first book in a series, which had originally been titled Raedonleith Parables. We decided first and foremost to go with a series name that conveyed the royal theme too, so changed that to Crown of Promise (our favorites of Hannah’s brainstorming!).

We wanted to make sure we had a different look from her first series, but that they still looked great together. Here are the three books in her first series.

The Daughters of Peverell novels are all contemporary princess stories, with a fictional setting, the kingdom of Peverell. I had SO MUCH FUN designing those “pretty dress” covers with her three heroines, taking a styling cue from the ever-popular Selection stories.

This new series is set in a fictional kingdom as well, but is historical–no particular date, just a general “medieval” feel, much like some of Jody Hedlund’s princess tales. So if you’re fans of Jody’s, you are going to LOVE Hannah’s books too! They’re fabulous!

But I digress. 😉

Back to design. One of the first things I actually did was figure out what I wanted to do for the series banner. As you can see in the image for her first series, we used a ribbon marker for that; I decided to something similar for this series, but to use a horizontal ribbon instead of a vertical one.

So that was a start…but not exactly a cover, LOL. Then it was time to move on to the fun stuff!

Hannah had a pretty good idea of what she wanted for this series: the heroine from behind, a red dress for this first cover, white butterflies somewhere on the cover, the castle in the background. I decided to start with the heroine…and the dress.

In scrolling through red medieval gowns, I decided I really loved the flow of this one.

But there are some obvious problems here, right? First and foremost, the dress is translucent and her legs are fully visible. Not exactly appropriate for a medieval maiden. 😉 But no worries! I was able to use the flow of that dress, but combine it with the opacity of the skirt from this one.

The result isn’t exactly perfect, but by flipping them to face the same direction and lining them up correctly, we begin to see a rough figure taking shape. In this, I’ve just taken off the head (just call me the executioner) and put the more solid skirt underneath the flowy one.

I was liking the shape and structure, but clearly this isn’t quite right–given how translucent that flowy dress is, the original image allowed us to see through to the lighter ground beneath…that doesn’t exactly work here, and the shades aren’t the same either. To solve both problems at once, I actually just applied a color layer to the them both. Abra cadabra!

Better. =) Now it was time to reattach her head. 😉 I found an image of a long braid that I liked…a Rapunzel style image, actually. The hair here was blond, which wasn’t right–our heroine is a redhead–and it was WAY too long, but it was a start!

I copied the head/hair onto the dress image and tinted it as much as I could just through the Hue/Saturation options. That got me pretty close.

Close…but sloppy and indistinct. After playing a bit more with Curves and Levels (Photoshop tools that allow you to adjust brightness and shadow), I then actually went in by hand and, with a 1 pixel brush, added in wisps and more colors, to get us to this.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that this version is just on a gray background. Brilliant, right? 😉 Obviously not what I meant to stay with. In fact, I’d originally chosen a very fairy-tale style castle, with bright green grass and a blue sky, thinking it would contrast well with the red. In this version, you’re seeing it with the original banner, white with the old series title.

Bright, huh? And cheerful. I continued the fanciful idea with a flowy script font and then a white butterfly bokeh.

Yeah, um…cue the author suddenly not sure she wanted a flowing dress or a castle or anything else, LOL. In other words, I had nailed the WRONG FEEL. Whoops! After a weekend of poor Hannah throwing a million other ideas at me and me being like, “But the dress is not negotiable!” I finally realized that it wasn’t the dress or model that was the problem. It was that bright and sunny background.

Okay. Easy to fix. I quite simply deleted that background and choose a moodier one, with a sunset and a storm on the horizon, and a more utilitarian medieval castle.

Suddenly Hannah liked the dress again. 😉

That mood is MUUUUUUUCH more suited to the story, so we all breathed a big sigh of relief. Then it was just a matter of finishing it!

Hannah had also requested an easier to read font, and though I love that script (in fact, I used it for my “Blessed Is She Who Believed” line of products!), I could certainly see her point. So we went instead with an ornate serif font.

This one is called Berold, and it has a ton of great alternates and ligatures to really customize the look.

