Contraband Hearts cover art

I’m really happy to show this one off. I feel that I have reached peak Romance with this cover!

This is the cover of Contraband Hearts, my second book set in the shared world of the small town of Porthkennack in Cornwall. (Pronounced ‘porth-ken-nack’, in case you were wondering.)

It’s also a return to the Age of Sail for me. Cover art wise, I’ve got quite used to the difficulty there is with finding pictures of good looking young men in 18th Century costume–especially young black men–and my expectations were not high, but that just meant that I was to be comprehensively proved wrong.

Because I know the difficulty of finding period-appropriate photos, I would have been happy with anything. I would have been delighted with a guy wearing one of those poet-shirts which do for anything from steampunk to vampire to historical. But in fact what I got was Perry in an outfit I had actually described in the book, crimson suit, ruined-wig-replaced-with-a-neckerchief and all.

I should let it speak for itself, shouldn’t I? Here it is:

It’s just perfect 🙂 Doesn’t that say Poldark crossed with Treasure Island to you? (Not that I’ve ever watched Poldark, mind, but it’s what comes to my mind when I think of Cornish romance.)