Lucifer's Lover
Lindsay is determined to outshine her mother's illustrious career. As head of marketing for the exclusive Freeman Hotel, in the rarefied mountains of northern Washington, Lindsay grapples with her rival—the charming newcomer, Lucifer Furey Pierse.
No one knows much about Luke except that he could turn murder into a comedy routine, that he likes classy women and is oddly drawn to the prickly, definitely not-interested Lindsay.
It starts with a bet that goes horribly wrong.
If Lyndsay wins, then Luke leaves town—forever.
If Luke wins, he gets a date with Lyndsay.
But when Luke wins and Lindsay is forced to pay the price, she learns more about Lucifer than she thought existed, and the date kick-starts a bitter-sweet journey as they learn why they are the people they have become.
Life hands them an unexpected twist they must deal with...one that tests both of them to limits.
Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Cameo Role
The Royal Talisman
Writing as Teal Ceagh
Writing as Anastasia Black
Lucifer’s Lover
by
Tracy Cooper-Posey
A Stories Rule Publication
STORIES RULE PUBLICATIONS
A sole proprietorship owned and operated
by Tracy Cooper-Posey
This is an original publication of Tracy Cooper-Posey
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2012 by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Text design by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Cover design by Dar Albert
Wicked Smart Designs
http://wickedsmartdesigns.com
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
SECOND EDITION: January 2012
Cooper-Posey, Tracy
Lucifer’s Lover /Tracy Cooper-Posey—2
nd
Ed.
Romance—Fiction
Home Is Where The Heart Is
Lucifer’s Lover
took a long time to grow up and find a home—much like the character Luke in the book...as you’re about to discover for yourself.
With the exception of three of my titles, I have always published electronically.
Lucifer’s Lover
was one of my earlier releases, in 2005, with a company that published both electronically and in hardcover, an odd combination.
But it does mean I can truthfully say I’ve been published in hardcover—a rare resume entry for popular fiction authors.
The publisher, however, wasn’t a romance specialty publisher, and the electronic rights were subsidiary for them.
I wasn’t happy with my sales despite my best marketing efforts, and we mutually decided to withdraw the book from sale.
I heard rumours that Ellora’s Cave were going to start up a new non-erotic brand and eventually, Cerridwen Press came into being.
As I was already heavily publishing with them on the erotic romance side, under my name and the Teal Ceagh pen name, it seemed natural to start re-releasing my non-erotic titles, too.
Ellora’s Cave objected to the name,
Lucifer’s Lover
, because it was too close to several of their erotic romance titles already in print, so
Lucifer’s Lover
was retitled
Betting With Lucifer
and published in December, 2009.
Unfortunately, sales still didn’t soar, even though I garnered glowing reviews all over the place once again.
After a couple of years languishing in ebook only, the title was pulled and rights returned to me.
My quest to find a final, permanent home for
Lucifer’s Lover
ended with J.A. Konrath and the evolution of indie publishing, and here you, the reader, and I, the author, meet, with no middleman —no publisher between us.
Cool, huh?
This ends up being where
Lucifer’s Lover
will take up residence for the rest of its natural life:
My special Author’s Edition.
Covers Can Make You Crazy
Book covers are an interesting part of the publishing business, especially for authors. Readers love them. They sell books by helping the reader pick it up and look through it. One of the most interesting covers out I remember was Laurell K. Hamilton book, with the torso wrapped in a leather corset. That’s all you see, but it’s so highly suggestive of the contents that it makes you want to read the book just on the cover alone.
So it would be fair to say that covers can be important, right?
It might surprise you to know that with traditional publishers, authors have no say in their covers. Good, bad, or downright awful, the author must simply clamp her jaw together. If she’s smart, she’ll smile widely and exclaim, “How lovely!”
Sometimes you just can’t manage that, though. One of the most famous really bad covers in recent history is the one with the heroine with three arms — Christina Dodd’s book,
Castles in the Air
. Christina didn’t stay silent about that one.
She turned what has to be a true cover disaster into a marketing bonanza.
I’d love to know how many copies of that book she sold based on the cover alone.
The book has been re-released now, under a new name...and a different cover.
All About Romance
reviews covers, too, and have a Worse Cover award every year. Scrolling through these is like watching an accident happen. You can’t look away despite your horror and despair.
Contractually, authors have no input into their covers. All decisions are left with the marketing department in consultation with the editor. You do get to fill in a cover questionnaire, and depending on how thorough the questionnaire is, how detailed you make your answers, and if the art department reads it, you stand a good chance of the cover coming out looking like it has something to do with the story inside.
I’m exaggerating a bit to make my point. Although it sounds like an odd process, the building of covers for novels works very well most of the time. Marketing departments do actually know what they’re doing.
Sometimes an author can very tactfully point out a mistake, after the cover is done (”he’s supposed to have blond hair, not black”.) This happened with one of my covers;
The Case of the Reluctant Agent
. If the reader had read the first book of the pair,
Chronicles of the Lost Years
, the cover on
Case of the Reluctant Agent
gave away whodunit. That’s not something you want in a mystery, so I did try politely to point this out. The marketing department told me that they had decided to leave the cover as is. So
Agent
went out into the world with its secret revealed on the cover, and I held my breath and hoped that readers wouldn’t notice. So far I haven’t had any grumpy fan mail about it.
However, occasionally, if they have a very good relationship with their editor and the publisher in general, an author can have more than minimal approval of the cover. The cover for the original edition of
Lucifer’s Lover
came about this way.