The cover that never was

Occasionally I'll google to see if there are any reviews I've missed. Imagine my surprise when I saw mention of my book on a book design site. I clicked through and could see that along with the hardcover U.S. design, there was a jacket there I hadn't seen before. I could only see a small portion of it through a circular thumbnail and, wouldn't you know it, something was up with my computer and I couldn't load the full image.

Here's what I saw:

So I emailed the designer Laura Duffy and we had a lovely exchange. And the next day, I was able to click through and see the beautiful book cover in its entirety.

Isn't that gorgeous? For an author, book design is a really important thing. I know I reject books when I'm browsing based on their jackets, and pick up something I maybe wouldn't otherwise if the look is arresting. It's also a very interesting process to see someone else's vision of your book: kind of intimate in a way. I know it's rare that a designer would actually read the book but nonetheless that person has been given descriptive materials and creates their own vision of what the story is. It's maybe a brief taste of what it would be like to see your work on the screen. At any rate, I loved what Laura created.

I think the colors are attention-grabbing, the element in the middle looks like a rune-meets-a-torture-device (very fitting for my book!), it's allusive to a devil's pitchfork, and ghosted behind it all I can see wording from the Malleus Maleficarum, a Witch Hunters Bible from the medieval period, and elements from a design that appeared on the book's galley but was ultimately rejected. I LOVED THAT COVER. Here it is:

It has all the Rorschach test value of "what do you see in the flames?" and is dangerous and would've been so beautiful with the promised gold foil in different colors for the fire. Since my book takes place during the era when witches would be burned at the stake, this is a haunting design. Laura, you knocked it out of the park with this one! I was told at the time that it looked too science-fictionish and instead this quiet yet still lovely design from Laura was used:

I have been lucky that the book then went into paperback with a new design, that a British edition was created with its separate hardcover and paperback designs, and that an audiobook was recorded in England with again a different cover. Seeing each one of these designs brought a frisson of delight to see the designer's take on what was so very personal to me. Speaking of covers, I have a reveal I'll be doing on Wednesday for a new project. Stay tuned!

Laura's design work is beautiful. See more of it here. 


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