A Little Fungi Hurt No One: Mushroom Book Covers

March 13, 2023 |

There’s been a really fun book cover trend over the last few years, and it corresponds with a rise in both the cottagecore aesthetic and the rise of this as a horror theme: mushrooms. I’m a big fan of fungi, and I love when mushrooms pepper my native garden after the rain. They’re fascinating and creepy, by turns safe and poisonous, depending on what kind of ‘shroom you’re dealing with.

Mushrooms make perfect sense as a cover element, whether it’s front and center or part of the background of a bigger design. Mushrooms come in so many shapes and sizes, and they’re alien; they’re a reminder of the weird and magical right here on Earth. As you’ll see, many of the books below play with genre, whether toeing the line between memoir and something else or dancing between the world as we know it and a world with a little more magic, mystery, and intrigue.

In honor of (almost) spring and the (almost) return of mushroom season, let’s take a look at several mushroom book covers from the last few years. This won’t have every one, so of course, leave your favorite recent mushroom book covers in the comments. I’ve only included books where the mushrooms are easily identifiable on the book cover; there are some well-known and solid reads where mushrooms play a major role but do not necessarily make an appearance on the cover.

Book descriptions come from Amazon. Books span both YA and adult titles, fiction and nonfiction (minus obvious books about mushrooms, since that feels too obvious), so there’s going to likely be something intriguing here for every kind of fun guy. Note that I’ve done my best to identify the book cover designers and artists. It is still very difficult to do this without the book in hand, as few publishers give credit to their artists or designers either on their website or even when they do cover reveals.

Recent Mushroom Book Covers

Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir by Iliana Regan, design by Morgan Krehbiel

Not long after Iliana Regan’s celebrated debut, Burn the Place, became the first food-related title in four decades to become a National Book Award nominee in 2019, her career as a Michelin star–winning chef took a sharp turn north. Long based in Chicago, she and her new wife, Anna, decided to create a culinary destination, the Milkweed Inn, located in Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula, where much of the food served to their guests would be foraged by Regan herself in the surrounding forest and nearby river. Part fresh challenge, part escape, Regan’s move to the forest was also a return to her rural roots, in an effort to deepen the intimate connection to nature and the land that she’d long expressed as a chef, but experienced most intensely growing up.

On her family’s farm in rural Indiana, Regan was the beloved youngest in a family with three much older sisters. From a very early age, her relationship with her mother and father was shaped by her childhood identification as a boy. Her father treated her like the son he never had, and together they foraged for mushrooms, berries, herbs, and other wild food in the surrounding countryside—especially her grandfather’s nearby farm, where they also fished in its pond and young Iliana explored the accumulated family treasures stored in its dusty barn. Her father would share stories of his own grandmother, Busia, who’d helped run a family inn while growing up in eastern Europe, from which she imported her own wild legends of her native forests, before settling in Gary, Indiana, and opening Jennie’s Café, a restaurant that fed generations of local steelworkers. He also shared with Iliana a steady supply of sharp knives and—as she got older—guns.

Iliana’s mother had family stories as well—not only of her own years marrying young, raising headstrong girls, and cooking at Jennie’s, but also of her father, Wayne, who spent much of his boyhood hunting with the men of his family in the frozen reaches of rural Canada. The stories from this side of Regan’s family are darker, riven with alcoholism and domestic strife too often expressed in the harm, physical and otherwise, perpetrated by men—harm men do to women and families, and harm men do to the entire landscapes they occupy.

As Regan explores the ancient landscape of Michigan’s boreal forest, her stories of the land, its creatures, and its dazzling profusion of plant and vegetable life are interspersed with her and Anna’s efforts to make a home and a business of an inn that’s suddenly, as of their first full season there in 2020, empty of guests due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She discovers where the wild blueberry bushes bear tiny fruit, where to gather wood sorrel, and where and when the land’s different mushroom species appear—even as surrounding parcels of land are suddenly and violently decimated by logging crews that obliterate plant life and drive away the area’s birds. Along the way she struggles not only with the threat of COVID, but also with her personal and familial legacies of addiction, violence, fear, and obsession—all while she tries to conceive a child that she and her immune-compromised wife hope to raise in their new home.

With Burn the Place, Regan announced herself as a writer whose extravagant, unconventional talents matched her abilities as a lauded chef. In Fieldwork, she digs even deeper to express the meaning and beauty we seek in the landscapes, and stories, that reveal the forces which inform, shape, and nurture our lives.

Birds of Maine by Michael DeForge, cover by the author

Take flight to this post-apocalyptic utopia filled with birds.

Birds roam freely around the Moon complete with fruitful trees, sophisticated fungal networks, and an enviable socialist order. The universal worm feeds all, there are no weekends, and economics is as fantastical a study as unicorn psychology. No concept of money or wealth plagues the thoughts of these free-minded birds. Instead, there are angsty teens who form bands to show off their best bird song and other youngsters who yearn to become clothing designers even though clothes are only necessary during war. (The truly honourable professions for most birds are historian and/or librarian.) These birds are free to crush on hot pelicans and live their best lives until a crash-landed human from Earth threatens to change everything.

Michael DeForge’s post-apocalyptic reality brings together the author’s quintessential deadpan humour, surrealist imagination, and undeniable socio-political insight. Appearing originally as a webcomic, Birds of Maine follows DeForge’s prolific trajectory of astounding graphic novels that reimagine and question the world as we know it. His latest comic captures the optimistic glow of utopian imagination with a late-capitalism sting of irony.

City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer

City of elegance and squalor. Of religious fervor and wanton lusts. And everywhere, on the walls of courtyards and churches, an incandescent fungus of mysterious and ominous origin. In Ambergris, a would-be suitor discovers that a sunlit street can become a killing ground in the blink of an eye. An artist receives an invitation to a beheading—and finds himself enchanted. And a patient in a mental institution is convinced that he’s made up a city called Ambergris, imagined its every last detail, and that he’s really from a place called Chicago . . .

