STOP PRESS! I’m delighted to let you know I’ll be convening a panel on Romance and Contemporary Women’s Fiction at the Willoughby Literary Festival, coming up on Saturday 19 July 2025 from 11.30am to 12.45pm. Join us!
When making magazines was part of my day job, every single story required ideal images, a catchy title and accurate and enticing words – but it was the cover choice that received all the attention. That cover image worked hardest of all, along with carefully selected fonts, in colors that popped.
A cover is more than the icing on the cake; more than the wrapping on a gift. It’s as special as an old-fashioned invitation in an envelope, with our name and address hand-written by a favorite friend.
If a picture tells a thousand words, it’s the cover that offers us the first taste of the reading adventure to come.
I love browsing covers in bookstores – always so fresh and inviting – the title, author and colors holding hints of what’s inside as well as faint echoes of all the other books we’ve ever read.
I am not alone. Romance bookstores in general are thriving, and bookshops are moving their growing romance sections closer and closer to the front of their stores. These shelves are safe spaces where lovers of romance reads can browse and select their favorites without judgement.
Enjoy this recent ABC article about the popularity of romance.
At book fairs like the Australian Romance Readers’ Association Romantic Rendezvous events in capital cities (thank you to all who make these events possible!), we authors set up our stalls oh so carefully!
I adore the moment when you readers come browsing like tropical fish, and turn towards my heartwarming novels, the House of Jewels series, and the Escape to the Coast series. Thank you for your interest!
So it’s no surprise that while I keep writing and editing the contents of my next offerings, it’s the choice of covers for my third series – my Brighton Court novels – that is causing great excitement.
This series is set in a 1940s apartment building, Brighton Court. Is “real estate” a trope? A treasured beta reader thinks it should be!
I will be super excited to share the cover and blurb for The Chase at Brighton Court with you shortly, ahead of its release later this year.
What kinds of covers do you prefer? Feel free to email me with your thoughts.
More sweet reads
Sweet Summertime Books (NB: Please revisit this site tomorrow if it’s not live, as Australia is almost a day ahead of the US, where many of my readers live)
Happy reading!
Amber
