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Posts Tagged ‘cover art’

La Detective

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

My Italian publisher, Mondadori, just sent me the cover for their edition of Spy, which will be published in March. Its title is La Detective. Note how artificially calm I sound, in these few sentences.

La Detective, published by Mondadori

Here’s the full dust jacket:

And now, the truth: I screamed like a girly-girl when I saw this. I can’t get over it. I love the use of period photographs, the wrought-iron ornamentation around the title, the flash of pink. If I were in the mood to cavil, I’d point out that Mary never, ever uses a gun – but what the hell. It’s not as though a handkerchief or a pen would be a good substitute.

God, it’s exquisite.

Sigh.

Tags: A Spy in the House, cover art, Italy, victorian
Posted in A Spy in the House, Books, General News | 6 Comments »

Spy: the American cover

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Occasionally, I worry that all I do in this blog is squee about the Agency’s cover art. If you share that concern, you will be sadly disappointed because this week, I’m at it again.

Candlewick Press has just sent me the cover for A Spy in the House, which will be published on March 9, 2010 as a hardcover. Remember the images from that photo shoot I posted a few weeks ago? Well, here’s the final product from the hands of the amazing Caroline Lawrence. And I love it.

I love it.

I hope you do, too.

A Spy in the House - US cover

Tags: A Spy in the House, cover art, hardcover, photo shoot, US
Posted in A Spy in the House, Books | 10 Comments »

Giddy excitement (with catastrophe for dessert)

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

I’m taking a break from writing FAQs (they’ll be back next week) because I have 2 things to say today. The first is:
OMG! OMG! LOOK! AT! THIS!
Walker Books have completely redesigned the covers for The Agency. I can now share with you the new artwork for the second book in the trilogy, THE BODY AT THE TOWER, which will be published in the UK next year.

The Body at the Tower (Walker Books, September 2010)

I can’t decide what I like best: the period-perfect font? The way the Houses of Parliament are backlit to just the right degree of spooky/familiar? The “aged” effect around the edges? Maybe it’s just the sum total. In any case, I’m thrilled to bits (as if that wasn’t quite obvious.) And the designer, Patrick Insole (who did the cover for SPY, too), kept the old logo in the bottom right hand corner – YAY!

My second announcement today is that my friend Sarah is a genius. Specifically, she’s a paranoid-yet-deeply-rational genius who’s created a website that displays the contents of her brain in a terrifying yet witty manner. She is The Catastrophizer and I suggest you study with her forthwith.

Tags: cover art, The Agency, The Body at the Tower, UK
Posted in Books, General News, The Body at the Tower | 2 Comments »

Mary Quinn, Master Spy!

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

That’s how the German series title translates into English. And here are the German covers from publisher Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (DTV). Here’s the preliminary version I first saw a few months ago.

I thought that was it. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I got something completely new:

And I like this version so much more. What do you think?

Tags: A Spy in the House, cover art, DTV, Germany
Posted in A Spy in the House, Books, General News | 1 Comment »

Agency photo shoot!

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

I literally did cartwheels when Deb Wayshak, my editor at Candlewick (she’s a novelist, too – prolific and critically acclaimed and thus, y’know, not intimidating AT ALL) told me they’d commissioned a photo shoot for the US edition of SPY. While I love the elegant, glowing UK cover, I was so curious to see how other people imagined Mary Quinn. The final cover is not quite ready for the world but its designer, Caroline Lawrence, took some behind-the-scenes snapshots of the cover shoot so that we could all participate, too.

: The model is Amber Ahlquist of Click Model, wearing typically elaborate undergarments. Wardrobe stylist Crystal Thompson is an authority on all decades and details of Victorian costume.

: Corsets were often tight enough to rearrange one’s internal organs. Hopefully that’s not what’s happening here.

: The dress goes on. Victorian ladies always had help dressing, if they could afford it.

: Both stylist Crystal Thompson and makeup artist Souraya Hamdi also work on 30 Rock. They do, they do! That puts me at one degree of separation from Tina Fey!