I clearly remember the moment when I first started reading a draft of 'On the Dentist'. I was at the house of a maths tutor with my daughter, who was getting a lesson. I would typically read while waiting for the lesson to conclude. Having agreed to produce a cover illustration for Tamsin, she had sent me a PDF of her book, so I reached for that instead of my usual sci-fi. Although Tamsin had warned me that the book was 'a bit spicy', I wasn't really prepared for the level of eroticism that burst forth from its pages, especially whilst trying to blend into the background of a rather stuffy academic setting. Within a few pages, I could feel my temperature rising and imagined that I was quietly blushing. I didn't read much further; I felt too self-conscious. Talk about guilty pleasures! From that small sample, although I had only had a small taste of erotic fiction, I knew it would be great fun to illustrate.

Not being very familiar with the genre, I researched and pulled together examples of styles typically used for erotic book covers to discuss with the author. Through this exercise, we agreed upon representational illustration as the correct route to take.

From this point, I created numerous quick thumbnail sketches to explore different ideas and potential compositions. It was important to me that the illustration be playful yet provocative, whilst honouring what is at heart an empowering story of a woman taking control and acting out her fantasies. The composition framing the dentist between her legs was a clear winner for both me and the author. After refining the sketches further, I began working on the final artwork. As I had predicted, I had a great deal of fun with this illustration and love how it turned out. More importantly, Tamsin was thrilled with the final result. She has plans for many more books in this series, and I hope to be lucky enough to illustrate more of Naomi Carter's adventures; they're hot stuff!