My List of Top 10 Impactful #SciFi Romance Covers of 2019

There are two parts to this post – first, when I started thinking about doing a post on the most memorable-to-me science fiction romance covers I’d seen in 2019, I took my pen in hand and wrote down the ten which came immediately to mind. I see something like 3000+ covers a year (in 3 genres) while doing my weekly new releases column so if a cover stays on my mind that’s really impactful!

Please read on below the Top 10 for Part Two and my Honorable Mention covers!

(Drum roll please.....) 

THE TOP 10 IMPACTFUL COVERS!

Moving on to Part Two, I see well in excess of 600 science fiction romance covers a year while doing the report. This weekend I scrolled through every single SFR cover which made it to the blog in 2019 and ended up with 40 which caught my attention above and beyond the others. So about 8% (all numbers approximate). Obviously the ten I listed in Part One of this discussion are added to the 40 for a total of 50 (or about 8%) for 2019.

Before anyone rushes to apply my purely informal and highly personal results to their next book marketing campaign, I’m not any kind of an art or graphic composition expert! And there are giant trends in SFR such as the sexy manchest and abs, which I myself happily use on my Badari Warriors novels, and very much appreciate. I found that while looking at the 600+ covers for this exercise, most of those didn’t stand out to me as much as some others did when seen in a vast grouping of similiar images. They surely do catch my eye from week to week.  

I obviously am drawn to certain color palettes too…but who knows if I’m a typical reader?

On the weekly new releases posts, I include all the covers in the post itself (unless I really find a cover objectionable or too disturbing, or it's not remotely PG-13+, with total nudity for example) but I feature 8 covers each time in the social media promo for the post, including one that’s my highlighted image. I strive for variety there. In the spotlight of 8 images weekly, I try to mix professional-looking covers featuring individuals/couples/aliens/pleasing compositions/differing color palettes…I lean toward the covers which I feel will catch the eye of a potential reader as they browse through their streaming social media. My selection criteria on featured covers for the weekly promo are slightly different than the criteria I used for this massive end-of-the-year exercise.

So when I assessed my results on memorable covers of 2019, what did I find attracted me? What made me linger as I slowly scrolled my way through the list alphabetically by title? Sometimes it was the stock photo model’s face, or their eyes (I’m a sucker for piercing/soulful/gorgeous eyes) or the color palette or the ”scifi-ness” of the cover, or the couple together or just the power of the image overall. (I have to say for Tasha Black’s Tolstoy cover up above in the Top 10 it’s the sheer, infectious happiness of the man and the baby. For Lula Monk’s Dredge in the Honorable Mentions, it’s the unsettling power of the image. I find it hard to forget that one, very effective in its own way!)

Without further ado, here are the rest of the approximately top 8% of the hundreds of SFR covers I saw in 2019 which made me pause this weekend and take a longer look. Covers provided in no certain order!

And my thanks to all the wonderfully talented cover artists - if I knew all the names I would certainly share them here! Kudos to the authors who can do their own and make them outstanding. Feel free to add the artists' names in the comments if you so desire. 

Fiona Jayde does all of my covers, by the way and I loooove them.

Looking forward to savoring more beautiful, awe inspiring, sexy scifi romance covers in 2020!

Marcella's Top Three of 2019

In the liminal space between Christmas past and the New Year, we're posting our best three of 2019. Here are mine. Three new book covers in one year. I couldn't ask for anything better.

Alexia's Best Writing Tips of 2019 ~

A lot happens in a year. There’s undoubtedly been goodbyes and hellos, failures and successes, as well as some laughs and some tears. I’m grateful for it all because the highs wouldn’t be quite as high without the lows. 

But…how do you pick the best out of so much? Thankfully this is a book and writing themed blog, so that helps narrow it down. And without further ado…

The best writing advice I’ve utilized in 2019!

2: There’s always going to be resistance to our writing, as an author it’s your job to learn how to work around it. 

“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.” ~ Steven Pressfield’s THE WAR OF ART

3: (Paraphrasing) In revisions, you just need to go with the story…and sometimes that means destroying things you really don't want to destroy. Revisions will take a lot out of you, and I’m learning how to roll with it and embrace it. Advice gleaned from: Jeffe Kennedy’s May 30th First Cup of Coffee.

There you have it, some gems I’ve picked up over the past year. I still don’t have it all figured out, but I’m still writing and maybe someday I’ll have some gems of my own to share! 

If you have any writing tips you've picked up, please share!

3 Favorite Fantasy Webcomics

In the throes of the holidays? Us too! You may have noticed we've been quiet this week. Me? I'm all about goofing off and relaxing in the hours before the holiday crazies kick into high gear. That includes catching up on my favorite Webcomics. With great illustrations and compelling storylines, here are my 3 Favorite Fantasy Webcomics:

1: Wilde Life by Pascalle Lepas
In 2014 a journalist from Chicago rented a haunted house in rural Oklahoma and befriended the ghost of a 1940s mathematician and a sullen teenage werewolf. For the last five years, Pascalle Lepas's OCs have all kinds of horrific and hilarious adventures with creatures and legends from mythology. A must-read for fans of SPN, Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson), and Faith Hunter (Jane Yellowrock).

2: Fox &Willow by Irma 'Aimo' Ahmed (Ills) and Allison Pang (Auth)
Twisted fairy tales retold from the perspectives of Gideon a fox demon and Willow an exiled princess and harpist. Happy endings aren't guaranteed, particularly for our leading characters. Great for fans of Bros. Grimm, H.C. Anderson, etc.

