A book by its cover

Cover art for books is a subject that fascinates readers, reviewers and authors alike. Getting the cover right is crucial to a book's retail success - and keeping author and readers happy. I couldn't be more delighted with the cover for 300 Days of Sun designed by Jarrod Taylor. It offers an alluring first impression that is entirely relevant to the story and it's attractive in the full sense of the word: it draws you into the setting of the story, the dramatic rocky coast of the Algarve in Portugal. Brightness, beauty and danger are implicit in the image, as is the hint of a scratched old book.

 

But how did this cover evolve from an initial idea? To celebrate publication day in the USA and Canada, I've been given permission to show the process behind the scenes as discussion progressed between editor and author, design team and sales and marketing at HarperCollins.

 

I had just arrived in France last summer when the first images came through in an email from my editor, Jennifer Barth. Which did I prefer of these two?

 

 

 

I thought about it for a few hours, and wrote back to say I liked the red one best. It was the way the letters seemed to be sinking (or rising) behind the layers of the city that appealed. As it turned out, I was in a minority, and most votes went to the second design, by Gregg Kulick. I can understand why. The image is a strong one, with a great sense of light and dark. Perhaps it was the lettering that put me off. 

 

The next stage was another email containing another four images, all by Jarrod Taylor. Which did I like best? Which would you choose?

 

 

 

 

 

I liked them all except the third one, because the yellow rock seemed to hint strangely at an Egyptian pyramid. Our first guests of the summer had arrived, and we had a group reaction to report back. Most popular were the second and the fourth (though the lettering seemed wrong on that one).

 

The team in New York played around with the second for a while, using a deeper blue and capital letters (gorgeous, rather unusual, colours for cover art - and I preferred the original):

 

 

Then the fourth was re-worked and presented to a marketing and sales meeting. Everyone agreed, including me, over in France, that we had found our ideal cover:

 

 

So there we have it. Do you agree, or would you have made a different choice? As far as I'm concerned, as soon as I saw this last version, I felt it was right, almost like a sigh of relief.

 

As the book finally goes on sale, huge thanks to everyone at Harper, especially Jarrod Taylor and Gregg Kulick, Jennifer Barth, Amy Baker, Katherine Beitner, Jonathan Burnham, Cal Morgan, Kathryn Ratcliffe-Lee, Mary Sasso, Sherry Wasserman and Erin Wicks. Also to Stephanie Cabot, as ever. 

 

"a deeply satisfying novel, a rich story with a strong feeling for time and place and the expert pacing of the best thrillers. Readers will appreciate Lawrenson’s ability to combine stunning atmosphere with a fascinating historical backstory."

                                                     — starred Booklist review

Be one of the first to read!

 

Faro, Portugal, setting for the opening of my forthcoming novel, 300 Days of Sun. Over on my facebook page, HarperCollins US are offering the chance for three readers to win an very early copy of the book, in bound galley proof. If you're on facebook, please do check it out. The book is going to look beautiful and here are some photos to set the scene and a taster of what's inside, from (almost) the start:

I met Nathan Emberlin in Faro, southern Portugal, in August 2014.

At first, I thought he was just another adventurous young man, engaging but slightly immature. His beautiful sculpted face held a hint of vulnerability, but that ready smile and exuberant cheekiness eased his way, as did the radiant generosity of his spirit, so that it wasn’t only women who smiled back; people of all ages warmed to Nathan, even the cross old man who guarded the stork’s nest on the lamppost outside the tobacconist’s shop.

Yes, he appeared from nowhere – but then, so did we all. I didn’t go to Faro to get a story. That summer, I was on the run, or so it felt; I was trying to consign an awkward episode to my own past, not to get entangled in someone else’s. Besides, a lot of people I met in Faro were in the process of change, of expanding their horizons and aiming for a better life. The town was full of strangers and constant movement: planes overhead, roaring in and out of the airport across the shore; boats puttering in and out of the harbour; trains sliding between the road and the sea; buses and cars; pedestrians bobbing up and down over the undulating cobblestones.

