A Novel Cover Up is a semi-regular feature that looks at how covers are made. I have been fortunate enough to interview Matt Roeser, graphic designer and Senior Book Designer at Candlewick Press, about how he designed the cover for The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton. Other than the cover, all images in this post are copyrighted to Matt Roeser and used with permission, and can be clicked to enlarge.
Can you tell us about the cover for The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender? What do you hope it tells readers about the story?Just like the title suggests, the story is equal parts strange and beautiful. Leslye does an amazing job creating a rich world populated with uniquely fleshed out characters and from the minute I started reading the preliminary manuscript, I was completely sucked into the world of Ava. I wanted a final cover that would hopefully look simple and classic with a hint of magic to it. We printed the jacket on an uncoated paper to give it a bit of an old feeling (as the story spans generations). Then, a foil stamp was added around the edges of the feather and on the spine to give that nod to the magical realism found within the story.
