Bethany Hagen's Blog

guess what

guess what

guess. what.

This:

I know.  I KNOW.

See, here’s the thing.  Here’s the gritty, God’s-honest-truth thing.  I was nervous about the cover.  I was nervous because, before I even sold my book, I’d heard the horror stories about publishers designing less-than covers.  I was nervous because I’ve spent several years in the library world, and I have seen the world’s worst covers…from the copycat to the banal to the cheesy to the holy-s***-they-put-Comic-Sans-on-a-cover.  I was also told that, as an author, my tiny plaintive cries would be ignored, drowned out by the cogs of Big Publishing.  And you know what, it happens sometimes.  Clearly.  (Enjoy this gem I found hanging out on my mystery display at the library.) Maybe it even happens often.

But not this time.  Not with this book.

Dial has an amazing team, all around, and Landry Park has a fantabulous champion in the inimitable Nancy Conescu (aka Editor Lady) who makes the magic happen and just plain gets the book.  She not only gets it, but sees what it could be, how much better it could be, and has helped me carve and tone and add and make it a better, much stronger story.  You know what’s extra awesome?  She kept me in the loop through the whole cover process.  She told me about the concepts, the photographer, even The Dress.

And when I saw the finished thing?  I fell immediately in love.

Immediately.  Like when I first held my newborn children or when I first tasted Tank 7 beer or when I first saw Michael Fassbender play Edward Rochester.

It’s the perfect synthesis of science fiction and romance.  It’s the perfect representation of the “future historical” atmosphere I was trying to achieve.  The girl is delicate and lonely-looking, but proud.  Upright.  The estate is exactly how it’s described in the book–three stories, gray stone, wide lawns.  The cover is suffused with blue light, the same Cherenkov light that suffuses the novel itself.  It speaks to content, it speaks to atmosphere and above all, it’s striking.

So I am very very happy.

RT was kind enough to host the reveal, which made me super excited because I adore RT.  It’s one of the few genre blogs that I faithfully follow as a librarian, PLUS the annual RT convention is the funnest, loudest, friendliest convention in the world.

Here’s something else that blew my mind: Landry Park is on Amazon.  Now, I know Amazon isn’t the arbiter of all things literary, and they are certainly not the sole gateway for getting books (a shout-out here to my local indie Mysteryscape, and the library [obvs.])  But seeing my book in an actual marketplace is kind of mind-boggling in a good–if surreal–way.

So that was my day!  I spent last night covered in old adhesive, breathing in solvent fumes and living out my childhood fantasy of being an archeologist while I picked adhesive out of 217 (actual number, btw) screw heads with an X-Acto knife.  Then I spent the morning at karate, and the rest of my day being a librariador.  Tonight, I’ll go home after work, snuggle the kids for a bit, and then watch MST3K with my hot cop husband.

And I’m doing all this with a book that has a face now.