After quite a few proposals and a lot of modifications, we finally have a cover for the first book in our new Jennifer Crusie/Bob Mayer series, Rocky Start. Or as I like to to call it, the new Bob Mayer/Jennifer Crusie series Start Rocky.
While we got finals of the Liz Danger covers relatively quickly, this one took a while. A big issue is that while we list the book primarily in “romantic suspense” it isn’t a neat fit. More like putting a square peg in a round hole or something like that. Yes there is romance, yes there is suspense but in a way it’s a bit more than that. Our books examine male-female perspectives which, surprisingly are not the same. That’s because I do the male POV character in first person and Jenny does the female in first person. And we’re both kind of bonkers.
We write entirely via email, using a program called Spike to keep track of the back and forth. And there’s a lot of back and forth. When we wrote the Liz Danger series, we ended up with well over 600,000 words in Spike. And that’s just back and forth, not the over 300,000 words that ended up in the three books. So roughly a million words exchanged. Occasionally brilliantly. Often not.
What makes the collaboration work is we each bring different things. I am more a big picture, plot writer and Jenny is more a detail, character-focused writer. While Jenny is known in romance circles my readers have no idea what to expect next from me. I’ve hit bestseller lists in romance with Jenny, science fiction, thriller, historical fiction, and even nonfiction. My mind wanders.
We liken the books in the Rocky Start series to the movies RED or Grosse Pointe Blank.
As far as the cover we started out with more a traditional cover. But we aren’t traditional. It was also suggested not having a gun on the cover as that turns off some romance readers, which I understand, but that ship sailed with the previous series. The gun is representative of my character, Max, a former covert operative while the Rose represents, well, Rose, the heroine.
We are awaiting a cover for the second book in the series, Very Nice Funerals. I suggested a coffin with a flower in it. I do no think my suggestion is being taken. We shall see.
Nothing but good times ahead.
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