The Cover, Then and Now

(Day 31 of 31 – story crumbs from the world of Loveandpizza.it 🍕)

Before there was a Criss Rosu cover, there was this one:

This was the very first cover Loveandpizza.it ever wore, back in 2011, and it wasn’t even finished yet! 😅🫣 I want to tell you a bit about where it came from, because I think the story behind a cover is nearly always more interesting than the cover itself.

A Gift From a Student

I wasn’t teaching writing back then. I was teaching English, and one of my students, a genuinely talented and kind designer from Spain, offered to illustrate the cover for me as a favour. I said yes before I’d properly thought through what that meant, because the offer itself felt so generous I couldn’t imagine turning it down. I already knew exactly what Carolina should look like, because I’d been picturing my own little sister the whole time I was writing her, so I sent him her photo as a reference.

I still find that sweet, if I’m honest. Handing someone a photo of your own sister and asking them to turn her into a fictional heroine is a strange kind of trust, and he took it and gave her back to me looking exactly like herself, and exactly like Carolina, both at once.

What Stays the Same

Looking at the two covers side by side now, what strikes me most isn’t how different they are. It’s what’s carried through. The bay is there in both. Napoli is there in both, unmistakably itself, refusing to be anywhere else. And Carolina is there in both, curly-haired and caught somewhere between certainty and doubt, exactly as she should be.

What’s changed is the confidence of it. The 2011 cover was made with genuine love and very little budget, by a friend doing me a kindness. The 2026 cover (a “proper” chick lit cover, like most of my favourite novels! A dream come true! 😍) was made by a professional illustrator who spent weeks getting the mood, the colour and the symbolism exactly right, because this relaunch deserved that level of care. Both are true to the book, but only one of them could carry three editions into three different countries (and beyond! Netflix, pick me! 🙋🏻‍♀️).

Fifteen Years Between Them

It’s strange to sit with both images at once. Fifteen years sit between them, and so does an entire relaunch, three languages, and a version of me that has grown up considerably since I first hit publish. I was so unsure of myself back then that I said yes to a cover almost by accident, grateful that anyone wanted to draw it for me at all. This time round, I spent three careful weeks in back-and-forth emails with Criss, refining a brief, reviewing work in progress, asking for small adjustments, because I finally believe this book is worth that kind of attention.

I don’t say that to diminish the original cover. I’m genuinely fond of it (I’ve got three paperback copies in my house!), and I’ll always be grateful to the student who made it. But there’s something moving about seeing how far both the book and I have come, side by side, on the same shelf. I’m a considerably more confident writer than the woman who said yes to that first cover without quite knowing what she was asking for, and I’m already deep into a second novel now, one I get to start with all the things Loveandpizza.it taught me already sitting in my hands.

Full Circle

If you’ve been with me for this whole thirty-one day challenge, you’ve already met the new cover. Now you’ve met where it all started too, in the hands of a kind, talented student with a screen and a lot more faith in this book than I had in myself at the time.

Fifteen years is a long time to carry a story around. I’m glad I never put it down.

Dani. x

P.S. Join the relaunch list if you haven’t already. It’s the only way to know the exact moment each edition, English, Italian and Portuguese, is properly live.