Like it?
It's not the final cover, of course. But it gives me something to visualize while I write.
(Yes, it's a couple of my old pens and a bottle of ink spread out on a paper sack with some steampunk gears and clockfaces I had for making my altered books. I just photographed it and added the text. But it'll do for now.)
Here's my first book blurb for this one:
Oliver Laird is not what he seems.
True, he's the brilliant clockmaker's apprentice who invented the ClockOx and the Pulley Delivery System. And, yes, he is that very same young man whom Brother Lyle Carter Oswald himself asked to see. And certainly he's the lad who clandestinely meets with that gypsy rascal, London Sunday, to smuggle the cocoa powder in for the ladies of the town. The boy who saved handsome James Whittaker's reputation after that graveyard incident. The one who travels with Doctor Ephraim Paine. The chap who studies languages with Bertie Haven. Yes, that fellow.
Except that Oliver is really Olivia.
And it's getting harder and harder to hide that fact. Especially around all those handsome men. Especially when she suddenly has more power than any of them.
Especially when her life might be the cost if her secret is discovered.
That sounds like something I'd read.
ReplyDeleteLove it! Write like the wind!!
ReplyDeleteVery intriguing premise. And that cover looks great for something you knocked together quickly! Looks professional.
ReplyDeleteIt helps that my father is an artist. I've spent a lifetime looking at things with an artist's eye, although I'm no artist myself.
DeleteThanks, though.
Whoa! The bit about Olivia caught my eye. When's it due out as I want a copy.
ReplyDeleteHeidi commented on goodreads:
ReplyDeleteLove it. I can't wait to read it. Hurry up and write it. :)
Paige sent a tweet:
ReplyDeletePaige Shelton
@AuthorPaige
@lisamshafer 'The Chocolate Lover's Notebook' sounds fabulous! Can't wait to read it.
I do love that cover. It doesn't have any chocolate in it, but the sepia tone makes it all look chocolatey. Mmmmm.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that chocolate as a solid candy form had not been invented yet at the time of the story; hence, what's being smuggled is cocoa powder. I actually did think of sprinkling cocoa powder over the cover, but then I thought it'd just look like dirt. Maybe I'll try a cover with it on later. :)
DeleteOh, and it's actually not sepia, although it looks it. When I shifted the original image into sepia, it went too yellow. So I brightened the color of the image up the scale twice, then hit the "antique" option twice to get the colors you see here. If you enlarge the image, you can see stains of green ink on the left pen's nib -- something that wouldn't have shown up in sepia. Oh, and I blurred the edges as well, but I'm sure you knew that already.
DeleteThat's the thing, even without any chocolate or cocoa in the picture, it looks wonderfully chocolatey.
DeleteI knew it wasn't actually sepia, I was going to refer to it as sepiaish, or sepiaey, but I didn't like either of those words.
Hmmmm.... How about "pseudo-sepia"?
DeletePseudo-sepia, sounds good to me. I'll remember next time. (Maybe)
DeleteThe cover looks terrific. I like it VERY much! The story also has my interest. Onward!
ReplyDelete