3:  Banquet by A. Szabla
A toddler falls into hell. Hell, for the record, isn't a nice place, but the Beast King of the Bottomless Pits of Hell adopts the toddler and raises him among the...hellish politics of the Six Holy Houses of Hell. It's filled with vicious, ruthless, and charming characters/creatures/monsters/demons/etc. This is NSFW replete with all the fun things that make the faint of heart clasp their pearls.

For those who celebrate it,

Merry Christmas Eve!

No Secret Recipes Here - Sorry!

DepostPhoto

Our topic this week was a recipe for a dish we’d take to a holiday party. Okay, my warning to you is that if you invite me I’ll be bringing pizza or Kentucky Fried Chicken, or yummy cheesecake or cupcakes from the local bakery….there will be no original cooking or baking done. I’m not much interested in cooking aside from the serviceable things one feeds a growing family and once or twice a year cranking up to do the big turkey dinner with all the fixings. I learned to bake a few specific desserts that I loved because my mother hated to cook or bake and refused to do so beyond the meat & potatoes type menu my father preferred, and one birthday cake each per year and a lemon meringue pie for my Dad.

I have no sekrit yummy recipes to share in this post, alas...

Wishing you a very Happy Holiday season!

Author's own photo, from her collection

Holiday Recipes for a Crowd

I like to experiment in the kitchen. Just like I like making stuff up on paper, I make stuff up with food. I especially love trying new, complicated recipes. They have to be complex. I get a charge out of that complexity, like I might be in the kitchen building my own culinary nuclear bomb, but only if I get Every Last Step exactly right. There should probably be a drug for that.

Sometimes the results aren't so great. Most times, we end up with something passably edible - you know - no one complaining, but no one raving, either. Then, every once in a while, we'll try something and everyone's eyes roll back in their heads (in a good way!) and we have a massive hit on our hands. From the ranks of those winner recipes, a few exalted get requested year after year, thereby attaining legendary status.

This is one of those recipes. It's our Solstice tradition. It takes three days to make (to achieve the greatest flavor.) Added bonuses: It requires power tools, and it's messy.

Doesn't this look appetizing??

This is Cherry Ring. The recipe comes from the December 1998 Vegetarian Times

3 Cups unbleached white flour
1/2 Cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 TBSP unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
2 Eggs
1/4 Cup milk
1/4 Cup oil
1/4 tsp Almond extract

Filling
1/2 Cup blanched almonds toasted
2 Cups dried cherries
1/3 Cup honey
1/4 Cup orange juice
1 tsp orange zest
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp cloves

Put all of your try ingredients into the bowl of a mixer. Add the butter and start the mixer on low to cut the butter into the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk your eggs, milk, oil and extract together. Add to your dry ingredients. Mix until the dough forms. Turn out on lightly floured waxed paper and knead a few turns until everything holds together. Wrap your dough well in plastic and refrigerate overnight.

Filling
Put all ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and process until coursely chopped. Cover and let sit overnight.

To assemble: Preheat oven to 375. Roll dough out between two sheets of waxed paper. Roll into an 18x9 inch rectangle. Remove top sheet of paper. Trim a one inch bit of dough from either end and set aside. Spoon filling in a 2-inch wide strip lengthwise down the center of the dough. Lift your bottom sheet of paper along one long edge and fold the dough over the filling. Repeat for other side. Press the edges together to seal. Invert seam side down on a cookie sheet. Coax into ring shape on the cookie sheet. You'll have to do some dough repair, but a few cracks won't hurt anything. If you're really ambitious, roll out your scraps and cut out holly leaves and roll berries to use for decoration on the ring. Paint with food coloring for extra effect. Brush with egg white and bake 30-40 minutes.

You want this baked the day before you need it. The shortbread layer softens and turns melt-in your mouth lovely for sitting the extra time.

Holiday treat? Always bake a favorite...pie.

My all time favorite dessert is pie. Pie you say? Which is what most people say when I tell them my go-to dessert or dish to pass. And my answer is always; you’ve never had homemade pie. 

I’ve tried countless slices at diners, restaurants, and even pie shops, hoping for heaven and instead getting tough crusts with tasteless filling. No wonder people aren’t clamoring for pie! 

But, I aim to change that and introduce you to a flakey, melt-in-your-mouth crust that holds bold fruit flavors with a hint of sweet inside. It’s fairly basic and after a couple of attempts, because doing anything well takes a few trial and errors, you’ll be pulling your own piping hot pastry from the oven.

Click to read on for the recipe...

Confession of a kitchen incompetent

I’m just going to go out on a limb here and guess you’ve either been to a party, hosted a party, or planned a party recently. This does seem to be a time of year to get folks together indoors and share germs. Or holiday cheer, whatever. At any rate, those parties inevitably come with what I like to call YikesMustFood. This is a state of panic characterized by the shoving of things that were formerly in the refrigerator into a pan or pot or appliance, adding ingredients that might have once been tasty in a dish, and hoping for the best. In my version of reality, this process almost never works out well.

To be fair, me entire life as a mother is all about YikesMustFood, so adding that extra level of holiday anxiety is just frosting, sprinkles, and nerves. Pot lucks, as you can imagine, are my very favorite things.

Kidding. I hate them. Avoid them when possible. 

When it’s not possible? I can’t share the disaster of YikesMustFood with a dozen or more potential critics! Cooking for others is like publishing a story: it’s a gift that is almost certainly gross and will make someone sick, and they are guaranteed to either leave it on the tray and save themselves (smart!) or grab a serving, choke it down, and complain about it afterward. So... I don’t. Cook, that is.

Instead I buy cheese and wine. I know a little bit about both and can select decent combos, and its less vulnerable and crazy-making than cooking. If you are a fellow sufferer of YikesMustFood, this party-and-potluck season, be kind to you and just make a pretty plate full off purchased goodies. No one will even know the difference.