An Earl In Time

The Cover

This cover was made by Locus Solus Cover Designs (https://www.locussoluscoverdesigns.com/). I found it through The Book Cover Designer where you can find pre-made covers. As soon as I saw the cover, I fell in love with it. I wanted to buy it right away, but I had no story to go with it.

I spent two weeks brainstorming different story ideas to go with it. Just by the layout of the cover, the story wasn’t a typical historical romance. It had a supernatural element to it. That’s how I decided it would involve time travel, and I was going to use the mirror in the cover to get one of the characters to pass from a contemporary setting to a historical one. Since the heroine’s outfit was more modern looking, I picked her for the contemporary character. I chose the hero for the past. I decided she was going to be trapped onto an English estate that she recently inherited.

Since the woman on the cover can see her reflection and the man, I decided the heroine of this story would be able to see into the man’s time. He, however, doesn’t see his reflection in the mirror. He only sees her. So I figured the hero would only be able to see the heroine.

I did get a question from a friend about the fact that the man isn’t wearing a cravat. I decided that the hero wasn’t going to be formally dressing up after spending two centuries living out the same day. In my mind, the clothes reflected the emotional states of the two main characters. The hero felt empty and in despair. The heroine longed for a romantic relationship but wasn’t aware of it until she meets the hero.

I’d say about half of this story was written to go with the cover. I don’t typically write books that way, but it fit for this situation.

The Use of Colors

Early on, I decided colors were going to have a special meaning. Willow’s color was red, and Julian’s color was gold. This was based on the cover. After they married, their lives started to become entwined, hence the thread linking them together. At the end of the story, I had Willow wearing an orange gown and Julian wearing an orange cravat to symbolize the fact that they were fully connected in true love.

The villain’s colors were purple and pink. I chose those colors because I was working on an art assignment for my kid’s homeschool project. I really liked the way the purple and pink colors in this assignment looked together. Based on the two colors, I decided the villain would have a duel identity. In the contemporary time, one color was dominant, and in the historical time, the other color was dominant.

The fairies, of course, have their colors, too, and at the end when the blue wave passed over the lawyer, it was really there to reveal that the blue fairy was still the real owner of the land. Julian and Willow made good on their promise to let him keep the land for all generations. Also, the blue fairy was the reason Willow lost a great deal of her memories of the future and why the lawyer’s memories were changed to line up with the new timeline.

Willow’s wedding gown was blue. This was a gown the blue fairy had created just for her. In case anyone is wondering, Julian’s mother never wore it.

The Names

Going into the story, my aim was to create a gothic feel to the romance. I didn’t want a child’s fairy tale. I wanted one meant for an adult. Naming the main characters was extremely important to me. I spent days getting the right names down.

Willow was one of the top names I found in my search for gothic names. Hers was easy.

Julian Azazel, however, took a total of two weeks to figure out. Julian was pretty easy. The name means “youthful”, and I figured since he never aged for two centuries, it fit. The last name, however, was difficult. I went through a couple (one was Blackwell). When I realized Julian was cursed because his father stopped his uncle from marrying Rose, I ended up going with Azazel because that name means “scapegoat”. Julian took the place of the baby she had intended to give the evil fairy.

Blackwell and Nightingale were names that popped up in my search for gothic names. Nightingale sounded more like an estate name, so I went with Nightingale Hall. That left Blackwell for the title.

Regarding the villain, I decided to go with the names of common flowers since they went best with the colors that represent her. Violet was for the purple color, and Rose was for the pink color.

The Animals

In typical fashion for fairy tales, I thought it would be fun to add animals that had transformed into humans and vice versa. I knew early on that Violet’s three men were under her control, but it wasn’t until later in the story that I realized how she used them. In animal form, they had free will. As men, they didn’t.

I thought long and hard over why they hated her so much. I came to the conclusion that she made them kill off the people in the family tree so that the title (Earl of Blackwell) was forced to go extinct. I made a reference to Greg’s son dying. That was done by Violet who forced these men to do her bidding. This is why they were more than happy to help Willow get away from her and why they helped Julian get the wand.

The problem is that since they couldn’t come out and tell Willow and Julian anything, I was never able to bring out the reason for their intense hatred of Violet in the course of the story.

The Ending

In the final scene between Julian and Willow, Julian thinks of the nightmares and wonders if they are sent from the evil fairy. They were. One of the slaves of the black fairy was sent to give him those nightmares. But Julian remained safe. Even though Julian and Willow weren’t aware of it, the blue fairy continued to protect them. The nightmares were all the evil fairy could do to Julian.

According to Irish myths, fairies can come in and swap a baby with a changeling if there isn’t some iron nearby to protect the baby. Because of this, Julian and Willow put iron around their children’s cradles to make sure they were safe. After all these two went through, they wouldn’t take any chances.

As for the lawyer, he and his wife had a wonderful vacation.