By turns sensuous and terrifying, filled with exotica and eroticism, this interwoven collection of stories, histories, and “eyewitness” reports invokes a universe within a puzzle box where you can lose—and find—yourself again.

Fruiting Bodies by Kathryn Harlan

This genre-bending debut collection of stories constructs eight eerie worlds full of desire, wisdom, and magic blooming amidst decay.

In stories that beckon and haunt, Fruiting Bodies ranges confidently from the fantastical to the gothic to the uncanny as it follows characters—mostly queer, mostly women—on the precipice of change. Echoes of timeless myth and folklore reverberate through urgent narratives of discovery, appetite, and coming-of-age in a time of crisis.

In “The Changeling,” two young cousins wait in dread for a new family member to arrive, convinced that he may be a dangerous supernatural creature. In “Endangered Animals,” Jane prepares to say goodbye to her almost-love while they road-trip across a country irrevocably altered by climate change. In “Take Only What Belongs to You,” a queer woman struggles with the personal history of an author she idolized, while in “Fiddler, Fool, Pair,” an anthropologist is drawn into a magical—and dangerous—gamble. In the title story, partners Agnes and Geb feast peacefully on the mushrooms that sprout from Agnes’s body—until an unwanted male guest disturbs their cloistered home.

Audacious, striking, and wholly original, Fruiting Bodies offers stories about knowledge in a world on the verge of collapse, knowledge that alternately empowers or devastates. Pulling beautifully, brazenly, from a variety of literary traditions, Kathryn Harlan firmly establishes herself as a thrilling new voice in fiction.

Ghost Music by An Yu, design Suzanne Dean

For three years, Song Yan has filled the emptiness of her Beijing apartment with the tentative notes of her young piano students. She gave up on her own career as a concert pianist many years ago, but her husband Bowen, an executive at a car company, has long rebuffed her pleas to have a child. He resists even when his mother arrives from the southwestern Chinese region of Yunnan and begins her own campaign for a grandchild. As tension in the household rises, it becomes harder for Song Yan to keep her usual placid demeanor, especially since she is troubled by dreams of a doorless room she can’t escape, populated only by a strange orange mushroom.

When a parcel of mushrooms native to her mother-in-law’s province is delivered seemingly by mistake, Song Yan sees an opportunity to bond with her, and as the packages continue to arrive every week, the women stir-fry and grill the mushrooms, adding them to soups and noodles. When a letter arrives in the mail from the sender of the mushrooms, Song Yan’s world begins to tilt further into the surreal. Summoned to an uncanny, seemingly ageless house hidden in a hutong that sits in the middle of the congested city, she finds Bai Yu, a once world-famous pianist who disappeared ten years ago.

A gorgeous and atmospheric novel of art and expression, grief and survival, memory and self-discovery, Ghost Music animates contemporary Beijing through the eyes of a lonely yet hopeful young woman and gives vivid color and texture to the promise of new beginnings.

The Hedge Witch (Novella) by Cari Thomas, Cover by Andrew Davis

Rowan is visiting her aunt – Winne the hedge witch – in the Welsh countryside, to get back to nature and hone her skills, as well as taking a break from her annoying sisters and enjoying some peace and quiet. However, Rowan soon comes to realise that hedges are a serious business and this isn’t quite the opportunity to rest and escape she thought it might be.

Not only that, but mysterious events around the town are causing panic in the secret magical community and cowans – non-magical folk – are starting to take notice.

Can Rowan hone her hedge craft, try to make some friends and solve the riddle of the mysterious goings-on, or is magic about to be revealed to the world … or at least Wales?

High Times in the Low Parliament by Kelly Robson, Cover art and design by Kate Forrester

Award-winning author Kelly Robson returns with High Times in the Low Parliament, a lighthearted romp through an 18th-century London featuring flirtatious scribes, irritable fairies, and the dangers of Parliament.

Lana Baker is Aldgate’s finest scribe, with a sharp pen and an even sharper wit. Gregarious, charming, and ever so eager to please, she agrees to deliver a message for another lovely scribe in exchange for kisses and ends up getting sent to Low Parliament by a temperamental fairy as a result.

As Lana transcribes the endless circular arguments of Parliament, the debates grow tenser and more desperate. Due to long-standing tradition, a hung vote will cause Parliament to flood and a return to endless war. Lana must rely on an unlikely pair of comrades—Bugbite, the curmudgeonly fairy, and Eloquentia, the bewitching human deputy—to save humanity (and maybe even woo one or two lucky ladies), come hell or high water.

Into The Light by Mark Oshiro (3/28/23), Cover art by Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor, Cover design by Lesley Worrell

KEEP YOUR SECRETS CLOSE TO HOME

It’s been one year since Manny was cast out of his family and driven into the wilderness of the American Southwest. Since then, Manny lives by self-taught rules that keep him moving—and keep him alive. Now, he’s taking a chance on a traveling situation with the Varela family, whose attractive but surly son, Carlos, seems to promise a new future.

Eli abides by the rules of his family, living in a secluded community that raised him to believe his obedience will be rewarded. But an unsettling question slowly eats away at Eli’s once unwavering faith in Reconciliation: Why can’t he remember his past?

But the reported discovery of an unidentified body in the hills of Idyllwild, California, will draw both of these young men into facing their biggest fears and confronting their own identity—and who they are allowed to be.

For fans of Courtney Summers and Tiffany D. Jackson, Into the Light is a ripped-from-the-headlines story with Oshiro’s signature mix of raw emotions and visceral prose—but with a startling twist you’ll have to read to believe.

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon, Cover art by Abby Kagan

A triumphant, genre-bending breakout novel from one of the boldest new voices in contemporary fiction.

Vern―seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised―flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins, and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world.

But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.

To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the future―outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.

Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland is a genre-bending work of Gothic fiction. Here, monsters aren’t just individuals, but entire nations. It is a searing, seminal book that marks the arrival of a bold, unignorable voice in American fiction.

Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho

Grace M. Cho grew up as the daughter of a white American merchant marine and the Korean bar hostess he met abroad. They were one of few immigrants in a xenophobic small town during the Cold War, where identity was politicized by everyday details—language, cultural references, memories, and food. When Grace was fifteen, her dynamic mother experienced the onset of schizophrenia, a condition that would continue and evolve for the rest of her life.

Part food memoir, part sociological investigation, Tastes Like War is a hybrid text about a daughter’s search through intimate and global history for the roots of her mother’s schizophrenia. In her mother’s final years, Grace learned to cook dishes from her parent’s childhood in order to invite the past into the present, and to hold space for her mother’s multiple voices at the table. And through careful listening over these shared meals, Grace discovered not only the things that broke the brilliant, complicated woman who raised her—but also the things that kept her alive.

Weyward by Emilia Hart

I am a Weyward, and wild inside.

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family’s grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart’s Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.

What Goes Up by Christine Heppermann

(Those are mushroom prints!)

When Jorie wakes up in the loft bed of a college boy she doesn’t recognize, she’s instantly filled with regret. What happened the night before? What led her to this place? Was it her father’s infidelity? Her mother’s seemingly weak acceptance? Her recent breakup with Ian, the boy who loved her art and supported her through the hardest time of her life?

As Jorie tries to reconstruct the events that led her to this point, free verse poems lead the reader through the current morning, as well as flashbacks to her relationships with her parents, her friends, her boyfriend, and the previous night.

With Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty and Ask Me How I Got Here, Christine Heppermann established herself as a vital voice in thought-provoking and powerful feminist writing for teens. Her poetry is surprising, wry, emotional, and searing. What Goes Up is by turns a scorchingly funny and a deeply emotional story that asks whether it’s possible to support and love someone despite the risk of being hurt. Readers of Laura Ruby, E. K. Johnston, Elana K. Arnold, and Laurie Halse Anderson will find a complicated heroine they won’t soon forget.

What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

It’s (Not) Always Sunny with YA Sunflower Book Covers

January 16, 2023 |

Here’s a fun little trend in the world of YA book covers over the last couple of years: sunflowers. But they’re not always sunny, happy sunflowers gracing these covers. In some instances, they’re downright terrifying sunflowers. The kind of sunflowers that makes you wonder why you’re not more suspicious of such towering plants that take hold in mid to late summer.

I’ve rounded up a few recent YA sunflower book covers. I love how none of these are exactly, err, sunny at all.

Descriptions come from ‘zon, and cover artist information is included where possible. Can you think of other YA sunflower covers from the last year or two? I’d love to hear them.

Things That Grow by Meredith Goldstein; Cover designed by Celeste Knudsen

When Lori’s Dorothy Parker–loving grandmother dies, Lori’s world is turned upside down. Grandma Sheryl was everything to Lori—and not just because Sheryl raised Lori when Lori’s mom got a job out of town. Now Lori’s mom is insisting on moving her away from her beloved Boston right before senior year. Desperate to stay for as long as possible, Lori insists on honoring her grandmother’s last request before she moves: to scatter Sheryl’s ashes near things that grow.

Along with her uncle Seth and Chris, best friend and love-of-her-life crush, Lori sets off on a road trip to visit her grandmother’s favorite gardens. Dodging forest bathers, scandalized volunteers, and angry homeowners, they come to terms with the shape of life after Grandma Sheryl. Saying goodbye isn’t easy, but Lori might just find a way to move forward surrounded by the people she loves.

The Undead Truth of Us by Britney S. Lewis; Cover Design by Zareen Johnson and illustrated by Adekunle Adeleke

Sixteen-year-old Zharie Young is absolutely certain her mother morphed into a zombie before her untimely death, but she can’t seem to figure out why. Why her mother died, why her aunt doesn’t want her around, why all her dreams seem suddenly, hopelessly out of reach. And why, ever since that day, she’s been seeing zombies everywhere.

Then Bo moves into her apartment building―tall, skateboard in hand, freckles like stars, and an undeniable charm. Z wants nothing to do with him, but when he transforms into a half zombie right before her eyes, something feels different. He contradicts everything she thought she knew about monsters, and she can’t help but wonder if getting to know him might unlock the answers to her mother’s death.

As Zharie sifts through what’s real and what’s magic, she discovers a new truth about the world: Love can literally change you―for good or for dead.

In this surrealist journey of grief, fear, and hope, Britney S. Lewis’s debut novel explores love, zombies, and everything in between in an intoxicating amalgam of the real and the fantastic.

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds; Cover design by Beth Clark and Sarah Kaufman, art by Laylie Frazier.

What’s more important? Knowing the truth or keeping the peace?

Seventeen-year-old Avery Anderson is convinced her senior year is ruined when she’s uprooted from her life in DC and forced into the hostile home of her terminally ill grandmother, Mama Letty. The tension between Avery’s mom and Mama Letty makes for a frosty arrival and unearths past drama they refuse to talk about. Every time Avery tries to look deeper, she’s turned away, leaving her desperate to learn the secrets that split her family in two.

While tempers flare in her avoidant family, Avery finds friendship in unexpected places: in Simone Cole, her captivating next-door neighbor, and Jade Oliver, daughter of the town’s most prominent family—whose mother’s murder remains unsolved.

As the three girls grow closer—Avery and Simone’s friendship blossoming into romance—the sharp-edged opinions of their small southern town begin to hint at something insidious underneath. The racist history of Bardell, Georgia is rooted in Avery’s family in ways she can’t even imagine. With Mama Letty’s health dwindling every day, Avery must decide if digging for the truth is worth toppling the delicate relationships she’s built in Bardell—or if some things are better left buried.

Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah; Cover Design by Olga Grlic and art by Marcela Bolívar (2/21/23)

The town of Bishop is known for exactly two things: recurring windstorms and an endless field of sunflowers that stretches farther than the eye can see. And women―missing women. So when three more women disappear one stormy night, no one in Bishop is surprised. The case is closed and their daughters are left in their dusty shared house with the shattered pieces of their lives. Until the wind kicks up a terrible secret at their mothers’ much-delayed memorial.

With secrets come the lies each of the girls is forced to confront. After caring for the other girls, Delilah would like to move on with her boyfriend, Bennett, but she can’t bear his touch. Whitney has already lost both her mother and her girlfriend, Eleanor, and now her only solace is an old weathervane that seems to whisper to her. Jude, Whitney’s twin sister, would rather ignore it all, but the wind kicks up her secret too: the summer fling she had with Delilah’s boyfriend. And more than anything, Bo wants answers and she wants them now. Something happened to their mothers and the townsfolk know what it was. She’s sure of it.

Bishop has always been a strange town. But what the girls don’t know is that Bishop was founded on blood―and now it craves theirs.

Microtrend: YA Tarot Card Book Covers

September 20, 2021 |

How about a fun cover microtrend from 2021 YA books? I like to call these microtrends because unlike noticeable, obvious design choices that parallel one another, these only pop up when you really pay attention. They don’t hit a lot of books, but just a few, and yet because it’s such a hyper-specific design aesthetic, it’s noteworthy.

One that I can’t stop thinking about — perhaps because I believe there’s another one of these hiding in plain sight from either 2020 or 2021 or, perhaps, a forthcoming 2022 title — is the YA tarot card book cover.+ I keep thinking the one I can’t remember is this one or this one, but it is neither. Tarot has popped up quite a big in recent YA, but the actual use of tarot cards on the cover hasn’t really come up. But in 2021, I can immediately identify three that do. They each play with tarot cards a bit differently, so let’s take a look.

Book descriptions are from Goodreads. This little roundup makes me want to pull together a whole list of Tarot in YA books.

All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue, Cover art by Lisa Sterle

Maeve’s strangely astute tarot readings make her the talk of the school, until a classmate draws a chilling and unfamiliar card—and then disappears.

After Maeve finds a pack of tarot cards while cleaning out a closet during her in-school suspension, she quickly becomes the most sought-after diviner at St. Bernadette’s Catholic school. But when Maeve’s ex–best friend, Lily, draws an unsettling card called The Housekeeper that Maeve has never seen before, the session devolves into a heated argument that ends with Maeve wishing aloud that Lily would disappear. When Lily isn’t at school the next Monday, Maeve learns her ex-friend has vanished without a trace.

Shunned by her classmates and struggling to preserve a fledgling romance with Lily’s gender-fluid sibling, Roe, Maeve must dig deep into her connection with the cards to search for clues the police cannot find—even if they lead to the terrifying Housekeeper herself. Set in an Irish town where the church’s tight hold has loosened and new freedoms are trying to take root, this sharply contemporary story is witty, gripping, and tinged with mysticism.

The Salt In Our Blood by Ava Morgyn, Cover art and design by Aphelandra

Ten years ago, Cat’s volatile mother, Mary, left her at her grandmother’s house with nothing but a deck of tarot cards. Now seventeen, Cat is determined to make her life as different from Mary’s as possible. When Cat’s grandmother dies, she’s forced to move to New Orleans with her mother. There, she discovers a picture of Mary holding a baby that’s not her, leading her to unravel a dark family history and challenge her belief that Mary’s mental health issues are the root of all their problems. But as Cat explores the reasons for her mother’s breakdown, she fears she is experiencing her own. Ever since she arrived in New Orleans, she’s been haunted by strangely familiar visitors–in dreams and on the streets of the French Quarter–who know more than they should. Unsure if she can rebuild her relationship with her mother, Cat is realizing she must confront her past, her future, and herself in the fight to try.

These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling, Cover artist unknown*

Hannah’s a witch, but not the kind you’re thinking of. She’s the real deal, an Elemental with the power to control fire, earth, water, and air. But even though she lives in Salem, Massachusetts, her magic is a secret she has to keep to herself. If she’s ever caught using it in front of a Reg (read: non-witch), she could lose it. For good. So, Hannah spends most of her time avoiding her ex-girlfriend (and fellow Elemental Witch) Veronica, hanging out with her best friend, and working at the Fly by Night Cauldron selling candles and crystals to tourists, goths, and local Wiccans.

But dealing with her ex is the least of Hannah’s concerns when a terrifying blood ritual interrupts the end-of-school-year bonfire. Evidence of dark magic begins to appear all over Salem, and Hannah’s sure it’s the work of a deadly Blood Witch. The issue is, her coven is less than convinced, forcing Hannah to team up with the last person she wants to see: Veronica.

While the pair attempt to smoke out the Blood Witch at a house party, Hannah meets Morgan, a cute new ballerina in town. But trying to date amid a supernatural crisis is easier said than done, and Hannah will have to test the limits of her power if she’s going to save her coven and get the girl, especially when the attacks on Salem’s witches become deadlier by the day.

*It bothers me to no end when the publisher does a cover reveal and can’t bother to include this information.

+Update: thanks to Iza G (@izag) on Twitter, the mystery of the missing title is solved!

Edie in Between by Laura Sibson

A modern-day Practical Magic about love, loss, and embracing the mystical.

It’s been one year since Edie’s mother died. But her ghost has never left.

According to her GG, it’s tradition that the dead of the Mitchell family linger with the living. It’s just as much a part of a Mitchell’s life as brewing cordials or talking to plants. But Edie, whose pain over losing her mother is still fresh, has no interest in her family’s legacy as local “witches.”

