Peek behind the cover of A Room in Blake’s Folly by J Arlene Culiner @JArleneCuliner #RLFblog #Western Historical to #Contemporary Romance

Back in 1889, when Blake’s Folly boasted three silver mines, many saloons and brothels, the adventurer, Westley Cranston, fell in love with Sookie Lacey a former prostitute. Their powerful romance was doomed but never forgotten, and the repercussions could be felt 130 years later. The six stories in A Room in Blake’s Folly tell the tale.

J Arlene Culiner, I’m happy to host you on Romance Lives Forever. I’m Kayelle Allen, author and owner of this blog. Tell us about your book.

A Room in Blake’s Folly by J Arlene Culiner

Genre Historical to Contemporary Western Romance
Book heat level (based on movie ratings): sensual

In one hundred and fifty years, Blake’s Folly, a silver boomtown notorious for its brothels, scarlet ladies, silver barons, speakeasies, and divorce ranches, has become a semi-ghost town. Although the old Mizpah Saloon is still in business, its upper floor is sheathed in dust. But in a room at a long corridor’s end, an adventurer, a beautiful dance girl, and a rejected wife were once caught in a love triangle, and their secret has touched three generations.

Tell Us About Your Cover

What was your reaction when you first saw this cover?

I loved it!

How did you choose the artist?

Jennifer Greeff was the cover artist for one of my previous books, The Turkish Affair, and I think her design is wonderful. There’s the suggestion of hot sun and a bleached-out landscape—and those were perfect for a mystery set on an archaeological site in Turkey. For A Room in Blake’s Folly, a Western that begins in 1889, and ends in 2022, I wanted to see if she could evoke the past, desolation, and deep secrets.

What was it like to work with this artist?

A pleasure! So much so, that she has also done the covers for the two other books in this Blake’s Folly Romance trilogy that will be released this spring: All About Charming Alice and Desert Rose.

What do you like best about your cover?

The colors, the sense of loss, of a forgotten past mixed with the hint of green hope just outside the window. A Room in Blake’s Folly begins with a love story that goes wrong, but it still has the power to influence people one hundred and thirty years later.

A good cover conveys the genre at a glance. What are the genre clues on this cover?

There is an abandoned room, a window with torn curtains, and these both suggest a forgotten history and deep secrets. Such things belong to the past, to a historical novel, but we are seeing it now, after all the years have passed, thus it sets the story very much in the present.

What emotions do you hope your cover communicates?

Loss, secrets, and the desire to know more.

If your publisher chose your cover, how much say did you have in choosing your cover?

My publisher, The Wild Rose Press, presented me with another cover. It was a very nice cover, however, it really was too contemporary for this story (there was modern architecture in one corner and the suggestion of industry.) When I pointed out that most of the story takes place long before such things existed, my publisher immediately changed the cover, and I ended up with this one, which I love.

Does your publisher use a form to gather information regarding your preferences?

Yes, absolutely! How else could they get it so right?

Where to buy A Room in Blake’s Folly

Universal Buy Link https://books2read.com/BlakesFollyRomance

Where to buy A Room in Blake’s Folly

Publisher The Wild Rose Press
Universal Buy Link https://books2read.com/BlakesFollyRomance

J Arlene Culiner Social Media

Writer, photographer, social critical artist, musician, and occasional actress, J Arlene Culiner, was born in New York and raised in Toronto. She has crossed much of Europe on foot, has lived in a Hungarian mud house, a Bavarian castle, a Turkish cave-dwelling, on a Dutch canal, and in a haunted house on the English moors. She now resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village of no interest and, much to local dismay, protects all creatures, especially spiders and snakes. She particularly enjoys incorporating into short stories, mysteries, narrative non-fiction, and romances, her experiences in out-of-the-way communities, and her conversations with strange characters.
Website https://www.j-arleneculiner.com
Blog https://j-arleneculiner.over-blog.com
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7158064.J_Arlene_Culiner
Twitter https://twitter.com/JArleneCuliner
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blakesfolly/
Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/jarlene.culiner
Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/jarleneculiner
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jarleneculiner/
BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/authors/j-arlene-culiner