I was so so happy that almost everyone seemed to love the cover of Ultraviolet Catastrophe after the reveal a few weeks ago. The response was amazing. But honestly, all of the credit goes to the amazing Nathalia Suellen (@lady_symphonia). She’s an absolute magician, and one of the most patient people I know! I thought you guys might be interested a bit in the process we went through to get to my final cover.

I’ll be honest with you. Going into this, I had NO IDEA what I wanted for a cover. I know a lot of people have a strong image or concept of what kind of cover they want. But me? Not so much. I had about 60 ideas, from something that was super sci-fi focused, to something that was super beautiful and romantic, and everything in between.

But from day one, Nathalia was amazing. She started out with a few rough sketch ideas to see what resonated with me. I liked them all, but I found myself drawn to a hybrid of sci-fi and romance. But something that was active, not just a girl standing around. She found a lovely image that I thought was going to work and we got really close to being done. Or so I thought.

Until I found the same girl on another cover. Or three. I know images get reused all the time, but this one was really recognizable. The books weren’t best sellers, but I didn’t want to have someone who was so obviously being used elsewhere. I was sad.

Graciously, Nathalia agreed to start over. And this time she’d create a custom character for me. When she showed me the girl she wanted to use, I wasn’t sure. I had a hard time picturing what she’d do to make this girl work. But I trusted her so I said go ahead.

This was Lexie before:

And I was absolutely blown away with the results.

It was really amazing to work with someone as talented at Nathalia, who could take a rough concept and turn it into art. The whole process took about 6 weeks, but would have been MUCH shorter if I’d been more prepared. That being said, I am SO happy with how everything turned out. And now I want to write another book, just so I can have her design another beautiful cover!

What do you guys think? Do you have a favorite cover this year?