Jeanette - Cover Cafe HST/Historical Chair

As long as I can remember, I have loved beautiful paintings and pictures. As a child I collected them from magazines and put them in a scrapbook or covered the walls of my bedroom with them.

My favorites were (and still are) the Pre-Raphaelite and associated artists like Waterhouse, Godward, Leighton, Alma-Tadema and so on. Later in life, the internet made it possible to collect all these great paintings and pictures on my computers. I have a huge collection. I discovered romance novels ten years ago. I worked in a small library with a very small collection of books written in English and one day I read River’s End by Nora Roberts.

Until then, I was a snobbish literature reader. That ended with that first romance novel. The second novel was Deep Waters by JAK. From that moment on, I started buying and collecting romance novels and I have been crazy about them ever since. But the big moment was when I purchased a book that had a stepback! A great stepback. I had never seen that before. Books in The Netherlands don’t have stepbacks. It took every ounce of willpower to keep myself from ripping out the stepback. Instead, I bought a scanner that day.

I love the very romantic (and perhaps a bit old fashioned?) covers and stepbacks. I recognize a Jon Paul or Pino cover instantly. I also love covers by Chris Cocozza, Alan Ayers, Albert Slark, John Ennis, Frank Accornero, Elaine Gignilliat etc. Last year, Jon Paul published a book with his artwork,The Art of Romance and that is the book I would rescue first in case of a disaster. On the cover, we see Jon Paul as the Hero and what a picture that makes! The cover photo from the book is published here with Jon Paul's permission.

I think it’s a shame that we see more and more covers with photographs instead of artwork. I realize that cover illustration is expensive but I’m not the only one in the world who buys a book just for the cover or stepback.

I love being a member of the Cover Cafe and the Chair for the Historical category. When it comes to reading, I favor contemporaries. However, I also love Historicals and sometimes just for the cover or stepback. I also have a huge collection of romantic covers stored on my computer and I love every one of them.