Bea Evans Books

Category: Cover art

  • March 2025 Reads

    March brought me to the end (maybe?) of the Gillian St. Kevern series “How to Raise Your Werewolf” and “Read by Candlelight.” I say maybe because I’m unsure of reading order and might have missed something inadvertently.

    I’ve also found a couple of new series. I like to have a few different going so I don’t read too much of any one author in a row. Sometimes I can’t resist, but I like coming back after reading something else. A.M. Rose’s “Cursebreakers, Inc” looks to be an interesting series. I really enjoyed the first and the preview of the second looks promising.

    I’ve also enjoyed the first couple of books of Jax Stuart’s “Sweetwater Pack” series. Not a huge mpreg fan (or anyone preg, really) but I’m a sucker for those fated mates, I guess.

    I like to throw in a little “real world” romance, too, to cleanse the palate between supes and magic and bears, oh my!

  • February 2025 Reads

    Uh-oh. Someone found a new series to read!

    As you can see, I continued with the Gillian St. Keven series. I also started on TJ Nichols’ “Familiar Mates” series. Those, along with a reread of KJ Charles’ “A Charm of Magpies” series, pretty much took over my month. Though I’m realizing I forgot my book club book, so that means I had 28 books in February!

  • JANUARY 2025 READS

    I am a little bit behind, so I’ll post a couple of pictures from earlier this year before March is done. When I wonder why I don’t get a lot done in my life, I look at lists like this and go, “Oh, yeah. Reading.”

    Have you read any of these? I was trying to pick a favorite from the month of January and I’m not sure I can. KJ Charles is a perennial favorite. A definite buy for me. Allie Therin has a couple of series I really enjoy and have read a couple of times. The latest in the “Sugar & Vice” series ends with a cliffhanger and ahhh! I know patience is a virtue, but this is why I like coming to a series late.

    I’ve been making my way through Gillian St. Kevern’s “How to Raise Your Werewolf” and “Read by Candlelight” series (so you’ll definitely see more in February’s collection). The two series are really interconnected and I have no idea what the reading order is. But if you like gothic romance, give them a try. They’re not long books, which I appreciate so I can still get some sleep at night.

  • Picture worth 1,000 words

    I’m not a professional designer, but I see book covers all day for my job. I know what I don’t want. But I don’t necessarily know how to make something look how I want for my cover.

    Coming up with a concept was my first step. Which wasn’t easy. The first book I want to tackle is currently titled No One That Matters. It’s a hockey-ish romance that follows a couple (one is a hockey player, the other works in an imagining lab), their friend (who is an interior designer), and the hockey player’s defensive partner. So I was thinking hockey gear, painting supplies maybe… something to show who the characters are. I played around with some graphics, tried to use some of the team colors, maybe a little ice in the background to help place it in the hockey universe.



    And, well, that’s something, alright. I mean, is it professional? No. Would it work? I guess. Does it give you some idea of what you’re getting? I think so. But I wasn’t really happy with it. I played around with it a bit. I changed the font on the title and shrunk the paint can a bit to give it a little forced perspective. Is this any better?

    Cover with a scratched ice background, the word “No one that matters” I white on a blue swoosh. Under that a paint bucket with a paintbrush with blue paint on it is next to a the blade of a hockey stick and a puck. On the bottom, the author’s name, Bea Evans, is in white on a smaller blue swoosh.

    Another problem I have with this is that while, yes, there is a relationship that develops between the interior designer and the hockey player, it doesn’t include the existing couple’s relationship. I can’t just keep throwing graphics in here to represent everyone. It would be confusing and cluttered.

    I have no plan to make this a series so I don’t have to worry about that, at least. I didn’t like using graphics that I was unsure of the provenance. It feels a little cartoonish. I finished messing with this and thought, “Well, maybe I could give this to someone as an example of what I want.” But, do I want to pay someone to make me a cover? I don’t have a lot of money to spend. Quite frankly, I’d rather spend it on an editor. But… we judge books by their covers. Will anyone pick up this book?

    One thing I have learned is to leave things alone for a while before I judge it. So, it’s here, but I was thinking about some other things. Such as, who am I? I hate to use the word “brand” but it’s something to consider. I really prefer something clean. I liked keeping the colors. I looked up the team’s color codes. Helps that one color is white. But this way I got the blue right. And as I was thinking about what else I might want on a cover, I remembered a section of the story. My interior designer sits down to make some thank you cards.

    She used the same dark blue for Zach and Derrick’s cards, adding stripes of blue to the white card stock. For Derrick’s she cut out a foam finger from a partial sheet of yellow foam. She added “#1 Fan” on it with a marker and glued it on.

    Hmm. And then, I got into my car and there was, leftover from a hockey game earlier this year, a yellow foam finger. I don’t know if I believe in signs. But I do believe in paying attention. Our minds put things together. So, I snapped a quick picture.

    I used some software to pull it out from the background, did a little editing to remove a logo and then slapped that sucker into Canva because the photo editor had a very limited font selection. I pulled up pictures of the team’s jersey. I liked the font on there, looked it up and was able to find a similar font on Canva. So, now I have something right out of the book and it’s a little less complicated. Do I like it? My immediate response is yes, but a couple more days of looking at it will help me decide. What do you think?

    Cover for a book titled “No One That Matters”. Three dark blue stripes run across the white background at a slight upward angle. In the top stripe, the title is in white. In the bottom stripe is the author’s name, Bea Evans. In the middle is a large yellow foam finger that said “ #1 Fan.”