I’m excited to reveal the cover for THE GUARDIANS OF ZOONE, Book 2 in my new series with HarperCollins Children’s Books.
The stunning cover art by Evan Monteiro depicts an exciting moment from early on in the book, featuring portal pirates, a skyger, a cosmic storm, and one of my favourite new characters: Captain Traxx.
Another favourite character of mine, first introduced in Book 1, is also shown on the ship, climbing the ratlines. She’s got a lot to do in this sequel, and I really enjoyed spending this extra time with her.
I’m so pleased with the cover, and very grateful that I had the opportunity to participate in the design. Even though I am a professional illustrator, I did not want to provide the artwork for the Zoone series—however, I did want to provide ideas, and I was allowed to do just that.
When my editor asked me what I wanted to have shown on the cover, there were two scenes from the book that came to mind. One was a dramatic chase sequence that takes place in the world of Creon and the second was when the heroes were aboard the airship known as The Empyrean Thunder.
Here is my original thumbnail that I provided to my editor:
At first, I thought we should focus on my trio of heroes. But I also thought we could work in some of the pirates, so I provided my brainstorming pages of the pirate captain, Captain Traxx, who is the mercurial self-proclaimed “Queen of the Cosmos.”
I also provided a photo of my brainstorming page of what the ship itself looks like:
There’s a couple of things to point out:
1) As you can see, I took some inspiration from The Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
2) I love coffee.
3) As you can also see, many of my design ideas made it to the front cover. Instead of zooming in on the characters, the artist decided to pull back and show more of an epic perspective of the scene.
Based on the feedback I’ve received so far, it was the right decision!
Not every author gets the opportunity to participate in the cover design phase of a book. I know many colleagues who simply get shown their cover after it’s complete and are given NO say whatsoever. So, I’ll just repeat how grateful I am that I was consulted.
The Guardians of Zoone is scheduled for release in February 2020. You can find out more about the book here.
Between the Cracks of Here and There 