New Release: LUST by Melissa Snark

Genre: BDSM/Erotic Contemporary Canadian International Western Historical Paranormal Romantic Suspense

Publisher: Lusty Luscious Press

Cover Design: Melissa Snark

A creepy handsome jerk stalks a bitchy spoiled princess...but their mutual love of bacon rules their hearts.

Worlds collide when an Elbonian princess and a Canadian stuffy bastard collide in an explosive collision that causes extensive vehicular damage that may result in both of them seeing the town's only chiropractor. 

Sapphire Felicitie Valentine escorts her precocious ten-year-old niece to Heart's Delight, Canada. After her biplane impacts Xander Emerentius de Smytheford's Porsche, she becomes an unwelcome guest on his British Columbian pineapple plantation.

His pants are packed.

Her bosom heaves.

LUST is the story of an unwanted and inconvenient lice affliction that drives  Xander Emerentius de Smytheford and Sapphire Felicitie Valentine into each other’s arms.

* * * * * 

"Is this a joke?" ~Romance Author Lisa Rayns

"I don't get it. Why is there a pineapple?"  ~Mr. John C. Snark

"That pineapple cover rocks!" ~Author Michelle Devon

"I don't even want to think about how they're using the pineapple."

 ~Author Sheryl Hayes 

Inspirational LUST Video Trailer:

Excerpt:  

Xander Emerentius de Smytheford located his guests in the library, murdering Mrs. White with a wrench while Sapphire Felicitie Valentine played the harpsichord.

"Sapphire," he entreated, touching her elbow, "May I have a moment of your time? I want to talk about hockey."

Sapphire despised Xander with a fiery passion but she went with him anyway because she found the sight of blood on the hunter green carpet to be terribly annoying.

"Yes?" Sapphire clipped the word off at a 'e' so she actually said "Yee". She crossed her arms to act as a barrier between herself and the brooding hunk of icy Canadian love who positively oozed sex, sex and more sex.

Xander scratched at the uncomfortable itch on his scalp. "I believe you owe me an apology. During our passionate but completely undesired kiss in the garden last night, you seem to have given me cooties."

Sapphire gasped in shock and then drew back her hand to deliver a stinging slap to Xander's cheek. "You bastard!"

"Brat!"

"Jerk!"

"Spoiled Ice Princess!  Eh."

"I hate you!!!!!!!!" 

"You, madam, are a hoser!"

Bosoms heaving, the pair of star-crossed lovers glared at one another across a small vast divide. Simultaneously, they threw their arms about each other and engaged in a passionate kiss with much slurping and lip-smacking. The sounds were quite gross and they both itched up a storm, but they ignored their respective discomfort and clung with an infinite passion not to be denied, not even for lice.

A Picture of a Banana:

Because I really like fruit

LUST is available on Amazon Kindle
 

Author Bio:
Mrs. Snark is an irreverent satirist, a kid wrangler and a cat herder. In her free time, she hits on Mr. Snark and loves to play ping pong.

WILDE RIDERS by Savannah Young || #Giveaway

Wilde Riders

Old Town Country Romance

Book One

Savannah Young

Genre:   Contemporary Romance

Publisher:  Short on Time Books

Date of Publication:  February 11, 2014

ISBN: 1495442977

ASIN: B00IDWDWJ8

Number of pages: 186 pages

Word Count:  49,000

Cover Artist:  Tony Bryson

Available for purchase from Amazon

FOUR WILDE BROTHERS...ONE WILDE COUNTRY BAND

WILDE RIDERS is the first novel in a spicy new contemporary romance series about four sexy brothers, their small-town bar and their local country band. WILDE RIDERS can be read as a STAND ALONE NOVEL or as part of the SERIES.

Cooper Wilde spent his entire adolescence counting the days until he could escape rural northwest New Jersey. Now at 26, he can't believe he's coming back. But his late father's bar, Haymakers, is in financial trouble and his older brother, Jake, has asked for Cooper's help.

Riley Smith, 25, is fresh out of her Ivy League MBA program and wants to make an impression on her employer, H & C Bank. Her first solo assignment is a fraud investigation on a business loan they made to Haymakers.

Even though Old Town is less than 90 minutes from New York City, Riley feels like she's stepped into another world in this remote, one-bar town. Riley can't wait to do her business and get back to the city as quickly as her sports car will take her...until she meets Cooper Wilde. He's not like the other guys in this rural town and Riley feels inexplicably attracted to him.

Tour Wide Giveaway
$10 Amazon Gift Card

a Rafflecopter giveaway

About the Author: 

Romance novelist Savannah Young grew up in rural northwest New Jersey in a place very similar to the fictional Old Town, which is featured in her books. When she's not at her computer creating spicy stories, Savannah is traveling to exotic locales or spending time with her husband and their bloodhounds.

