First of all, I'm terribly sorry. When I emailed the new cover concept, I completely forgot to shrink it to a more manageable size. As a result, you all got a 4MB dumbbell in your mailbox. Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience I may have caused. I'll try to be more careful next time.
Then I'd like to thank you for your feedback. To answer a few common questions: yes, she is noticeably taller than him. If anything, that's one of the reasons he feels so insecure about himself. (Not everyone grows up to be 6 feet tall. Some are stuck with measly 5'4 or even less. And look at practically every girl they date like Frodo at Galadriel.)
Moreover, at one point, her mother does mention that his height makes him look like her younger brother. Joe suggested making him at least the same height to make it clear they are a couple, not brother and sister or, worse yet, mother and son. And, I must commend the designer for sending me 4 different versions. But as much as I hate to disappoint him again, I guess I'll stick with the older version, the one I sent on Thursday.
We'll get rid of the car and the horse and carriage. Replace the Blacksmith's Shop (that is too hard to recognize, especially from a distance) with a church (to make it more obvious that they're going to get married). We'll add a typical Scottish village skyline. Keep the grass green (instead of all the dandelions). And we'll keep the couple true to the manuscript - Vadim is shorter than Louise. Noticeably shorter.
Finally, when it comes to the subtitle - I thought about that. The SPS title generator also provided me with a few subtitle suggestions, such as "a story of love and defiance in 1994 Jerusalem". But here's the catch: once it’s there, I’m stuck with it. If I want to change it later or to get rid of it altogether, then I'll effectively have to relaunch it as a new book. I'm not sure if I want to take that risk. If anything, while I'm waiting for the cover, I might as well think of a way to add something similar to the sales blurb to let the reader know the story takes place in Jerusalem in 1994-95, and that Gretna Green is their dream destination.
Again, thanks to everyone for your feedback. I truly appreciate it. Have a great weekend and a happy Halloween.
Cheers,
Leonard.