 

 

The café, at least, was still. On the way to the language school, it had the presence and quiet grace of an ancient oak, rooted to its spot in the Rua Dr Francisco Gomes. The columns and balustrades of its once-grand fin-de-siècle façade had an air of forgotten romance that was hard to resist. I pushed against its old-style revolving door that first morning simply because I was curious to see inside.

 

I went up to the main counter, into an aromatic cloud of strong coffee, where a group of men knotted over an open newspaper. The barman, wiping his hands on an apron that was none too clean, seemed to be engaged in voicing his opinion and was in no hurry to serve me.

Photographs of old Faro were set into wooden panelling: black and white scenes of a fishing community, of empty roads and dusty churches. The argument at the bar counter intensified, or that’s what it sounded like. It’s not always possible to tell in a foreign language. It might just be excitability. But some words were easy to understand. Contra a natureza. Anorma. Devastador.
 

 

So, if you'd like to be one of the first to read on, there's still time to get your name in the draw. Good luck - and I'd love to know what you think. The publisher's catalog copy is here, and we've had the first blurb from the lovely and very generous Erika Robuck, author of the fab Hemingway's Girl and The House of Hawthorne among other seriously good reads:

 

"With its lush settings, high-stakes suspense, and novel-within-a-novel, 300 DAYS OF SUN delivers a labyrinth of complex relationships the reader is both breathless to solve and eager to return to upon completion. I lost sleep reading this fabulous, haunting novel."

 

The Sea Garden is out now!

The Sea Garden is published today in the US. It feels rather unreal, after all the months leading up to it, and the couple of years since I set the first words on paper. Each book is an adventure from that moment onwards. What can I say? I hope you like it. A huge thank you to everyone who reads and comments on this blog for your curiosity and enthusiasm on the journey.

There have been some other important people involved, too. Jennifer Barth is my editor at HarperCollins in New York, and she has been simply superb, everything a writer dreams of: a beacon of fine judgement and subtlety and care for the text. My literary agent Stephanie Cabot at The Gernert Company is brilliant and incisive, and without her, no one in America would be reading anything I'd written. I'd also like to say a special thank you to David Watson and Katherine Beitner at HarperCollins.

I've been racing against time to get my website redesigned to showcase The Sea Garden, and thanks to Judy Barrett it is all up and running. If you would like to read the opening of the novel, it is there now, along with a reading guide, though it might be an idea not to look at that too closely beyond the first page or so before reading the book, as there are a few spoilers.

So, it's over to you now! Do let me know what you make of it.

The Lantern - out now!

Very exciting times here, as The Lantern goes on sale in the USA and Canada. What you will see (I hope!) is its subtly mysterious cover and, with any luck, be reminded it was a book that might prove interesting. From my point of view, it is a thrilling moment tinged with some concern that it won’t repay my publishers’ faith in it, but mostly joyous amazement that I finally made it across the Atlantic with my sixth novel to be published.

And also a great deal of gratitude for what has gone on behind the scenes: first of all to my magnificent literary agent Stephanie Cabot, whom I first met in London when she was head of the august William Morris Agency. My great friend Felicia – who knew her – told me in no uncertain terms to stop flailing about and go for the top. I’m so pleased I dared, and have been for a long time now. What was even better was that Stephanie never even saw the letter I’d sent with my book, The Art of Falling, telling her that we had a connection – she called me in for a meeting because she liked the book.

Stephanie is now back in New York at The Gernert Company, where Rebecca Gardner, Will Roberts and Anna Worrell have also worked tirelessly in my behalf.



I was so, so lucky that The Lantern found its perfect editor at HarperCollins, in Jennifer Barth. Despite having been published before, I was not prepared for the infinite care and understanding that Jennifer gave my words, and the way we would work together with such productive empathy. I simply can’t praise her highly enough.

