Mistress of the Moor

This piece started out as one my usual faux-paperback book covers, which, graphically, always harken back to the 50s and 60s era of crime and/or sex books.

But as I toyed around with the portrait, I realized it worked best in black and white, and it had a more gothic romance feel, so I decided to just go with that and do a full-out gothic romance book cover.

My usual M.O. is to use the title, author, and tagline of an actual vintage paperback, but none of the books of paperbacks on my shelf were romances. So I turned to my friend Amy Bias' excellent blog, Women Running From Houses, which features all sorts of classic gothic romance covers.

I settled on Mistress of the Moor, whose title and tagline seemed to match what I had put together--the sad-looking girl amidst a dark, foreboding forest. I tried not to go crazy on the design, since it wouldn't really match the style. So once I found the appropriate font, I had finished my first faux-gothic romance!