Tag Archives: Southern Discomfort cover art

Yep, no movie reviews today, either. That’s because after soooo fricking long, Southern Discomfort is finally available for sale. Print book here, ebook on various sites here. Amazon ebook here. I’ve added it to my list of self-published books from the Behold the Book imprint here.

Here’s the cover synopsis: “It’s May 1973 and Maria Esposito has spent three years as a wanted fugitive. Constantly on the run, she never lets anyone get close.
Now torrential floods have trapped her in Pharisee Georgia, in the middle of an FBI investigation. Maria needs to keep a low profile; too bad the murder victim’s widow insists she can help solve the case. The county sheriff makes it clear saying no is not an option.
The FBI soon becomes the least of Maria’s problems. There’s the hostile ravens. The homicidal horse. The living shadow warning her to leave town or die. Maria has no choice but to run, even though something monstrous is threatening Pharisee. Something only she can stop.
Maria tells herself she doesn’t give a damn. She can’t afford to give a damn.
She has a grim feeling she’s not going to listen …”

Here’s the cover, courtesy of the amazing Sam Collins.

It has been such a long road, it’s hard to believe it’s done. For anyone who’s curious, I’ve been looking back at the novel s creation and development in a series on this blog. Today, though, I thought I’d discuss something different: what are all those people/things doing on the cover of the book?

I feel pretty damn pleased with myself for this book.

The woman: Maria Esposito, Army nurse in ‘nam turned anti-war activist, now a federal fugitive. She doesn’t want to be the hero; she may not have a choice.

The cloaked figure: Gwalchmai, my antagonist. He’s on a 300-year-old mission of revenge that won’t stop until Olwen McAlister is dead. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone else but when push comes to shove, he will.

The cat: Gwalchmai gained powers from a ritual, the taghairm, that involves roasting live cats on a spit for four days straight; one cat dies, he roasts a new one. The cats of Pharisee can smell his crimes against their kin and they want revenge.

The freaky-looking hand: the hand of glory, a mystic talisman that puts people to sleep and unlocks doors. To make it you cut off the hand of a hanged man and cover it with corpse fat. Georgia’s not currently hanging anyone so Gwalchmai hanged someone himself.

The clouds and lightning: After 300 years, Aubric and Olwen McAlister were the secret monarchs of Pharisee County. They and the land were one. With Aubric already murdered, nature is running wild. The county is coping with a rainstorm like it’s never seen before.

The creepy house: there’s a couple of ’em.

I feel really pleased I wrote this. Hopefully lots of readers will be too.

Samantha Collins and I are almost done with the cover of Southern Discomfort.

We’ve got the image set, more or less what I showed you in January. Plus title and my name.

Here we have Maria and one of the many pissed-off cats in the story staring down Gwalchmai, clutching the hand of glory. I’m happy with it but we still have some technical details to make it pass muster with Amazon.

But with the cover done, I’ve set a release date for the ebook July 11 (this might change). I’ll have it ready for pre-order within a week or so. It’s finally going to happen.

And here’s the cover copy:

“Travel back to Georgia in 1973, as Lt. Maria Esposito experiences — Southern Discomfort.
For the past three years Maria’s been a wanted fugitive, constantly on the run, never letting anyone get close. Now torrential floods have trapped her in tiny Pharisee Georgia, where the FBI is investigating a terrorist bombing. Maria’s only hope is to keep a low profile until the rain ends.
Too bad for her that the victim’s widow, an unearthly beauty named Olwen McAlister, claims only Maria can bring the killer to justice. The Pharisee sheriff takes Olwen’s “visions” seriously: either Maria agrees to help or he’ll find a reason to lock her up.
It gets worse from there. Suddenly Maria is the target of hostile ravens, a homicidal horse, and a living shadow warning her to leave town or die. Cats everywhere are yowling with rage. Maria’s seeing things her grandmother would have called malocchia, evil magic. Magic isn’t real, Maria knows that, but she has no other explanation.
If she stays in Pharisee either the shadow kills her or the FBI sends her to prison for life. Trouble is, something monstrous is looming: if Maria doesn’t stick around to fight it, innocent people will die. Maria tells herself she doesn’t give a damn. She can’t afford to give a damn. 
She has a grim feeling in her gut that she’s not going to listen …
Southern Discomfort is a standalone intrusion/urban/Southern fantasy novel. It includes multiple POV characters, several woman protagonists and multiple POC. The spaniel lives. The villain does kill a cat. It will appeal to fans of Alex Bledsoe, Tom Deitz, Luanne Bennett and Charles DeLint’s Jack the Giant Killer.”

