cover – Katie L. Carroll

A lot of you have expressed your love for the cover of Elixir Bound, created by the talented C.K. Volnek. I, too, love this cover and really appreciate the level of detail on it…and I really can’t wait to see it on the cover of the paperback (update: looks like a late summer release date)!

So I wanted to let you all know that the Elixir Bound cover is one of You Gotta Read’s entries for the June cover contest. The entry should be posting today (entry #10), and voting starts June 21 and goes until June 26. If it places in the top 3, I’ll get some free advertising on their website.

On a less pluggy note, great weather here in CT this weekend. We took a walk to the beach on Saturday and on Sunday went strawberry picking and did the wine tasting at the farm’s winery. Love those fresh strawberries, but it was early in the season so the pickings were a bit slim. May have to go back in a couple of weeks when all those green berries are red. How was your weekend?

Today I’d like you to welcome Gayle C. Krause as she talks about the gorgeous-in-a-gritty-way cover of her debut YA novel RATGIRL: Song of the Viper.

YOU CAN JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER

Katie, thank for having me as a guest blogger on the Observation Desk. I’m thrilled to see my debut YA novel in print and e-book. You’ve asked me to talk about the awesome cover art Fiona Jayde created for RATGIRL: Song of the Viper. I don’t know how she captured the essence of the story without reading the whole novel, but she did an excellent job of catching the dark, gritty atmosphere found within the pages of the book.

Let me start with Jax Stone. She’s prominent on the cover, as she should be. Fiona has captured confidence in her amber eyes; the confidence to save her best friend from a fire, to outsmart the diabolical mayor, and to lure the city rats to their death in order to save her little brother, even if it means endangering her own life.

No one messes with Jax Stone once she has her mind set on something. Intelligent, strong-willed and gifted with a hypnotic singing voice, she’s so busy taking care of her makeshift orphan family, it’s not until she meets Colt Conrad, that she discovers she can love someone other than her little brother.

Colt Conrad stands behind her, on the cover and in the story. Global warming has devastated the Earth, and the golden sun Colt wears around his neck is one of the four keys the ECOS, an environmental group, set up generations before to ensure the Earth’s survival. Together, Jax and Colt must find the other three.

The homeless fight to survive, in a dying city, where rats outnumber the citizens, and the deadly daytime sun forces them to live underground. Night is the only time they dare venture to the surface to seek food, or to barter their services. The darkness of the cover portrays the dangerous night and the characters’ treacherous lives perfectly.

The gray and white rat that dots the i in RATGIRL represents the rats in Metro City.

The buildings in the background, against the full moon, the main source of light for the homeless, are the tyrannical mayor’s headquarters. He directs the city’s entire power source to himself, and his corporation. He has no regard for human life, and Jax must outwit him to save her brother.

And lastly, the font Fiona chose is vaguely reminiscent of rattails. 🙂

Hope our discussion of the stimulating cover for RATGIRL: Song of the Viper inspires your audience to read Jax’s story. It’s available through Noble Romance Publishing, Amazon, and other retail outlets as an e-book and will be out in paperback soon.