Behind the Scenes of “Don’t Marry the Cursed,” Book Cover

If you saw my post about the book cover for “Don’t Date the Haunted” then you might have noticed how long I’ve been working on this series and the many changes I made to the cover between drafts of the book.

“Don’t Marry the Cursed” went through a similar process.

First of all, this is Theo’s book. Pansy’s still heavily involved, but the plots for this book revolve around Theo’s homeland, family, and growing character.

When I first wrote “Don’t Marry the Cursed,” the first book was unofficially titled “Haunted Romance.” Terrible title, I know, and book two was unofficially titled “Haunted Fantasy.” (Because book 1 is set in Romance, and book 2 is set in Fantasy). My mock-up covers for “Haunted Romance” were simple pansy flowers with black backgrounds, so I made similar mock-ups for book 2.

I was quite proud of creating the first shield from scratch, but the fire was someone else’s picture. The font for the first cover was also my own creation. As fun as it was, it didn’t work for a legible book title.
The second shield was created by piecing together several parts of metallic words and letters on fire. Again, I was quite proud of how well it turned out.
I changed the title to “Haunted Adventure” after writing book 3 and realizing that the “Haunted Romance” of the first book referred to the experience, not the place. So, they experienced a Romance in the first book and book 2 they have an Adventure.

Then, I briefly asked for some advice from Shaela, the lovely lady of bluewaterbooks.com who created my cover for “Don’t Date the Haunted.” The first time I talked with her, she suggested focusing book 1 on a woman’s mouth. With that in mind, I considered focusing book 2 on a man’s blue-green eyes behind a shield. I didn’t play with this concept long enough to make a real mock-up.

THEN, I contacted Shaela as a professional. That was the moment that I realized my titles sucked, and my covers didn’t convey all the elements of a Dark Romantic Comedy set in a fantasy world.
Another title I considered for “Don’t Marry the Cursed” was “Careful How You Wish,” but it didn’t convey the romance as much.

Soon after creating the silhouette for “Don’t Date the Haunted,” I made some silhouettes for Theo. I ran them by Shaela and let her decide which one would make the best cover.

I liked the middle one most, but that quickly changed when I saw Shaela’s work with the doublet top and background.

With only ONE MONTH before the release of “Don’t Marry the Cursed,” here’s the official reveal of the official book!

I love it! Love-love-love-LOVE it!

Interesting side note: the couple up top and the castle were actually first suggested on “Don’t Date the Haunted.” I told Shaela to switch them out, but hold on to them because they were perfect for this book!

Also, in case you didn’t notice, when you put “Don’t Date the Haunted” and “Don’t Marry the Cursed” side by side…

Hey, look! They’re holding hands. ❤