Cover Reveal- The Most Dangerous Thing!

I got the most exciting package from my publisher this week: copies of my YA novel, The Most Dangerous Thing. I was quite pleased. Okay, I was actually thrilled! After years of hard work, there’s nothing like holding the physical object of your story in your hands. No longer disjointed in Scrivener, or marked up with Track Changes, it’s now a real thing. (Okay, there’s also some sheer terror lurking behind the joy, but mostly it’s a moment for happiness.)

Instead of writing these days, I’ve been working on book publicity. This means contacting magazines, blogs,  podcasts, local newspapers and telling them all about the book. And, it also means updating my web presence with my beautiful new cover. Getting a book cover is an interesting process. Someone else, (the art director) reads your book and comes up with an image that represents what you’ve written and what will help sell your book. My books has actually had two covers. Here's the first:

I really loved this when I got it. I loved the lettering, the colours and the clouds that represented my main character' Syd's mental health issues. I also loved the cyclist because Syd spends a lot of time on her bike. This first cover came to me mid-summer right in the midst of my own biking obsession. I biked over 600 km this season, mainly near my cottage, which is quite hilly. When I’m on my bike, I spend a lot of time thinking about future travel fantasies, books and my characters. Biking is a great way to sort out book-related problems. (I used to talk through these problems out loud  on my bike, but I was swallowing too many insects.)

This is me, with my bike, at my cottage August 2016. Biking is a fantastic way to make yourself ache all over and forget whatever ails you.

Just when I was really starting to fall in love with my book cover I got an an email from my publisher with a new cover. The first cover was skewing too young and so they went with another approach. It's quite different, but beautiful too, and probably speaks more accurately to some of the sexual content of the book. I was happy they kept the funky script for the title.

So here it is, the cover of The Most Dangerous Thing. The publication date is March 7. More details about the book, launch party and readings coming soon.