Cover Reveal: Fallen Love

Hail readers!

It is time for me to reveal the cover for Fallen Love, my upcoming new book. You will have seen hints of it on the Magical Realm (thanks to the redesign) and on Goodreads if you looked. This is also, technically, the ebook cover—the paperback design will contain some additional text, as well as a beautiful back cover. Nonetheless, this is the official cover real!

I have already received ecstatic feedback from my beta readers and fans, but if you would like to share your thoughts, please leave a comment below.

Now you may be wondering: how did it come about? What inspired the design? What does the cover represent? Well, I am going to answer these questions right now.

How did it come about?

This is not the first draft the designer sent me—far from it. The very first draft was OK—at least my readers thought so—but I didn’t think it was a very good representation of the story. It contained all of the elements from the book (Mark, the main character; the mutants; the landscapes) yet it just didn’t look thematically on-point.

I also wasn’t a fan of the circle-thing at the top. In principle, it should have represented one of Kaylin’s spells, but it just looked weird.

The next draft my designer sent me would form the basis for the final version of the cover, but it was still a long way from the finished product. The concept was right—I wanted to show Mark on a background of wings—but the colour scheme and typography served to give the wrong impression. It looked like a scifi cover, not a romantic urban fantasy story.

It took several more variations on this concept to get it right. Ultimately, my designer did the best work once I gave him a mockup—although my graphic design skills are crude, it helped him to understand what I really wanted.

So, if you need a good book cover in the fantasy or scifi genre, I can recommend Hampton Lamoureux. You will find him on Reedsy.

What was the inspiration?

Two covers really inspired me for the design. The first was the Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series by the much-loved urban fantasy author, Cassandra Clare. The connection here was obvious—the books are very similar in content, characters and themes to the story of Fallen Love. The wings on Heavenly Fire are a graphical connection to the books. Still, from a design perspective, my cover is rather different from the Cassandra Clare books.

Enter Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick. The design inspiration here is more obvious: it’s the feathers. Yet Hush, Hush has quite a minimalist design, which my designer clearly noticed and tried to replicate. The cover didn’t really work with only a few feathers, it turned out—what it needed was a lot of feathers.

What does it represent?

I will try not to spoil too much of the story here! The winged figure is of course the main character. I really loved how the blue fire interacted with the gold font and red background—the blue fire is one of the main character’s demonic powers, you see. The feathers serve up background, and also hint at the presence of multiple demons. (No, you didn’t hear this from me!)

In other news, I am also working hard on my consultant’s advice, and I’ve been making a few changes here on the Magical Realm—as the previous post alluded to. You can now sign up to my mailing list and receive a free short story when it comes out. No, I am not saying more than that. You will have to wait a little longer for a title and cover reveal on the short story!