I’m SO excited to share the cover of Secrets of Sunbeams with you!
Coming up with distinct branding for a new series that was reminiscent of the Farm Fresh Romance series and yet different enough to clearly be a different series was challenging for my cover designer/illustrator/daughter and me.
We bounced a lot of ideas around in the past several months — since the cover of Berry on Top was finalized, really. We tried to objectively analyze if the illustrated style is working to my advantage or not. It’s impossible to know without testing a complete rebrand. Less than half a dozen people in three years have told me they didn’t like my covers (look like children’s books…), probably a hundred have told me they love them, and many thousands have paid money for them. While that is in no way definitive, we decided maybe it’s okay to be that little bit different from the average contemporary romance cover, so we’re back with illustrated covers for this new series.
One of the advantages is having characters look like I imagine them, down to the Nigerian Dwarf goat (Pansy) and the rose tattoo. If you want to see my inspirations, check out my Secrets of Sunbeams Pinterest board.
But back to the whole same-but-different thing. Secrets of Sunbeams is set in Spokane in a semi-fictional neighborhood called Bridgeview. (I’ll be blogging a research trip to the real setting next week, so stay tuned!) We decided on a city skyline and a bridge that will carry over on each Urban Farm Fresh Romance cover. We had fun choosing new fonts, a new layout, and a new color scheme as well.
If you’d like to see the actual cover process, keep an eye out over at Inspy Romance. My post there on the 25th will give a lot more detail.
About Secrets of Sunbeams
Especially if your neighbor is a goat.
Eden Andrusek knows she should have fixed her fence last week. It’s too bad her runaway goat makes a less-than-ideal first impression on her new neighbor, who turns out to be cute, brilliant… and a little uptight.
Solar architect Jacob Riehl is furious when he returns outside to find a goat eating his presentation. As someone who likes everything in its place, he has little sympathy for a farm animal in the city or its tattooed owner, but there’s something about the lovely Eden that captures his attention.
What will it take to win over a man whose only pet was a goldfish? And how long can Jacob and Eden go without addressing the goat in the room?
Now available for pre-order in the Whispers of Love box set. Don’t miss it!
