A CARAVAN OF BRIDES Cover Reveal

The cover for A CARAVAN OF BRIDES is here!  Cover designer Louis Roe worked hard to create the perfect cover for the book. My request was to make it warm and inviting, the antithesis of covers for books about Arabia..the usual veiled women, swords, Arabian steeds, and desert dunes. I wanted an illustrated cover, and Louis is an expert in that style at his day job designing covers for Beacon Press.  Here is a wonderful blog post Louis wrote for the blog of Beacon Press about his process: Each Cover Design a Collection of Small Stories

For A CARAVAN OF BRIDES, Louis suggested we incorporate the concept of paper collage, which is a current trend in covers, as it adds a warm, three dimensional feeling. The human figures are hand-painted pieces of paper. The border is hand-drawn. The background is also hand-painted.  One of the themes of the book is the pre-modern way of life in Saudi Arabia, in which women wove and sewed their own clothing. The collage and hand-illustrated cover echoes this element.

The process that Louis went through with the cover was really interesting. First, he read the book. Then he sketched out several ideas for the cover, some really interesting elements of the plot, some just fleeting moments. We focused in on one, and Louis was off and running.

There was a stretch there where neither of us was working on it. When we returned to finish it, he came up with some new ideas. He finalized it and voila. Now, he's working on the map!

 I am so pleased with the result and hope it will be enticing to readers interested in Saudi Arabia.