Guest Post: Author J.J. DiBenedetto Talks Book Covers

Hey, romance addicts. Author J. J. DiBenedetto is joining us today to let us know all about the cover of her book The Queen of Emerald Falls. She also has a book excerpt and giveaway, so keep scrolling!

Welcome, J.J.

Guest Post
By J. J. DiBenedetto

The cover for The Queen of Emerald Falls was designed by Rachel Rossano (www.rachelrossano.com), who’s an author in her own right as well as a talented designer.

I initially worked with her to redesign the covers for another series of mine, the Jane Barnaby Adventures, and she did an amazing job, so I went to her again for this book.

I’m thrilled with her work, and what makes her really great to work with is, since she’s an author herself, she already knows what readers are looking for and how to create an original design that also fits what readers are looking for in each genre.

Another reason the covers are so good is that I didn’t really direct her, which is a lesson I learned with my very first book.  I worked with a very talented artist who hand-painted the cover to my specifications, and it was beautiful…and totally not right for the genre or reader expectations.  It was a hard lesson but a valuable one!

Thank you, J.J.! All right, romance addicts. Check out an excerpt from The Queen of Emerald Falls. If you like what you read, you what to do. Get to clicking!

Her mother began expanding on the tales related in the diary. “You’re going to let me tell it, right, Doc?”

“I will only chime in with corrections or supplementary details.”  Ariel imagined there were going to be a lot of those.

“Fine, Doc.  corrections and details only.  So let me set the stage.  It was the spring of 1994.  Bill Clinton was President, and the governor was…well, it doesn’t really matter, he doesn’t come into it anyway, I was just creating the mood.  Bill Clinton, and The Lion King, that was 1994, right, Doc?”  Her father shrugged.  He did that a lot.  “And the Olympics, right?  The crazy figure skater, the one who hit the other one with a lead pipe?  Tanya Tucker, wasn’t that her name?”

Now her father sighed.  He did that a lot, too.  “Tanya Tucker is a country singer, Sheryl.”

“Oh, right,” her mother said.  “I knew that.  ’Stand By Your Man.’”  She almost sang the words, producing another sigh from her father.

“Tammy Wynette sang that.  Tanya Tucker sang,” her father paused for a moment, clearly trying, and failing, to recall a song Tanya Tucker had sung.  It was strange to see him come up empty; that almost never happened.  “Well, I’m sure she sang a lot of songs, but that’s neither here nor there.  You were thinking of Tonya Harding, and it was her boyfriend who actually hit the other skater with a lead pipe.”

“Whatever.  Like I said, I’m just setting the mood.  The Lion King, and Bill Clinton, and Tonya Harding, and wasn’t Fraiser on TV?  You used to get so annoyed at that show, Doc.”

This time her father growled.  “Must you mention that miserable program?  It made a mockery of my profession!  Fraiser Crane was completely unrepresentative of a practicing psychiatrist, and his brother was even worse!  It should never have been allowed on the air!”

“Moving on,” her mother said breezily, “Spring of 1994.  Bill Clinton, The Lion King, Tonya Harding, Fraiser, and then there we were, me and your father…”