When her mother’s teenage journal tumbles into her life, her family’s mystical inheritance becomes once and for all too hard to ignore. It takes Edie on a scavenger hunt to find objects that once belonged to her mother, each one imbued with a different memory. Every time she touches one of these talismans, it whisks her to another entry inside the journal—where she watches her teenage mom mourn, love, and hope just as Edie herself is now doing. Maybe, just maybe, Edie hopes, if she finds every one of these objects, she can finally make peace with her loss and put the past to rest for good. But this journey to stake her independence from her family may actually show Edie who she truly is…and the beautiful gifts that come with being just a little different.

Scene Inside a Scene YA Covers

August 16, 2021 |

Cover design never fails to fascinate me. We really and truly DO judge books based on their covers, and I don’t think this is a bad thing at all. It’s a marketing tool, a way to bring readers to a book when there are hundreds from which to choose. In YA, this holds especially true, and book covers can be a useful means of reader advisory as well. Covers that have the same “feel” can make great read alikes.

A trend I’ve seen popping up is one I really like and forces me to pause to take it in. It’s the scene within a scene. You have what looks like one image when you take it in as a whole, but as you look deeper, you find an additional scene within it. It’s compelling and offers a way to pack in a lot more information about the book’s contents. It’s a bit like the YA montage cover, but instead of playing outward, it plays itself inward.

I’ve pulled together some great examples of the scene inside a scene YA cover design. Designer credits are included where found, and descriptions all come from Goodreads. Know of other recent covers that fit the trend? I’d love to hear about them!

Amelia Unabridged by Ashley Schumacher

Cover design by Kerri Resnick, Illustration by Beatriz Naranjalidad

I’m a big fan of the bookstore scene within the girl we see in the foreground. The juxtaposition of the larger girl on the outside’s expression with what is (I assume) her expression on the interior scene is clever.

Eighteen-year-old Amelia Griffin is obsessed with the famous Orman Chronicles, written by the young and reclusive prodigy N. E. Endsley. They’re the books that brought her and her best friend Jenna together after Amelia’s father left and her family imploded. So when Amelia and Jenna get the opportunity to attend a book festival with Endsley in attendance, Amelia is ecstatic. It’s the perfect way to start off their last summer before college.

In a heartbeat, everything goes horribly wrong. When Jenna gets a chance to meet the author and Amelia doesn’t, the two have a blowout fight like they’ve never experienced. And before Amelia has a chance to mend things, Jenna is killed in a freak car accident. Grief-stricken, and without her best friend to guide her, Amelia questions everything she had planned for the future.

When a mysterious, rare edition of the Orman Chronicles arrives, Amelia is convinced that it somehow came from Jenna. Tracking the book to an obscure but enchanting bookstore in Michigan, Amelia is shocked to find herself face-to-face with the enigmatic and handsome N. E. Endsley himself, the reason for Amelia’s and Jenna’s fight and perhaps the clue to what Jenna wanted to tell her all along.

Cold The Night, Fast the Wolves by Meg Long (January)

Cover design by Olga Grlic, illustration by Luisa Preissler

This one is a scene within a scene within a scene! Check out the wolf frame, with the girl’s face inside, then continue looking inward for a wolf and person running in a snowy wood. The waves of the wolf’s main on the outer image mirrors the waves in the girl’s hair, as well as the movement of the two running.

A captivating debut about survival, found family, and the bond between a girl and a wolf that delivers a fresh twist on classic survival stories and frontier myths.

After angering a local gangster, seventeen-year-old Sena Korhosen must flee with his prize fighting wolf, Iska, in tow. A team of scientists offer to pay her way off her frozen planet on one condition: she gets them to the finish line of the planet’s infamous sled race. Though Sena always swore she’d never race after it claimed both her mothers’ lives, it’s now her only option. But the tundra is a treacherous place, and as the race unfolds and their lives are threatened at every turn, Sena starts to question her own abilities. She must discover whether she’s strong enough to survive the wild – whether she and Iska together are strong enough to get them all out alive.

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

Cover designed by Kerri Resnick, illustrated by Peter Strain

Aside from the greater image of two girls made of smoke being chilling in and of itself, the solitary cabin amid the woods inside the image only adds to the atmosphere. The color palette here enhances the entire design.

The Dark has been waiting for far too long, and it won’t stay hidden any longer.

Something is wrong in Snakebite, Oregon. Teenagers are disappearing, some turning up dead, the weather isn’t normal, and all fingers seem to point to TV’s most popular ghost hunters who have just returned to town. Logan Ortiz-Woodley, daughter of TV’s ParaSpectors, has never been to Snakebite before, but the moment she and her dads arrive, she starts to get the feeling that there’s more secrets buried here than they originally let on.

Ashley Barton’s boyfriend was the first teen to go missing, and she’s felt his presence ever since. But now that the Ortiz-Woodleys are in town, his ghost is following her and the only person Ashley can trust is the mysterious Logan. When Ashley and Logan team up to figure out who—or what—is haunting Snakebite, their investigation reveals truths about the town, their families, and themselves that neither of them are ready for. As the danger intensifies, they realize that their growing feelings for each other could be a light in the darkness.

Each of Us a Desert by Mark Oshiro (paperback)

I can’t find the artist or designer responsible for the new paperback edition of Oshiro’s sophomore YA book and I wish I could. I really love the look going on here, and I think the way the original hardcover was woven into the new look is savvy. This design, even with its two people pictured on the cover, manages to feel more isolating than the original.

Xochital is destined to wander the desert alone, speaking her troubled village’s stories into its arid winds. Her only companions are the blessed stars above and enimagic lines of poetry magically strewn across dusty dunes.

Her one desire: to share her heart with a kindred spirit.

One night, Xo’s wish is granted—in the form of Emilia, the cold and beautiful daughter of the town’s murderous mayor. But when the two set out on a magical journey across the desert, they find their hearts could be a match… if only they can survive the nightmare-like terrors that arise when the sun goes down.

Full Flight by Ashley Schumacher (February)

Design by Kerri Resnick, illustration by Beatriz Naranjalidad (starting to look familiar?)