Only one small item remained–those white butterflies! I knew I wanted to put them in her hair (Hannah’s suggestion!), and I decided to make one interact with the title too. So here we go! The final cover, with a butterfly on the B and two in her hair.

And now, I bet you actually want to know what this book is about, right?? Here’s the back cover copy!

Since the morning he woke to find his precious daughter gone with only the remains of their latest argument left behind, King Lior has been praying she’d come home. For four years now, he’s prayed and searched, sending his best knights to find Evangeline, only to hear nothing. Until the day their missive arrives with three words: we’ve found her. He sends one right back with orders to bring her home.

But that order isn’t easily achieved. Evangeline, now a lowly servant, has no plans to return. Though the knights claim her father still loves her, she knows the truth: he’d cast her aside as quickly as everyone else if he knew how far she’d truly fallen. She can’t go home. Not with her scars. Or her failures. Or her son.

Only, the knights won’t leave without her. And just as she starts to wonder if maybe they might be right, the choice is taken from her altogether.

Sir Darrek thought the hardest part of his quest would be finding Evangeline. He had no idea how difficult it would be to get her home.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour through the cover design process of Bring Her Home by Hannah Currie! And I also hope that you’re as excited as I am both for the book and for WhiteCrown! Do hop over to our lovely new website, and be sure to sign up for our newsletter! It’s going to be full of SO MUCH FUN STUFF here in the next month or two, as we get it rolled out!!

Cover Reveal! Yesterday’s Tides

Cover Reveal! Yesterday’s Tides

It’s one of my favorite days in the life of a book–the day I get to share the cover with the world! And I am SO, SO excited to share this one with you!

Yesterday’s Tides is a book that has been with me since the summer after I graduated college (so, you know…a little while. Ahem.) I’d originally written it as a contemporary, but as I dove into my historical world, my best friend/critique partner suggested I rewrite it in “my era,” and I loved the idea so much that I planted my hero, Rem, into my world of Room 40 in The Codebreakers series. =)

Then I got the idea for making it not only a story set in the First World War, but one that also included a storyline set in World War 2. I absolutely adore how the two lines worked together, and I was very curious as to what they’d decide to focus on for the cover. The answer: the World War II line, which doesn’t surprise me at all.

So whenever I get an email with a cover, I have to click to download the file before I can see it, and on this one, I literally squeezed my eyes shut and prayed, “Please be gorgeous, please be gorgeous, please be gorgeous.” And oh…oh my. Prayer answered.

Are you ready to see it?? Here it is, then scroll down to get my reation and share yours! Ready?

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Voila!

Isn’t it beautiful?!?!

The first thing that struck me, of course, was the color. I love that shade of teal! And the sea grass and dunes leading out to the water is absolutely PERFECT for the setting of Ocracoke, North Carolina, in the Outer Banks. I love seeing the 1940s heroine, Evie Farrow, from behind like that. And her dress! Perfect! She runs an inn so always makes sure she looks nice, but that she can still work in whatever she’s wearing. And of course, we have the ship and plane there to nail the era at a glance.

Overall, I am just in love with this cover and hope you’re as excited for the book as I am! This is the one that meshes ALLLLLLLL my story worlds! We’ve got the Culpers AND my English world in here. Codebreakers, spies, nobility, Southern charm, all rolled up into two storylines and one book. Gah! Just so excited!

Here’s the official blurb:

In 1942, Evie Farrow is used to life on Ocracoke Island, where every day is the same–until the German U-boats haunting their waters begin to wreak havoc. And when special agent Sterling Bertrand is washed ashore at Evie’s inn, her life is turned upside down. While Sterling’s injuries keep him inn-bound for weeks, making him even more anxious about the man he’s tracking, he becomes increasingly intrigued by Evie, who seems to be hiding secrets of her own.

Decades earlier, in 1914, Englishman Remington Culbreth arrives at the Ocracoke Inn for the summer, but he doesn’t count on falling in love with Louisa Adair, the innkeeper’s daughter. When war breaks out in Europe, and their relationship is put in jeopardy, will their love survive?

