Blurb: Sweet, innocent and girlish, Molly Ringhart knows nothing of suffering. Orphaned from a baby and taken in by the man of her dreams, her life is a blur of fairytale happiness, never interrupted by anything remotely close to hurt.
However, what Molly doesn't realise is that there's more to life than fairytales. There's more to life than the bubble of bliss she lives in.
Deep in the depths of Benjamin Candice's heart, a misery lurks, so dark and dreadful that he refuses to let it be known to anyone. He has loved Molly for all of his life and, as the best friend of her husband, he knows that making his affection public would ruin their friendship forever. As he struggles against his own emotions, Benjamin falls even further into the pit that is his life, falling further into the black chasm until he no longer knows the meaning of hope.
He has two options: tell Molly of his secret admiration and hurt his friends, or keep his feelings locked away and watch himself crumble.
Covers: Okay, so I created a few different versions. Let me know which one you want, and I will place the link to it in the comments for you! I wanted to go for a very 'old-school' vibe. I ended up with three concepts. None of them involved a person, but mainly because you said you didn't want a person unless their face was hidden, and I could not find a *great* image that worked for the cover I was imagining.
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The first one here is a 'standard' Historical Romance cover in my opinion. (Or, standard without a pretty woman in a large dress, as that's the real standard.) It's got darkened wood as the main background, with a series of flowers and leaves placed at the bottom of the cover, all spread out, and a thickened rope at the top of the cover. I thought it fit well for a historical theme as it doesn't really have a 'time' on it, and that the flowers suggested romance, while it also incorporated both bluebells and rope in the cover which fits with the title.
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This one is surprisingly less manipulated than the one before it, but I feel like it looks more like a standard manipulated cover. I used a historical wallpaper as the main background, and I found a nice image of a candelabra that kinda screamed 'historical' to me. The only issue I have with this is that I am noticing, just now, that the candle has some brown spots on it around where it was cut out. I think that's an extra layer that I forgot to remove, and I can easily remove that if you want this cover!
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Finally, the last cover used the same base images as the one before it, but I also added some texture to the background that was very 'swirly'. It just looks nice to me. I have no other basis for it.
CHOSEN COVER:
We went with cover #1 and added an 's' to the end of Rope!
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Let me know if you want any of these! Thank you for requesting!
(Also, if you do want me to try again with a person on the cover, just let me know. It's harder for me to make a cover when I'm not certain exactly what you want, and you were very loose with concepts which (while nice, as it gives me a lot of room to play in!) is a bit hard when I don't have a lot of inspiration.)