I debated adding a statement that I did not use AI, but I don’t think that’s necessary. I do hope that sounds intriguing.
 

Last month I blogged about my designer’s initial Southern Discomfort cover designs. I gave feedback, Sam came back with fresh suggestions.

I suggested that as the hand of glory — a black-magic talisman made out of the hand of a hanged man — plays a large role in the book, that would be a useful visual sign of the fantasy element. With that guidance and the other thoughts discussed at the link, Sam sent me these.

As you can see, the first one captures the Gothic feel of some of Sam’s first designs, plus it gets that Maria, my protagonist, isn’t wearing a dress. We’ve got the hand of glory, the ruined Southern mansion, one of the malevolent crows running through the book. The second two are modeled on one of the less literal covers in Sam’s first set, conveying Maria’s vagabond status. The newspaper in #3 suggests the era.

For another non-literal cover Sam offered this one.

Here we’ve got vagabond and ravens, with the feathers catching fire to suggest something’s not normal.

#4 is cute and distinctive but it looked a little too rom-com for me. #3, despite the hand of glory and the newspaper, didn’t work well at all.

#2 I like. It’s a way to work in multiple different elements, it stands out … but like the similar cover in the first five it doesn’t suggest the dark aspects of the book.

#1 worked best. I gave Sam more feedback — the hand of glory should be smaller, I’d like to get Gwalchmai and a cat (cats play an important background role in the book) on the cover — and let her get to work.

The results? I’ll get to them soon.

All art by Samantha Collins. All rights reside with current owners.

My trusty cover artist Samantha Collins has been a bit busy but she’s getting back to finishing up the cover for Southern Discomfort. In the meantime, as I can’t do a cover reveal yet, I thought I’d go over the process that led up to it.

I began thinking about covers last year, as I blogged about here, here and here. Possibilities included “character stares out of cover surrounded with magical elements” as in Orin Sale’s cover here—

Or an action cover like Jason Chan’s work here.

There’s Clyde Caldwell’s “colorful cast” imagery for Chrome Born —

— or the moody, evocative look of Alex Bledsoe’s first Tufa novel (art was uncredited)

My initial suggestions were: 1)Maria and Olwen facing off. 2)A more symbolic cover with Gwalchmai, hooded and sinister, at the center and other key characters around him. But there was also the challenge of conveying Southern Discomfort is a historical fantasy set in 1973. I had no idea how to get that across; Maria’s simply not dressed distinctively enough (denim jacket, jeans) and nobody else is really.

Due to some email screwups it took us a while to get further. Once we sorted them out, Sam sent me six mockups back in February. Here’s the first two.

These first two drew from 1970s novel covers (the one on the right was a real book), with a font from that era. They’re representational because “this era was likely to depict setting and characters directly from the book.” That gives a feel for the era but with the risk that the book would look like it was a reissue rather than a new release, “so if we go in that direction, it needs to be obvious to the point of pastiche.”

Choices three and four were less representational but retained the old-school font. On the left side it’s setting and tone; the second one is more tone and character.

Finally we have two abstract covers. The left one mixes the contents of the handbag — including an occult symbol and a travel ticket, reflecting Maria’s only passing through Pharisee Georgia. The second cover shows a classic Southern manor facade and hints at something dark beneath it.

I liked the middle row right-hand one quite a bit; with tweaking it could fit the scene where Gwalchmai confronts Maria in the hospital. I liked the bottom left one too, though it felt too light-hearted, almost like a rom-com.

Next I turned to my brains trust, my siblings and my BFF Cindy. I got a mix of responses but they all favored the right-hand images, with some changes (bolder lettering on the bottom right, for instance). My own thoughts (I didn’t save the one I wrote Sam so I can’t swear this is exactly right) were that the middle and bottom right worked better than Tule Witch; if we did put Maria on the cover, she should be in jeans; I did like the Southern mansion in the background of the top and bottom right; and that we needed more obviously supernatural elements, preferably tied to the stuff in the book, such as the Hand of Glory (a magical talisman made from a hanged man’s hand).

I’ll get to the next phase next week.