Cover: Neyuki

If you have been following this blog for a long time, then you saw a cover for my second novel, Neyuki, some years ago (15 April 2019). It showed an Asian woman covered in frost and the title in red. As much as I liked it, my cover designer, Laura Duffy, came up with a picture which works perfectly with an idea we both had that fits the story even better. It is a dead hand in the snow. Neyuki is a murder suspense set in the Japanese Alps. A body is hidden in the snow. It’s perfect.

I am impressed with how cold the hand looks. For a book that is hitting the market in July, that would seem to be important. I also like the title in red. Red is symbolic in the novel, although not as common a symbol as white. Taking advantage of the chance to include the Chinese characters for neyuki was also a great touch. I realize, of course, that the one-word title is not going to mean anything to western readers (until it is explained in chapter two). But the Japanese word is such a perfect description for what has become of the body that I could not pass it up.

Another thing I like about the cover is that it is still identifiable as a hand in snow even when miniaturized, which it will certainly be on internet bookstores for people shopping on their phones.

It was wonderful to work with Laura again. She is perfectly professional and strikes me as knowing everything there is to know about cover design. So many inexpensive covers these days are churned out by AI. Working with a human is a bit of a luxury, but I don’t want AI to take over the arts, and I think that applies to more than just the writing part of storytelling.