The marching band inside the girl in its super saturated color is so much fun. I’m also drawn in by the couple being mirrored in the shirt of the guy on the right — is it the same couple? One quirk, though: where is his other leg? The physical impossibility here is boggling my mind a bit. Her knee couldn’t be bent the way it is if his other leg is bent and parallel to the one we see.

Everyone else in the tiny town of Enfield, Texas calls fall football season, but for the forty-three members of the Fighting Enfield Marching Band, it’s contest season. And for new saxophonist Anna James, it’s her first chance to prove herself as the great musician she’s trying hard to be.

When she’s assigned a duet with mellophone player Weston Ryan, the boy her small-minded town thinks of as nothing but trouble, she’s equal parts thrilled and intimidated. But as he helps her with the duet, and she sees the smile he seems to save just for her, she can’t help but feel like she’s helping him with something too.

After her strict parents find out she’s been secretly seeing him and keep them apart, together they learn what it truly means to fight for something they love. With the marching contest nearing, and the two falling hard for one another, the unthinkable happens, and Anna is left grappling for a way forward without Weston.

Flyy Girls (series) by Ashley Woodfolk

All four of the books in this series use the same design technique and bold colors. I love that we get to know each of the four Flyy Girls with what’s collaged inside their silhouette.

Lux Lawson is on a spree. Ever since her dad left, she’s been kicked out of every school that would take her, and this is her last chance: Harlem’s Augusta Savage School of the Arts. If this doesn’t work, Lux is off to military school, no questions asked. That means no more acting out, no more fights, and definitely no boyfriends. Focus on her photography, and make nice friends. That’s the deal.

Enter the Flyy Girls, three students who have it all together. The type of girls Lux needs to be friends with to stay out of trouble. And after charming her way into the group, Lux feels she’s on the right track. But every group has their secrets, including Lux. And when the past starts catching up with her, can she keep her place as a Flyy Girl?

In this searing series opener, Lux takes center stage as she figures out just how hard it can be to start over.

With simply stated text and compelling characters, Flyy Girls is a series that’s perfect for readers of any level.

The Project by Courtney Summers

Cover design by Kerri Resnick, illustration by Marie Bergeron

It’s a scene from in the book and definitely adds a thriller vibe to the cover. It’s interesting to me how Summers’s books, for the most part, feature very prominent hair on the cover model.

Lo Denham is used to being on her own. After her parents died in a tragic car accident, her sister Bea joined the elusive community called The Unity Project, leaving Lo to fend for herself. Desperate not to lose the only family she has left, Lo has spent the last six years trying to reconnect with Bea, only to be met with radio silence.

When Lo’s given the perfect opportunity to gain access to Bea’s reclusive life, she thinks they’re finally going to be reunited. But it’s difficult to find someone who doesn’t want to be found, and as Lo delves deeper into The Project and its charismatic leader, she begins to realize that there’s more at risk than just her relationship with Bea: her very life might be in danger.

As she uncovers more questions than answers at each turn, everything Lo thought she knew about herself, her sister, and the world is upended. One thing doesn’t change, though, and that’s what keeps her going: Bea needs her, and Lo will do anything to save her.

A Sitting in St James by Rita Williams-Garcia

Besides being one of my favorite books of 2021, this is also one of my favorite cover designs. It brilliantly captures the story, filling the silhouette with scenes from the book. This is a story on a plantation and the person made of nature on the foreground is one of the key figures — and in my mind, most fascinating — in the book.

This astonishing novel about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork—empathetic, brutal, and entirely human.

1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilbert has decided, in spite of her family’s indifference, to sit for a portrait.

But there are other important stories to be told on the Guilbert plantation. Stories that span generations, from the big house to out in the fields, of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and the tangled bonds of descendants and enslaved.

Sunkissed by Kasie West

Sunglasses on YA book covers was such a thing for a long time. This design takes it a step further with the image of a cabin in the woods beside a lake, giving a nice idea of the lightness of the story and its setting. Unlike a couple of the covers above, the cabin here doesn’t feel scary.

Will the stars align?

Avery has always used music as an escape. But after her best friend betrays her, even her perfectly curated playlists can’t help her forget what happened. To make matters worse, her parents have dragged her and her social-media-obsessed sister to a remote family camp for two months of “fun.” Just when Avery is ready to give up on the summer altogether, she meets Brooks—mysterious, frustratingly charming Brooks—who just happens to be on staff—which means he’s off-limits.

What starts as a disaster turns into . . . something else. As the outside world falls away, Avery embarks on a journey of self-discovery. And when Brooks offers her the chance of a lifetime, she must figure out how far is she willing to go to find out what she wants and who she wants to be.

Time Will Tell by Barry Lyga

Designed and illustrated by Chris Koehler and Jenny Kimura

The design for Lyga’s latest book is fabulous. I love the hourglass and how we know this’ll be a twisty thriller from it. But add to that the scene of the teens looking downward toward the falling sand — which turns into a knife — and it has everything you’d need to know about the story. The book’s partially set in 1986 and I think that is reflected in the way the cover also feels like an 80s teen mystery.

Four teens have dug up the time capsule that their parents buried in 1986 and never bothered to recover. But in addition to the expected ephemera of mixtapes, Walkmans, photographs, letters, toys, and assorted junk, Elayah, Liam, Marcie, and Jorja discover something sinister: a hunting knife stained with blood and wrapped with a note. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kill anyone.”

As the action dramatically alternates between the present day and 1986, the mystery unfolds and the sins of the past echo into today. The teens haven’t just unearthed a time capsule: they’ve also dug up pain and secrets that someone–maybe one of their own parents–is willing to kill for.

Cover Makeovers: 5 YA Book Covers With New Looks

July 19, 2021 |

Cover design is never not fascinating. For all that’s said about not judging a book by its cover, it’s actually a pretty powerful skill to have. You’re looking at so many elements to convey what a story is about, who it’s written for, and what books it might be similar to in order to have it reach potential readers. It’s art, after all, and considering the power of art to depict a story is not being superficial.