As Evie and Sterling work to track down an elusive German agent, they unravel mysteries that go back a generation. The ripples from the Great War are still rocking their lives, and it seems yesterday’s tides may sweep them all into danger again today.

Bestselling and award-winning author Roseanna M. White whisks you away to two periods fraught with peril in this sweeping and romantic dual-time tale.

Cover Reveal ~ Worthy of Legend

Cover Reveal ~ Worthy of Legend

It’s cover reveal day!! Always an exciting day in the life of an author…right up there with that day when, out of the blue, an email arrives in your inbox with the subject line of “Worthy of Legend Cover!” (or whichever book I happen to be waiting for my glimpse of, LOL.)

My heart rate always increases. I click into that email. And then I click on the attachment icon. Oh, the flutters in my stomach every single time as I wait for the image to download–it’s one of those moments where the seconds it takes stretch out soooooo long! But finally, it loads. I may quite literally hold my breath.

Am I going to love it?
Am I going to hate it?
Will it look anything like what I imagined?

For Worthy of Legend, the third and final book in the Secrets of the Isles series, I’d given them some ideas and of course knew it would follow the same general look as the other two books. We’d have the heroine front and center, an island background. My special requests this time: (1) Could we have a night sky, or first-breath-of-dawn sky perhaps? And (2) she could be wearing green, as it’s the only color mentioned for her clothes.

Of course, I gave them some ideas for items she could be holding and also described Lady Emily Scoffield and provided some inspirational photos.

But one never knows how that’s going to play out in the cover designer’s mind. One never knows if our visions will perfectly match. And to be quite honest, both covers for the other books in this series surprised me–but I adore them both!

So finally, that image downloaded, all those questions rampaging through my mind, and I clicked it open, trying not to peek at the thumbnail, honestly, so that I could get the full impact.

And there she was! Lady Emily, holding a small leather-bound journal that plays a critical role in the story, in a puffed-sleeve green dress that would have made Anne Shirley gasp is exaggerated pleasure. With an island backdrop with that lovely starry sky I’d requested (yay!!!!)

Are you ready to get YOUR first look?? Here it is!

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What do you think??

I admit that the model wasn’t exactly how I’d pictured Emily, but I always get over that really quickly, LOL (because this is pretty much ALWAYS the case, ha ha). She looks lovely and sweet with a touch of insecurity–SO EMILY!–so I quickly adjusted my own mental image to match! I love that she’s holding that small leather journal, and the background…spot on. Overall, I’m so excited to add this one to my “My Covers” folder and think it’s the perfect complement to the rest of the series!

Now, a bit about the story itself. Lady Emily has been cut off from her family after siding with the Tremaynes in the whole treasure hunt thing, and she’s got some heavy questions she’s dealing with: Why can’t they just love her? How is she to love them as God does? Will the opinions of these friends change when they realize exactly how little her own family esteems her?

And then we have our hero, the grumpy, candy-loving Bram, Earl of Telford. Bram has already been well established as an over-protective big brother, and he takes that role very seriously. When he sees what a terrible brother Emily has, he pretty much decides that someone has to protect her, and if her brother won’t do it, he will. We also finally discover what he’s hiding behind that gruff exterior–a heart that longs for true nobility and is more than a little inspired (okay, obsessed) with tales of chivalry, especially the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. So when a new treasure hunt seems to have a link to Arthur himself…well suddenly he’s more intrigued by archaeology than he ever expected to be.

I hope everyone is looking forward to this ending to the Scilly-set tales! I greatly enjoyed digging deep into these two characters and really examining what makes anyone worthy of legend. Spoiler alert (okay, not really, LOL): Both of these two characters live up to it!

And of course, now that I have a cover, that means I also can make the pre-order available in my shop! Order your copy now, and it *will charge your card right away and then I’ll ship the orders as soon as I get my author copies, which is usually 3-4 weeks before they’re available from other stores. =D In this case, release day is early September, so you’ll *probably get your book sometime in August.

