The author says:
Jean has been called Blue Jean since childhood, but not because of her clothing. She wears nondescript colors and avoids people when she can. Her world is unhappy but predictable, until the new pastor and his handsome brother move into town. A chance encounter brings the town prostitute to church that Sunday, starting a chain reaction that will shake the church to its core. Will Jean embrace the truth that will set her free, or will fear keep her captive forever?
Christian romantic suspense on fighting human trafficking in small-town North Carolina.
Nathan says:
I’m not getting a good feel for this novel from the description you sent — there isn’t much in the description that points to Christian romance, and human trafficking is a big enough deal that one would expect to find it in the description instead of as an afterthought.
In any event, in my experience “Christian romance” (even the suspenseful kind) both portrays in the novel and tries to project on the cover a kind of wholesome quality that I don’t see in either your description or your book cover.
As far as simple design comments go, the elements in the top half of the cover seem ill-positioned. The Publishers Weekly pullquote could stand to be smaller, giving room for the title and subtitle to expand upward and from side to side.
For that matter, the photograph could stand to be larger — the fold at her back could taper off-cover just like the fabric at her feet does, and I don’t think anyone would feel cheated if the byline appeared on that area of her dress under her forearm and waist.
Other comments?
The main issue here is that disconnect. The description says sweet small-town Christian romance, the cover says hard-hitting novel about human trafficking.
If the book is kinda both, that’s a challenge. But generally I think anything in the romance umbrella should signal that it’s a romance, eg, usually two attractive people on the cover. For romantic suspense, two attractive people staring with determination.
So I’d shelve this design and save it for us you ever write a trafficking book that’s more in the literary market segment. It is a nice cover, but I don’t think it serves this book.
Yeah, just because it has Christianity and romance does not make it Christian Romance. Generally when people are marketing as Christian Romance it is sort of ‘fluff’ literature, idealized and honestly unimportant stories to fill a few hours. They are like my own cheap fantasy novels, liking them is fine but they are dreck by their very nature. If your book has human trafficking then the Christian Romance angle may prove to be false flagging of a sort, and you could do yourself a dis-service on sales. The label could lose you the readers interested in a serious treatment of the topic, and the topic could lose you the Christian Romance readers.
On design notes: generally not bad for a book about human trafficking. Much of what Nathan said is worth considering. I think the font on the title is adequate, but it is a touch hard to read, particularly in thumbnail. You might want to toy with some similar styles to see if something manages to pop more. This is exacerbated by the red color of the text on a black background, but for the ambiance that is a great color combo so it may be unavoidable.
Book description aside (others have already remarked on the disconnect), the artwork is decent enough, and could be more than decent with only a little more work, but the choice of typeface for the title is misbegotten.
I agree with Ron about the title typeface. A better choice will immediately elevate the whole cover.
The cover definitely seems to look more like some kind of crime drama than any kind of romance. If that’s what the book is, a crime drama about human trafficking overlaid with a little Christian romance, then this cover should do fine; otherwise, not so much. Of course, if that’s what the book is, you should have said as much in your description.
If it’s more about the romance, with the story’s central relationship just happening to form against the dramatic background of a human trafficking incident stirring up trouble in the town, then it should look more like a romance no matter how dramatic that background is; the manga and anime Saishū Heiki Kanojo (a.k.a. Saikano: The Last Love Song on This Little Planet) was set against nothing less dramatic than World War III, and yet the posters and covers were all focused on the girl (a lot of them showing her in her weaponized form, to be sure, but the focus is on her in any case). If the female protagonist is in fact being trafficked as a sex slave (as your description seems to imply), it’s all right to show her in “the rags of slavery” (as I’ve heard them called) on your cover, but keep the emphasis on her pretty face. Having her love interest’s (possibly) handsome mug in the frame couldn’t hurt either.
Concerning the title, the word “shredded” can certainly mean what you intend it to mean here, but it’s worth remembering it’s also popular slang these days for having muscles like a body builder, (as in “Hey, SNL was right: Kylo Ren really is shredded under his shirt!”) as one can see simply by looking up books with that title on Amazon. Of course, that title could never have been particularly original anyway; neither could Torn or Ripped (which has the same problems being associated with contemporary slang as Shredded) or Broken or Shattered. Still, if you want to avoid unintentional associations like that and sound a bit more original, I’d recommend a “one-off” title that makes people think of those other words in a more appropriate context, maybe something like Asunder. (That’s still not very original, but it avoids those unintentional associations.)