Please welcome Emma Petersen, the Managing Artist of Cobblestone Press

This is what I started with

Unfortunately as cover artists we only have so many photos to work with. And since websites that provide reasonable, quality, royalty free photographs aren’t as plentiful as some of us would like, we do have to be creative while manipulating our photos.

I have a hard time finding pictures of women with red hair. Either the model is looking directly into the camera (a personal pet peeve of mine) or she just doesn’t have the it factor I’m looking for.

For example, I received a cover art request form that called for a heroine with red hair and green eyes. So the first thing I did was go through my Red Hair Heroine light box. None fit so I searched for a redhead that fit was a reasonable fit of the author’s description.

Finished product

Of course, it’s rare you find a photograph that fits the author’s description perfectly so you have to tread a fine line while searching. The most time I will take searching for a photo is an hour.

I came across this picture. She was perfect, her features, her expression. She looked vulnerable, pensive and a little scared. And she had an appealing look that would enhance any cover. Only problem? She didn’t have red hair.

As an artist if I can’t find it, I must create it by manipulating the photo while making sure it doesn’t look like it’s been altered.

Are you a cover artist and have a cover you want to show off? Email me and I’ll hook you up!

As promised, here is the 4th installment of Ember. If you haven’t already, please read: one, two, and three.

But first, a blurb:

Everyone loves Prince Charming. They have to—he’s cursed. Every man must respect him. Every woman must desire him. One look, and all is lost.

Charm is a curse. Love is a fire. This story is no fairytale.

And now, the continuation of Ember…

(more…)

Grade: A-

Bam,

I know you weren’t all that interested in reading Wicked Deeds because it didn’t focus on the Valkyries. Well, dumb decision on your part. It may not focus on those crazy women we’ve come to know and (in some cases) love, but it does continue to focus on the Lore and the folks that make up the creatures of the Lore. And while I know you’re generally wary of series (except for a certain group of vampires that love to have extraneous H’s in everything they say, do and name) [Whord to your muthah. -Bam], Kresley Cole continues to impress with her Immortals After Dark series. I know you weren’t totally cahrayzee about A Hunger Like No Other due to Emma’s lack of spine and general annoying personality. While we didn’t review No Rest For The Wicked, I will briefly say that I was much happier with Kaderin as a heroine, but thought that Sebastian wasn’t nearly as strong as I had hoped.

Well, Wicked Deeds finally seems to get the mix right in all respects. The heroine is actually strong without being feisty, spunky or a Mary Sue and the hero, while being a total alpha, isn’t foolish enough to believe he can’t ever be wrong about something (or many things for that matter). And Ms. Cole continues to write buildup and actual sex with terrific heat.

(more…)

[fake blurb alert.]

…dance for an all-male revue!

Dylan Quinn is unhappy. There’s a festering, pus-crusted, gaping hole where his soul should be, and it’s all because he had never allowed himself to do what he’s always wanted to do: join the Royal Academy of Dance. As a child, Dylan had learned there is only one avenue for the thoroughly heterosexual male Quinns. Firefightin’. His family had always been supportive of all of his endeavors— like the time he landed the lead in his high school’s production of Swan Lake— but Dylan knows it would secretly break his father’s heart if he were to hang up his ultra-tight flame-retardant pants and pick up ballet slippers. For good. After all, the Mighty Quinns are only known for two things: fightin’ fires and impregnatin’ kind, pure, salt-of-the-earth females.

Julie Davis has always been in love with Dylan Quinn. In high school, she followed him around and even signed up for the drama club just so she could be near him. In math classes, she allowed him to copy from her tests. But he had never acknowledged her as a woman, much less as a love interest. Over the years, she had learned to accept that the day will never come when Dylan will look at her and fall madly in love.

But she knows his heart’s desire…

One night, while walking her Pomeranian and passing the firehouse “by chance,” Julie peeks into a window and finds Dylan alone and twirling like a graceful, beautifully insane top to Chopin blasting from a boombox. She realizes if she could help Dylan fulfill his dream, he would finally see her as a woman. And it could start with the audition for the lead of an all-male version of La Bayadere, a production her sister is leading in Tulsa…

Thanks again to my buddy Amber for sending me this cover.

[fake blurb alert]
Terry Randall is nursing a heartbreak. Because of his long, grueling hours as a marketing executive for Banana Republic, his lover of ten years Fernando decided he has had enough of Terry’s neglect and booked it for Miami to become a tennis instructor. Now Terry finds himself sitting alone every night in his Restoration Hardware-decorated home, fondling his argyle sweaters and ecru khakis, and crying into a glass of Merlot. Fernando had been his light, his love, his reason for living… and now he’s gone… and he’d taken Terry’s favorite chenille robe with him. The harlot… Terry would have been content spending the rest of his existence watching reruns of Queer as Folk while embalming his insides with bottles of absolutely fabyooooolous Pinot Grigot… until Luanne and her daughter moved in.

Luanne Bixby is finally learning to stand on her own two feet. After a seven-year loveless relationship with a man who’d only married her because he got her pregnant, Luanne is ready to break out and have fun… which would have been a lot easier if she didn’t have a six-year-old daughter who suffers from an embarrassing tendency to run up to strange men, wrap her arms around their legs, and refuse to let go. Luanne has had to resort to injecting the poor dear with Ketamine in the neck. And then there was that absolutely horrendous pepper spray incident… According to Janey’s therapist, Janey is only acting out because she is in need of a father’s love and men aren’t exactly falling all over themselves in a rush to volunteer for the job. Luanne hopes this move to a fashionable apartment building in Austin would be just the thing to launch her new life with Janey…

Terry has never been fond of children, but the little tow-headed girl down the hall… “OH MY GOD, YOU LITTLE SHIT, GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS ‘DRY CLEAN ONLY’?!?! DO YOU?!?! THESE PANTS WERE IMPORTED FROM FRANCE! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHERE FRANCE IS?!?! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!”

Props to my homie Amber for sending me this cover.