Jennifer L Armentrout | Story Behind The Cover of OBSIDIAN

A lot of people have asked how I came to know the models featured on the Lux Series, and like everything revolving around OBSIDAN, it just... sort of happened. Actually, the editor and I on the series have deemed Obsidian a trail of  ‘stupid smart' that kind of worked out in the end.

When I sat down to write OBSIDAN, namely create the character Daemon Black, I had a very clear picture of him in my mind: tall, dark hair that waved, broad cheekbones, full lips, and a sort of exotic beauty to how his features pieced together. The next character I created was Katy. In my mind, she was of average height, but compared to Daemon's insanely tall height, she'd looked very small. I wanted her to be a very pretty girl, but also have an innocence to way she looked. 

Once the story was complete and the wonderful team over at Entangled started looking for the perfect image, Liz Pelletier stumbled across two cover models that she knew right off matched the description of the characters. She told me about them and how she was going to feature both "Daemon" and "Katy" on the cover. I was doubtful at first, because it's so rare to find people who ‘see' the characters the same way you do.

Despite being convinced she'd found the perfect models, Liz was pretty positive that I'd hate the cover, because of the whole ‘sexy, hawt, teen candy vibe it had', and I was also a little skeptical.

But then she showed me the cover.

And I was blown away.

Both of the models looked so much like Daemon and Katy that I was bit giddy. And yeah, there's nothing wrong with the sexy, hawt, teen candy vibe either. The only things different about them, compared to my descriptions, were the eye colors.

No problem.  The male model was given green eyes in production (the magic of photoshop), and I actually changed Katy's eye color from brown to gray in the book to make it work.  I was really pleased with the choice, and the readers also seem to really see these two models as the ‘perfect' Daemon and Katy.

This was last year. 

Now we know that the couple used for the covers are quite...popular as YA cover models. There's even a Goodreads thread dedicated to the "Guy and Girl from the Obsidian Cover."  And they're in singles ads, shoes ads, tanning ads, and so on...

But I didn't care. I loved them Katy and Daemon.

Then Monday February 20^th, the night before the Shadows novella released, something amazing happened. I got an email on my public account from someone claiming to be one of the models on the Lux Series covers. At first I was like, "Yeah, right..."

There are a lot of... um, strange people in the world and I assumed that this was one of those people.  But I responded back, explaining that I thought it was very cool if he was who he said he was. 

Well, as it turns out, the email really was from Pepe Toth and Sztella Tziotzuiz (I believe her name is pronounced like Estella).  Of course, I was super giddy at this point. Who knew? The cover models were real! And better yet, they were together and engaged in real life. And double better yet, they are probably some of the most adorable, sweetest, and romantic couples I've seen in a long, long time.

When I asked if they'd do an interview for the readers of the Lux Series, they accepted. One of my favorite parts of the interview was about how they met and got engaged.

From Pepe Toth: ‘We met first at a birthday party when we were 12! We saw each other 2 years later and started to speak after I invited her for a date. It was a very decisive and special day. We've been engaged since 2010 August. It happened on Cyprus when we went diving at an amazing place where the sea is very clean and sky blue. A day before I stowed away a bottle of champagne with two glasses under the sand in the shoal water marked with two stones. While we were diving, suddenly I said to Sztella I found something, something deep down...Something very shiny. I swam down and brought up the ring for her. And now you know her answer...'

Okay. How incredibly romantic and swoon-worthy is all that? You can view the full interview here: Meet Pepe and Sztella.

Meeting and getting to know both Pepe and Sztella has been a great experience, and we're currently working with them to do some more things in the future—photos, trailers, and a possible signing event with them in attendance in the States, which I think will just be so much fun. It's also been interesting reconciling the characters Daemon and Katy with the real models behind the pictures. Hopefully we'll get to share more about that in the future.

Now, here is another teaser from ONYX! It takes place in Chapter 1, and Daemon is up to... well, being Daemon.

~~~~

"You okay with all of this?" I whispered to Daemon.

    He shrugged. "Not like I can stop her."

I knew he could if he wanted, which meant he didn't have a problem with it.

"Cookie?" he offered, holding a cookie full of chocolate chips.

Upset tummy or not, there was no way I could refuse that. "Sure."

His lips tipped up one side and he leaned toward me, his mouth inches from mine. "Come and get it."

Come and get...? Daemon placed half the cookie between those full, totally kissable lips.

Oh, holy alien babies everywhere...

My mouth dropped open. Several of the girls at the table made sounds that had me wondering if they were turning into puddles under the table, but I couldn't bring myself to check out what they really were doing.

That cookie—those lips—were right there.

Heat swept over my cheeks. I could feel the eyes of everyone on me, and Daemon... dear God.  Daemon arched his brows, daring me.

Dee gagged. "I think I'm going to hurl."

Mortified, I wanted to crawl into a hole. What did he think I was going to do? Take the cookie from his mouth like something straight out of an R rated version of Lady and the Tramp? Heck, I kind of wanted to and I wasn't sure what that said about me.

Daemon reached up and took the cookie. There was a gleam to his eyes, as if he just won some battle. "Times up, Kitten."

I stared at him.

Breaking the cookie into two, he handed me the larger piece. I snatched it away, half tempted to throw it back in his face, but it was... it was chocolate chip. So I ate it and loved it.

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