I am delighted to show off the fabulous UK paperback cover for Susan Dennard’s Truthwitch! We at Tor Books UK have been blown away by the amazing response to our previous covers—both the hardback cover and the early reading copy (seen below). And of course US readers loved the US edition, too. Truthwitch fans are just the best!
But we felt the response to our early reading copy was something special. This led us to wonder… could we give UK readers something different again for the paperback, something that was in fact more like that early copy?
And just LOOK at the final cover below—we’ve done it and think it’s really special. A huge thanks to Justine in the Pan Macmillan UK design department and to the talented Sasha Vinogradova for making this happen. Justine really wanted Sasha for this cover as she’s the same person who created these Game of Thrones house symbols and how cool is that?!
Justine could only speak to Sasha for about four hours a day from London due to the time difference, as Sasha is based in California. And the design process to create raised symbols of this sort is a particularly complex one, as an early sketch is worked up so it can be rendered in 3D. And that part takes absolutely ages apparently. Here’s the early sketch, and below you’ll see the final cover itself (heart eyes)!
Susan was involved throughout and was really on board with our ideas. We talked a LOT about Witchlands heraldry, creatures and iconography. In the end I had pages of ideas and images and think Susan might have the energy of several people in one – plus she has the whole Witchlands world in her head. Susan’s feedback on what symbols we might use and why was so valuable. She even drew the early, first symbol which the illustrator developed into the final thing – behold the seafox!
This was really appropriate as the sea fox is a symbol of Nubrevna, one of the main territories in the Witchlands. As such, it would be depicted on Prince Merik of Nubrevna’s coat of arms, who is of course a key player in the book. It’s also supposed to be black and teal—pretty much the colours of the UK ARC—so we were drawn to that! Lastly, the protagonists do face a sea fox in Truthwitch, and they do go to Nubravna too. So many reasons.
So Truthwitch fans—what do you think?
The paperback edition of Truthwitch publishes January 2017 from Tor Books UK. We’re also looking forward to the second book in the series, Windwitch—its hardback cover will be in the same style as the hardback for Truthwitch. It is nearly ready, and I just can’t wait to share this with you, too!
