Romance Under the Covers and The Work Behind It

Our recent poll results for What Attracts You To A Book gave me pause. Covers were the overwhelming winner. I really expected Happily Ever After to be the winner since it’s been the consensus of all discussions over the last few years.

What do we look for under the cover?

A well written story, of course. We want to meet the characters, love them, hate them, cry over them, root for them and most of all, we want to watch them struggle through their personal issues, the obstacles life puts in front of them and fall in love.

Don’t we authors wish it were so easy? And sometimes it is. Sometimes the story pours from some mystical depth and you feel possessed as I did with Last Glass of Wine. Other times we fight with our characters and ourselves as I’ve been doing with Contemptible Service.

We strive to make the reader feel like they are the character or at least feeling the emotions and the hunger for the outcome to be one that has us going, ‘yes, yes, yes’.

I’m currently finishing up the third book in my Servin’ It Up series. While the characters for the most part are in the food service industry, the stories are all different. This particular one, Contemptible Service is titled appropriately, giving multiple thought processes as to what the storyline might be. While this can be a downfall, I think it can be a pleasant surprise as well. I’ve spent the last several months agonizing over this story. I told my characters off, they told me off. I normally give the characters free reign, but I didn’t want the story to go the way they’ve taken it. I wanted a simple m/f romance with a suspenseful storyline. Jokes on me, but we finally came to a compromise a couple of days ago and now things are hunky dory between us. At least for the moment – we’ll see when I start going back through it tonight.

So, what’s the problem as long as we get a story that meets our expectations of characters we love to hate, root for, cry over and most of all watch them fall in love in spite of it all trials and tribulations to live Happily Ever After?

Plenty, but I’ll wait and let you read the story. I think one of my reviewers nailed me perfectly when he said this about my work. “With Bekki Lynn, you never know what will happen at the end, that’s how I was hooked and I guarantee you will be too.” ~ Mark ~ Book Cove Reviews

In the meantime, I’m looking for just the right cover. I want to catch the eye, but most importantly I want browsers to eye the cover and know the promises it’s making will be fulfilled. So, I’m cautious as to what I suggest.

When I offered the lady in the throes of the ultimate physical elation for A Psychic Hitch, I was thrilled when they said it had to be the cover. But after a while, I began second guessing the choice. What does it say about Cheri? What does it say about the story over all? It does fit certain aspects of the story and no one has complained the cover didn’t fit. It was a learning experience.



I was a bit more cautious with Last Glass of Wine – I love the couple in the wine glass as anyone who visits my sites know. They are my signature couple. I was writing the story when I found the couple and knew instantly they were Cole and Lana. For me as the author of the story, it reflects the imperfections of what are the expected handsome and gorgeous hero and heroine. At the same time, the single glass has a dual meaning. In the story, they shared wine from one glass, but also it’s unity. They came together through odds and became one.

All the authors and the cover artists can do is try to reflect our visions of the story and hope it draws in the reader. It’s hit and miss, because readers are as unique as writers.

Bekki