Also at HarperCollins, Jason Sack, Mark Ferguson and Olga Gardner Galvin have done a fantastic job. Many, many thanks too to Kathy Schneider, Tina Andreadis, Leah Wasielewski, Tiffany Woo, and the magnificent library team led by Virginia Stanley and Kayleigh George.

When I went to New York for BEA this May, I was introduced to the whirlwind that is Katherine Beitner, the publicist for the book, who not only kept me up to date with everything going on around us, and made sure everything went like clockwork, but kept me laughing and relaxed thoughout. I knew she was good – very good – but I had no idea she was going to get reviews of The Lantern in the Wall Street Journal and Oprah’s magazine, in Redbook magazine, and, astonishingly, in the past few days: USA Today (click here) and now as the lead book review in this week’s People magazine! (Not available online, sadly.) Katherine, I salute you - what a star!  

So there you are, so many more people that I haven’t mentioned by name, including the all-important Harper sales teams, who are behind one small book. Whoever would have thought all this would happen, when I sat down at my desk nearly three years ago to start writing a quiet but disturbing story about a shy, bookish young woman who finds herself living in France with a gorgeous but strangely secretive older man…? Certainly not me.

So it’s over to the readers now. I so hope you find things to enjoy in it, and that you’ll let me know if you do.

New York: books and jazz

I’ve been far away from Provence this past week, and from the blog world for that matter – having the most wonderful time in New York. Book-related matters dominated with the huge Book Expo America book fair.

The hotel was a few minutes away from Saks and the Rockefeller Center. The Stars and Stripes fluttered from every flagpole in readiness for Memorial Day weekend; sailors in pristine whites roamed around like modern day Sinatra’s and Kelly’s in On The Town. I hadn’t expected the trademark New York wit to be in such full flow all around, or the sky-high levels of friendliness to match the soaring towers.

The first night there was a party at The Park down by the water in Chelsea, given by HarperCollins where I was introduced, among others, to some of the loveliest lady librarians anyone could hope to meet. Then it was off - in another shiny black limo, natch – to dinner with my fabulous literary agent Stephanie Cabot, and to toast the night, exactly a year ago, that this dream scenario began with the sale of the manuscript.

The next day I was signing galley copies of The Lantern at BEA, trying to master the art of talking and writing at the same time while meeting booksellers, avid readers and many more lovely librarians. It was exciting and frenetic – like being in the centre of a whirlpool. We had to close the line because we ran out of books but these early copies have been so beautifully produced it’s not surprising they were in demand. Also, something of a collector’s item as the cover is being changed for the main edition, as it is in the UK.

It’s only fitting that I pay tribute here to my American editor, Jennifer Barth. It has been an absolute joy to work with her, and she has taken such infinite care with this book. Huge thanks too to everyone at HC that I’ve been working with – many of whom I met in person for the first time on this trip – especially Mark Ferguson, Jason Sack and the scintillating Katherine Beitner, publicist extraordinare. At The Gernert Company, the literary agency, I met David Gernert and the team working with Stephanie for my book: Rebecca Gardner, Will Roberts and Anna Worrell.

That evening, after emerging shell-shocked from the BEA signing at the vast Javits Center, I went down to East Village where the very funny and laconic British author Helen Smith was reading excerpts from her work as part of a Guerrilla Lit performance with other writers at Bar on A. She kicked off with the opening of her novel Alison Wonderland, a new edition of which is published in August, and had us all hooked right from the start. Have a look at the video of her on her blog, linked here, reading her short story Aubergine. I challenge you not to laugh out loud!

Another night, I met up with my friend from university days, the musician and jazz vocalist Alexandra Frederick. Alex took us from live jazz in Greenwich Village and dinner, to the amazing piano cabaret of Mr “Chicken Delicious” the artist formerly known as Hunter Blue at Mimi’s Piano Bar and Restaurant. I simply can’t resist reliving and sharing some memorable moments there…

Then, when Alex was invited to play and sing, she obliged with a short set that culminated in a superb rendition of Billy Joel’s New York State of Mind. It was just perfect.