Welcome to the Blog Tour & Giveaway for The Number of Love by Roseanna M. White with JustRead Publicity Tours! Follow along with the tour for a special inside peek at how The Number of Love is connected to the author’s previous book from another series, A Song Unheard.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Title: The Number of Love
Series: Codebreakers #1
Author: Roseanna M. White
Publisher: Bethany House
Release Date: June 4, 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction/Romance/Intrigue
Three years into the Great War, England’s greatest asset is their intelligence network—field agents risking their lives to gather information, and codebreakers able to crack every German telegram. Margot De Wilde thrives in the environment of the secretive Room 40, where she spends her days deciphering intercepted messages. But when her world is turned upside down by an unexpected loss, for the first time in her life numbers aren’t enough.
Drake Elton returns wounded from the field, followed by an enemy that just won’t give up. He’s smitten quickly by the too-intelligent Margot, but how to convince a girl who lives entirely in her mind that sometimes life’s answers lie in the heart?
Amidst biological warfare, encrypted letters, and a German spy who wants to destroy not just them, but others they love, Margot and Drake will have to work together to save them all from the very secrets that brought them together.
PURCHASE LINKS*: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Book Depository | ChristianBook
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award nominated author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself.
Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
CONNECT WITH ROSEANNA: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
GUEST POST
Why Book Covers are So Important
Most of the time, the first impression we have a book is its cover. I can’t begin to count how many time it’s a book’s cover (and maybe the title) that first grab my attention. That makes me go “Ooooooooo!” and click or reach out to learn more. Covers tell us so much—what genre a book is, its setting, generally even its tone.
As a cover designer and an author, I’ve put A LOT of thought and study into book cover design. What fonts to use for what styles of books, whether a cover should have people on it or not, what colors work best…there are a lot of aspects that go into a spot-on design. And when I got the first glimpse of The Number of Love, lemme just tell you how thrilled I was. Because they’d not only nailed it, they’d delivered exactly what I wanted and what will attract readers of my genre.
For starters, this book’s cover needs to scream “Historical Romance!!!” Which it does. Not only because it has the word love right there in the title, LOL, but because it has the heroine on the cover—something very typical for my genre. I absolutely adore the expression on her face. Wistful, a bit mysterious. Margot (said heroine) looks exactly like she’s supposed to, too—her hair is waved, which is something crucial to the plot. (She is not one to spend time on things like hairstyles…until she puts herself in a situation where she has to in order to avoid attention.) More, those waves point to the era of the story—working well with the sweater. In the story, Margot’s mother knits her a sweater that she wears in many of the most important scenes of the book. Hilariously, I’d originally written it to be blue—her favorite color. But the design team found this sweater for the model to wear that fit the description otherwise, and the red provided a fabulous pop of color, so rather than change that, I went back during edits and made the sweater red. It’s a color Margot wouldn’t normally have chosen (too attention-grabbing!)…so I decided that was exactly why her mother chose it for her. (Very like her mother.)
Margot spends most of her time in the Admiralty’s Old Building in Whitehall, and a key scene has Margot standing at a foggy window and tracing “18” onto the glass. This is what I asked for on the cover—and it’s exactly what they gave me, which made me SO HAPPY! Because the number 18 is a huge, enormous, gigantic, crucial plot point. It is, in fact, the number of love. So I was super duper excited that it made it onto the cover! And while it’s something that might not grab a reader’s eye right away, once they’ve read the book, they’re going to flip back to that cover and go, “Oh my goodness! Eighteen is on there!!” Which is also something a great book cover is going to do.
This cover delivers a rich and yet muted backdrop, so that the attention is right where it needs to be: on Margot, and then drawing the eye to the title. This is something a good design will do, because ultimately, you want people to notice and remember what book it’s for, right? They chose an art deco font that is both elegant and bit retro, again hinting at the era. And we also have some deco design elements framing the cover on top and bottom. Which means that when readers glance at this, there’s no question of the general setting; there’s no question it’s romance; and the somber colors even hint at the suspense in the story!
I couldn’t possibly be happier with the way this cover turned out, and I hope everyone else is just as inspired by it as I am! I don’t often get to design my own covers (and I didn’t do this one), but they achieved exactly what I always try to do in my designs: convey in one glance the force of a book.
Did you go back and look at the cover again after reading what Roseanna had to say about the cover? I certainly did!
TOUR GIVEAWAY
Grand Prize: Shadows Over England series, The Number of Love, and the Decrypto board game, plus “Mi Alma” necklace (Necklace is 24″ chain with a 1″ pendant that says “Mi Alma” Spanish for “My Soul”. A term of endearment used throughout the book. Handmade by Bookworm Mama)
(3) additional winners of The Number of Love.
Enter via the Rafflecopter giveaway below. Giveaway will begin at midnight June 3, 2019 and last through 11:59 pm June 17, 2019. US only. Winners will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.
Giveaway is subject to the policies found here.
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That process for the cover design is so fascinating! I’m so numbers challenged, though, that I didn’t even notice what it was she was writing! And I never would have guessed the importance of the #18. I was more interested in the reflection, how it almost looks like a different expression. And I didn’t recognize that her outfit was a sweater. But that was still interesting how all the details were so important. I also create my own cover designs, but I’m more interested in the overall impression than getting the details right. I don’t think I would ever worry about changing my story to go with a cover, though I have never been in that situation yet. We never know what we’ll do until we go through it, right? 😉
Thank you so much for sharing! It is fascinating all the thought & work that goes into a cover design. Plus, I like this style SO much better than Fabio on the cover…
Yes! I’ve admired the cover for its beauty but now understand it in a whole new way after reading the book…..brings a certain scene from the book into view very clearly 🙂
I sure did go back and look at the cover after reading Roseanna’s post=)
I loved it even more after reading what she had to say about it (and after reading the book!)
I missed everything on the cover but the color and the look on the models face. I looked back and found the #18. I had no idea that was the number of love though I’m sure it makes sense after reading the book. I’m such a history lover that historical fiction is one of my favorite ways to learn about history during eras I know little of. WW1 is a time period I lack in so it’s nice to see that Era with this book.
Roseanna always includes some fascinating details of history in her books.
I am really good forward to reading this book. Have heard so many good reviews about it!