Cover Reveal ~ Shadowed Loyalty

Cover Reveal ~ Shadowed Loyalty

Back in August I shared the announcement about Shadowed Loyalty, my 1920s Chicago story, that will be coming from Chrism Press in May of 2022. Well, not long after that, I had the joy of working on the cover for it!

It isn’t often that I get to design my own book covers, and while Chrism Press is a branch of WhiteFire Publishing (the company my husband and I own), the designs are all done by the amazing Rhonda Ortiz, so I was fully prepared to come, hat in hands and eyes wide, to beg her to let me do this one, LOL. But she beat me to the punch by saying, “You’re going to do yours, right? You do ‘Roseanna covers’ better than I could.” To which, of course, I said, “YES, PLEASE!!!”

Honestly, I’d already been searching for images. I thought I’d do a “pretty dress” cover with that iconic 1920s style…an authentic era gown, even. So I went to my usual sources for genuine era gowns with public domain photos…and I found nothing. Nada. So by the point that the task was officially handed to me, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Until Rhonda said, “We totally need something with the same vibe as Stephanie Landsem’s In a Far Off Land.”

To which again I said, “YES!!!!”

I absolutely adore this cover of Stephanie’s (and the book is amazing too!), and while it’s set a decade after mine, in Hollywood rather than Chicago, the vibe is allll kinds of right.

So off I went, searching for 1920s styled models. And hilariously, I found the exact one they used on In a Far Off Land. At first I thought I’d better avoid her for that very reason–I don’t want it to look too much like hers, after all. But then I thought, “Well, let’s see what I can do to make it unique.” So I chose a different position…I darkened her hair…I changed her lip color…I added a hat. And of course, I put a historical Chicago background behind her.

When I announced the book, I had quite a few comments that mentioned how much they liked the feel of the image we used in the blog–dark and mysterious, with a gangster flair (this is about the Mafia, after all). So I wanted to make sure I captured that air of mystery, of the underworld. And when I showed it to a few people, I got some great reactions.

Are you ready to see? I hope so! Here it is, and be sure to scroll down to the text afterward to get more info or pre-order a signed copy!

 

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Voila!

So as you can see, I went with some deep shades, toned in blue. I focused on the headshot, but we still get a glimpse of her fabulous beaded dress and her era-signature cloche hat. I use an Art Deco accent and font, but not a full frame, the better to leave room for her lovely face.

What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

When I showed it to the Chrism editors for approval, one of the first questions was, “Are you going to be selling those earrings in your shop? They’re fabulous!”

I do totally agree. I also love the matching bobby pins…and I found a necklace from the same jeweler that matches the description of one that plays a key role in the story too! So I’m excited to offer all three items in my store. (As of this posting, I have the items ordered from the jeweler, though they’re not in hand yet. I will fulfill any orders that come in as soon as I get them from the acclaimed Sweet Romance Jewelry shop!)

And of course, if you’d like to pre-order, you can do that EXCLUSIVELY from my store right now! It will begin appearing elsewhere in the new year, but why wait to reserve your signed copy? 😉 Pre-order pricing will only last until release!

As a reminder, though, placing the order now will charge your card now but the item will not ship until May, when I have them in hand.

Pre-Order Now

About the Book

Sabina Mancari never questioned her life as the daughter of Chicago’s leading mob boss until bullets tear apart her world and the man she thought she loved turned out to be an undercover Prohibition agent. Now she sees how ugly the underworld can be. Ambushes, bribes, murder, prostitution—maybe Lorenzo, her straitlaced fiancé, had it right when he said it is better to stay far removed. And maybe, if she can understand him and his baffling faith, he will give her another chance.

But Lorenzo isn’t sure he’s ready for that. All his life he has loved Sabina, only to realize she had never felt the same about him. While he’s relieved to see her pursuing God, the Prohibition agent is pursuing her father just as intently, and it falls to Enzo—and his legal skills—to keep trouble at bay. He wants to believe that Sabina can change…assuming they can stay alive until their wedding day.

Shadowed Loyalty, set amid the glitz and scandal of the Roaring Twenties, examines what love really means and how we draw lines between family and our own convictions, especially when following the one could mean losing the other.