Authors have little to no say in their cover art, which makes the entire process more complex. How the story is marketed, its first impression to readers in stores and online, is pretty much out of their hands. And given how more and more marketing of books is online and less in-store, it’s no surprise design has taken into consideration how a cover will look when the size of a thumbnail.

Find below five YA books that are getting new designs in paperback. I always love looking at the different choices made in the new iterations. What compelled the publisher to make a change? Who does the book seek to reach now? I love to think about whether the book is now angled more (or less!) toward a teen readership. In some cases, the change is a real upgrade, while in others, it’s not. In yet other cases, the change in design leaves a big ole question mark.

Original hardcover designs are on the left, while the new paperback editions are on the right. I’d love to know which you prefer and why. Descriptions of the books come from Amazon.

Five New YA Hardcover to Paperback Makeovers

The Companion by Kate Alender

I’ve been meaning to read this one, in part because it’s horror, in part because Kimberly raved about it, and in part because I’ve read Alender’s work before and enjoy her storytelling. The original hardcover image is so great: it’s unlike anything else out there right now, with its silver spoon collecting nails. It gives creepy and chilling vibes, and with the tagline “Lies pile up. And then they bury you” really offers a lot to the reader without saying too much. The use of pink for Alender’s name is clever, a small treat to prepare the reader for the book to come.

That said, the fact the cover is so different from what’s currently on shelves may be why the paperback has an entirely new look. It reminds me of a horror movie cover more than a book cover, and it’s a design I’ve seen many times with YA horror as well. It’s a creepy house with the silhouette of a girl and a moody sky and color palate. The lights on in the windows add to the spooky ambiance. Interestingly, the title font went from serif to san serif, which I think makes it a little more genre-friendly, and more, the tagline itself completely changed. “She thought she was finally safe. She was wrong” is a very different tell for the book than the first tagline, too. The first, perhaps, leans more thriller, while the second leans heavy into horror.

Both of the covers work, though I’m drawn more toward the original if for no reason other than its freshness. The paperback would look fabulous on a display of books featuring creepy houses, right along with Alender’s earlier The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall.

The Companion hits shelves in paperback August 21.

The other orphans say Margot is lucky.

Lucky to survive the horrible accident that killed her family.

Lucky to have her own room because she wakes up screaming every night.

And finally, lucky to be chosen by a prestigious family to live at their remote country estate.

But it wasn’t luck that made the Suttons rescue Margot from her bleak existence at the group home. Margot was handpicked to be a companion to their silent, mysterious daughter, Agatha. At first, helping with Agatha–and getting to know her handsome younger brother–seems much better than the group home. But soon, the isolated house begins playing tricks on Margot’s mind, making her question everything she believes about the Suttons . . . and herself.

Margot’s bad dreams may have stopped when she came to live with Agatha – but the real nightmare has just begun.

Each of Us a Desert by Mark Oshiro

Having loved Oshiro’s first YA book Anger Is a Gift, I have to say the cover of Each of Us a Desert left me feeling uninterested. It didn’t tell me anything about the book any more than the title did (and it’s a great title). The tagline “Find where you belong” offers nothing, either. What is the book’s genre? What’s it about? Sure, there’s a profile in the triangle shape — is that supposed to be a sand hill or a pyramid? — but the lack of seeing an expression conveys nothing.

The paperback, on the other hand, nails it. There’s been this neat trend in YA covers, perhaps something to dig into soon, where a bigger scene plays out within the cover image. As you see with the two teens on the cover, there’s an actual desert along their backs. The tagline has been all together ditched in favor of the bigger focal point of title and image, and even though I’m still not sure what the book might be about, I’m far more compelled to pick it up. The teens have readable expressions on their faces, and the look the teen on the left is serving up makes me wonder what she has to say. I like how this copy notes Oshio is an “award winning author,” wherein on the hardcover, it simply read author.

Each of Us a Desert is more captivating in its paperback iteration. It hits shelves November 9.

From award-winning author Mark Oshiro comes a powerful coming-of-age fantasy novel about finding home and falling in love amidst the dangers of a desert where stories come to life

Xochitl is destined to wander the desert alone, speaking her troubled village’s stories into its arid winds. Her only companions are the blessed stars above and enigmatic lines of poetry magically strewn across dusty dunes.

Her one desire: to share her heart with a kindred spirit.

One night, Xo’s wish is granted―in the form of Emilia, the cold and beautiful daughter of the town’s murderous conqueror. But when the two set out on a magical journey across the desert, they find their hearts could be a match… if only they can survive the nightmare-like terrors that arise when the sun goes down.

Fresh off of Anger Is a Gift‘s smashing success, Oshiro branches out into a fantastical direction with their new YA novel, Each of Us a Desert.

How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi

The next couple of entries on this look at cover makeovers fall into the category of surely, there’s a reason for the small change but I have no idea what it might be.

Ahmadi’s How It All Blew Up begins as a red cover. The title treatment here is interesting, with “Blew Up” rendered with shadows behind each letter and at an increased size, compared to the rest of the words. We have a big blurb from Angie Thomas, as well as the words “A Novel” beneath the title. It’s a fine cover, and offers to the reader what to expect: a contemporary, coming of age story. The teen on the cover appears to be brown, further letting readers know who the lead in the story is.

The paperback, which hits shelves September 28, takes the same cover images and turns the background to yellow. The squiggles, presumably to indicate “blowing up”/stress/angst, pop a big more with the color change, and the boy has been resized to be a little bit smaller. Ahmadi’s name now lies at the bottom, in what appears to be the same font as the hardcover’s title, while the title itself changed fonts entirely. “Blew Up” is still larger than the other words, but now all of the letters have black outlines.

