Friday, March 15, 2013

The Cover Story, Nemesis


Today's guest is someone fun!! And this story, rocks!! As do CJ Redwine and Sharon Gerlach. In other words, a great story about a great story! :D Come say high!
 
Finding Nemesis

No, this isn’t the story of a lost little clownfish, though I love that movie.

A little over four years ago, I went to a photo shoot some friends of mine were doing. It was all pin-up girls and biker-gangster-ish guys—lots of tattoos—with some great shots of girls on cars and guys on or next to motorcycles, and everyone had a gun in their hands. I’d already started writing Nemesis—on November 15th, in fact—and was just barely into the story. I remember the date because it was that same night I’d realized that NaNoWriMo had already begun and I’d wanted to participate that year, 2008, so I started a bit late. I went a little over the deadline, writing a 91,000-word book in two and a half months. That literary baby became gi-normous through several edits, and she cost me a lot in sacrifice—blood, sleep, and tears, among other things. Nemesis grew to 116,000 words, namely because CJ Redwine, in the midst of her synopsis workshop in 2010, pointed out to me that I had a HUGE plot hole in the story. I was able to shed over 10,000 words after a thorough edit via Sharon Gerlach.

I remember standing in the alley, the car parked at an angle, and my friend Aleks (aka the Dirty Russian) climbing up a ladder to take the shot of his future wife Rita lying across the top of an old car. I stood off to Aleks’ right, near the bottom of that cover photo, and remember thinking, “Oh my God, that shot is going to be spectacular.” And then I thought, “I wonder if I could use it for something,” not realizing at the time that it would end up as a book cover, and especially not realizing it would be the cover for Nemesis.

When the time came, nearly a year and a half later, to design the cover for Nemesis, I emailed Aleks with a photo that I really liked but couldn’t find the original copyright owner, and asked him if he could do something similar. We got to talking and I finally asked him what he did with the photo of Rita on the car. He replied that he hadn’t done anything with it other than a calendar and some prints, and asked if I wanted to use that. After discussing price, and having Brandon do some Photoshop work on the image, the photo was mine.

(and isn't it lovely!! ~LB)
 

What I love more than anything is that not only were these friends of mine and I attended the photo shoot, which made it so very personal already, but that Rita didn’t have any tattoos showing on her upper body at the time of the shoot, and Brandon not only added the tattoos, but the one on her arm in the image you see on the cover is the exact tattoo on her arm now.

Rita came by last week to pick up three copies of Nemesis, and it was the first time she’d seen the book cover in person. When I told her people raved about the cover, she actually got embarrassed. Shh, don’t tell anyone. It’d mess with her tough girl image. We hugged, said goodbye, and she drove off on her motorcycle with a copy for herself, her husband, and Brandon the Photoshop genius. And I went to work with a smile because, finally, they had their copies that I’d been trying to get to them forever.

 

Prince Charming was a putz.

Prince Charming number two was even worse. 

After the last prince ran off without any notice, breaking her heart and their engagement along the way, Nemesis Mussolini swore off men and passed the time kicking ass and slinging drinks, something her mafia father would never approve of. But, when her boss Clancy ups his flirtations, it's difficult to remember she's not interested, especially when he gets that delicious evil glint in his eye that has her melting. Just when Nemy starts to think all men might not be bad, she hears whispers about Clancy's less than legal past, and wants to run like hell from the idea that he could be just like her father.

Great . . . Prince Charming number three may possibly be on FBI's Most Wanted.

While Nemy and Clancy tumble down the romance road, hitting potholes every step of the way, Nemy discovers how much of her heart already belongs to Clancy, and how much of a Don's daughter she really is. But she must learn to trust again. Can Nemy surrender in time to get her happily ever after, or is she hell-bent on letting her past keep her from the one man who could be her true Prince Charming?

 

NL “Jinxie” Gervasio is a creator and destroyer of worlds. She is both editor and author, and discovered she’s quite good at the romance thing—writing it, that is—along with vampires, werewolves, zombies, angels and demons. Jinxie is the CEO and Founder of Just Ink Press, her second publishing company, and she also owns and operates Forever Nocturne e-zine, a bi-annual literary magazine. Jinxie reviews books in her spare time, of which she rarely has any.

Jinxie was born on Friday the 13th. Her dad wanted to call her Jinx. Her mom said no. It took 34 years for her to discover the nickname, and she's grown quite attached to it. She lives in Tempe, Arizona with Umi (her mother), whom she cares for. She enjoys riding her beach cruiser "The Betty" around downtown Tempe, loves a good pub crawl, and has had the pleasure and the heartache of experiencing a love far greater than she could have ever imagined.

She welcomes you to her worlds.

Jinxie is the author of the Kick-Ass Girls Club series book NEMESIS and the Prophecy series books THE DRACOVE and GODS & VAMPYRES.

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