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Excerpt from WILDE RIDERS:

Cover Design Decisions by Farah Evers || A CAT'S TALE

Today, professional cover designer Farah Evers is visiting with me, talking about the process behind cover creation. Farah designed my new cover for A CAT'S TALE as well as all of the covers in my Loki's Wolves series.

Getting acquainted with the FED process

Having created over 130 covers, I’m now familiar with what passes as an appropriate and marketable cover in various genres. I’ve had a few years to look into that.

Usually, when clients request a cover from me they have to fill a form. Through said form they will answer questions pertaining to their stories. Then there’s a “Thoughts” field where the author can tell me what they’re thinking or hoping to see. I don’t usually allow the author to dictate what goes on a cover, but I do take ‘thoughts’ into consideration. 

There are many reasons I don’t allow full author control, but one of the reasons is that you, as an author, are too close to your work. Let alone the fact that cover design is a whole different beast from writing in the genre. There’s more technical stuff involved, marketing and research strategies really, rather than just pure creativity. Not that creativity isn’t as important to the process. It sure is.

While some people regard covers as a matter of opinion and taste, I’m here to tell you that because a designer doesn’t know your story inside and out like you do, they have a secret weapon in the creation process. This makes for powerful covers!

Professionals will look into the market (not the indie market) and see how the industry approaches your genre.    

I also have a “I want my cover to resemble the style of:” on the form. This field is usually for authors to name other book cover designs whose styles they’d like emulated into their own. 

Exceptions to the rule!

I’m uptight and rigid about my rules because I like to maintain a high standard. However, my leniency will break through for some people. What I’ve described above as the normal process doesn’t apply 100% when I’m dealing with certain clients. 

When Melissa Snark requested her cover for A Cat’s Tale, I waited for her input. We have a special work rapport. Snark usually points to models or images she prefers to see on her covers. I’m not fond of putting models and faces on covers, but I will make exceptions in some cases. (If you’d like to know why, visit my website. I have an article that explains when models and faces should be placed on covers.)

Snark also requested her signature font be used, which I didn’t fully agree with because fonts add to vibes and general feel of a cover. Snark’s signature font is by nature quite harsh. Putting it on top of deep bleeding scratches just didn’t give out the right feel. I decided to use a soft, more subtle font, which was used on the final version of the cover, even though I purposely chose it to soften the original concept.

Anyway, this time, Snark didn’t pick out a model. She pointed to a cover idea she wanted. She

Concept Draft Cover

showed me a female back with scratch marks and said she liked that. It was an easy concept to replicate. We agreed on feline scratch marks as opposed to human nail scratches to indicate that the female was a werecat. The scratches were placed on a naked male back. The image had an erotic feel to it from the couple depicted. 

Trial & Error

The cat scratch marks, were a little too deep and red, which gave off a bit of a scary vibe, rather than a paranormal feel. Of course, any cover project can be salvaged, saved, changed, fixed…etc. until it meets the right criterion. There were several revisions, but I didn’t present them. People fail to realize that the cover process is mostly progressive work. Initial ideas come about and are worked through until the cover reaches its final design. I have a reputation for hitting a homerun 90% of the time, but when there’s author input, I become nothing but an execution machine; a bit robotic in my approach. I lose my conceptual edge, which is what separates me as a designer. I’m not saying it’s necessarily the ‘correct’ way, I’m just saying that’s how I operate.

Final Cover

With a bit of patience and a few more revisions, the cover could have been fixed. But, sometimes when a concept doesn’t catch on with the client, it just doesn’t. Far be it from me to impose anything on anyone. At the end of the day, authors need to like their covers. I know in traditional publishing, they won’t have a choice, but this is the indie world! So, Snark pointed to an image of a couple kissing, and a Siamese cat’s eye. Those were the ingredients of a typical PNR cover. The collage effect is something we see in most indie covers, whether they’re erotic, PNR, horror, or whatever. The indie world loves collage. I assembled the cover, and quickly knew this was going to be a big yes from her. It was a big yes from the indie community as well, as this type of cover is what’s considered popular.

If you enjoyed this little rambling. Keep an eye out for my next article on FED entitled “Book Covers Are Not Movie Posters.” I discuss everything from the collage effect to indie cover trends, and much more.

About Farah Evers:

• 13 years experience in the field of Graphic art & design. Scope of work includes professional website design. (Evers Hosting)
• Over 130 covers and counting...
• Award winning book covers.
• 2013 Epic Ariana Award winner for Paranormal/Fantasy genre.

Small Publishers that contract with Farah Evers Designs:

• Twin Trinity Media
• Random Distraction Publishing

If you'd like to contract with FED as well, email: info@farahevers.com

Farah also talks about what makes for a sensational cover here.