Perhaps most curious in the change is the disappearance of “A Novel” and the appearance of another blurb, this one from Adam Silvera. In many ways, this now feels like too much on the cover, especially as the squiggles take on more prominence and yellow itself is a bright, energetic color. There’s a lot of writing on the front cover of the book.

Neither is better nor worse, but I love thinking about the why here. What compelled design and marketing to go with yellow here? To add another blurb — one that doesn’t actually say anything about the book? To get rid of “a novel?”

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda goes to Italy in Arvin Ahmadi’s newest incisive look at identity and what it means to find yourself by running away.

Eighteen-year-old Amir Azadi always knew coming out to his Muslim family would be messy–he just didn’t think it would end in an airport interrogation room. But when faced with a failed relationship, bullies, and blackmail, running away to Rome is his only option. Right?

Soon, late nights with new friends and dates in the Sistine Chapel start to feel like second nature… until his old life comes knocking on his door. Now, Amir has to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth to a US Customs officer, or risk losing his hard-won freedom.

At turns uplifting and devastating, How It All Blew Up is Arvin Ahmadi’s most powerful novel yet, a celebration of how life’s most painful moments can live alongside the riotous, life-changing joys of discovering who you are.

I’m Not Dying With You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal

The hardcover design for I’m Not Dying With You Tonight is simple and straight forward: two girls, one Black and one white, are on opposite sides, facing in opposite directions. The title being smack in the middle draws your attention to their faces, and the mirrored title and author fonts reflect that back. It’s a nice use of patterns. The bold choices in colors works well, too. There is power in that cover, without ever once trying to say there’s power in it.

But I will say, I’m even more compelled by the paperback makeover. The elements that worked in the hardcover are made more urgent when the girls are face to face, their eyes staring right into each other, rather than into one another’s mouths. Your eye is drawn to the title, and the layering effect of the city scape behind them adds nice dimension. We know this book was a New York Times bestseller, and both Angie Thomas and Nic Stone blurbed it. I’m generally not a fan of blurbs, especially multiple ones on a cover, but in this case, those blurbs establish this title as a read alike, even if the single words (“Powerful” and “Vital”) are kind of meaningless. The lengthier blurbs on retail websites offer way more to the story itself.

The new cover reminds me of adult contemporary reads a little more than YA, but that’s a value-neutral statement. This has a wide appeal range.

My one criticism of the paperback is something that, to the untrained eye, probably isn’t noticeable: the size and spacing of each word in the title is different. It’s a small difference, meant to squeeze the title between the faces of the girls. It happens in the hardcover, too — look specifically at “Dying” — but it’s easier to see on the paperback.

Both covers are solid, but I prefer the paperback a little bit more.

I’m Not Dying With You Tonight hits shelves in paperback September 7.

Lena has her killer style, her awesome boyfriend, and a plan. She knows she’s going to make it big. Campbell, on the other hand, is just trying to keep her head down and get through the year at her new school.

When both girls attend the Friday-night football game, what neither expects is for everything to descend into sudden mass chaos. Chaos born from violence and hate. Chaos that unexpectedly throws them together.

They aren’t friends. They hardly understand the other’s point of view. But none of that matters when the city is up in flames, and they only have each other to rely on if they’re going to survive the night.

Wicked As You Wish by Rin Chupeco

One of the biggest pet peeves of readers and librarians is when a book in a series gets a new look before the series ends. This means an inconsistent look on shelves and a challenge for helping readers find a book they’re looking for and describing by color. Were a series to maintain two looks — one in hardcover and one in paperback — throughout, it might not be so irritating. But I can’t think of many cases where that’s happened.

All of that is to say the hardcover of the first book in Rin Chupeco’s “A Hundred Names for Magic” series is getting a new look in paperback. The hardcover is such a neat look: each of the letters offers some kind of insight into the story, tying it all together with the concept of magic. There’s a lot of images packed into the design, and yet, it doesn’t feel busy. I’m a huge fan of the series title and number being included, too, right below the title. The color palate here is itself magical.

And while many of these things carry over into the new paperback, particularly the colors and the series title, there’s something that feels less compelling for me. There is the teen looking over their shoulder, a universal offering to walk into the story with them, but the explosion of orange in front of the person is confusing. Perhaps because this is a digital cover and not in person, it’s hard to tell if that’s meant to be a dragon or a phoenix or other creature. At the bottom right, there’s what looks to be a ferris wheel or, perhaps, some kind of climbing plant structure. What was not busy in the hardcover turns into an overly busy visual in paperback.

I do like the font and title treatment on paperback, and I find it interesting the addition of the word “trilogy” to Chupeco’s accolade.

The paperback isn’t bad, but it’s a bit confusing and a little generic in comparison to the hardcover. I’m also curious about the change when the second book in the trilogy has yet to be announced. As of this writing, there’s no title, cover, or publication date.

Wicked As You Wish hits shelves October 1.

Once upon a time, the magical Kingdom of Avalon was left to wither and die after the Snow Queen encased it in ice. Its former citizens are now refugees. Which is why crown prince Alex and his protectors are stuck in… Arizona.

Tala Makiling has lived her life as an outsider. Her family curse, the one that’s doomed her to be a spellbreaker, someone who destroys magic, hasn’t won her too many friends. Except Alex, who trusts her and her family to keep his royal identity a secret.

And then one night, a famous creature of legend, the Firebird, appears in their tiny town, reigniting hope for their abandoned homeland. Alex and Tala team up with a ragtag group of new friends to journey back to Avalon. Their path is filled with danger―from deadly prophecies, to terrifying ice wolves, a traitor among them, and the Snow Queen herself. But if they succeed… their story would be legendary.

Note:

Because the nature of this post is to explore and discuss design, I’ve elected not to include the names of artists or designers. I went back and forth on this because crediting is important and something more people who write or talk about books need to do, especially related to covers, but ultimately, because the changes happen more often in marketing and sales than they do in design, I don’t want to draw attention to an individual who may or may not have had much say in what they produced.