Spring Moon by HRH Princess Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian
“Amid the expansive plains of Montana, the Lykos Ranch stretches for miles. The inhabitants who live in near isolation from the outside world are members of the most powerful clan of werewolves in North America. Among them lives just one human: Indiana Teller.
Grandson of the clan’s leader and offspring of a werewolf father and a mysterious yet human mother, Indiana is rejected by his peers and heads to the University of Montana to find a normal life. Despite warnings from his grandparents, he falls in love with a beautiful human, Katerina.
Before too long, he is the victim of an accident that would have killed him had he not miraculously vanished at the moment of impact. Are these strange occurrences just chance or the machinations of a hidden enemy out to destroy him? Facing his destiny, Indiana will have to choose who to believe, and who to love.” (from the description from Entangled Publishing)
Well, chalk this one up to something I never thought I’d be able to say:
I’ve now designed a book cover for royalty.
You did read that correctly. Her Royal Highness is indeed a real life Princess, and you can see her Wikipedia page here. Per an interview she did on a blog post I recently read, she’s written over 40 books since she was 13 and lives in Paris somewhere in the neighborhood of the Champs-Élysées.
I’m not going to lie. I was hesitant to take this one on for Entangled. I knew, going in, the weight they were throwing behind the book, and I had a very real fear that anything I tried to do would completely blow up in my face. The road to this design was not particularly smooth, as what began as a short-fuse job in March stretched well into the summer and then the fall. There were multiple reasons for the length of the process (pub dates get pushed back, editors change, etc.), but ultimately I think it ended well.
I always like to ask my clients what books they imagine seeing alongside theirs on the bookshelf, what covers really caught their eye within their genre, and this one was no different. After a tentative start, one of the covers that was given as an example of a look they liked was Sherrilyn Kennyon’s Infinity (Chronicles of Nick), and I took that inspiration and ran from there. I always do better in my designs if I’m given solid, stunning examples of design work as a jumping off point. So, should you ever have a mind to hire a designer, you should still do your genre research and look for those covers that really draw you in. It’s very helpful in determining the feel of a book. As reading an entire novel every time I get a commission just isn’t an option for me because of time constraints, knowing where a book would go on a bookshelf is more helpful than you can imagine.
So there’s my addition to the scrapbook and one for the resume. :)
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