The cover revealed...

Exciting times here, which I am bursting to write about, but I just can’t – not yet anyway. But I can finally unveil the cover of The Lantern which has been under wraps for a while as changes have been made on both sides of the Atlantic. Rather unusually, the two different publishers – Orion in the UK and HarperCollins in the US – have opted for the same image with minor differences in presentation.

I really love it. This is a cover that is absolutely appropriate for the book, with the figure of a woman who could stand for more than one character and the brocante style in the intricate lace of ironwork which might be a gate, or a balcony, or even the fretwork of a large ornate lantern such as we light in the garden at night. Then there’s the flare of yellow, like candlelight. The American version is darker in every sense, more mossy and sombre with that slightly sinister green.

Another lovely blurb has been added on the back, this time from Paula McLain, whose wonderful novel The Paris Wife, about Hemingway and his first wife Hadley in Jazz Age Paris in the 1920s amid the fast-living set that included Zelda and F Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound, has been such a huge and well-deserved success.

“Deborah Lawrenson is a master of mood and shadow as she spins this absorbing tale of intense passion and growing dread. Her Provence is sumptuous and forbidding and utterly real. Prepare to be riveted.”

—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife

And finally, there’s now a Facebook page for The Lantern which I shall do my best to keep updated. To see it, click here. All “Likes” gratefully appreciated!