This second series of cover images for Mary Stewart romantic suspense novels started with the goal of doing a radically different treatment from the first approach. Since that one was built on textures, layers, and motifs from antique engravings, this one is contemporary and clean, with no superimposed images or layers at all. The 1950s, when Stewart published her first novels, are indirectly referenced in the stylized sunburst graphic that appeared in textiles and home goods during that decade, and the color combinations reference some of the palettes beloved in the decades in which the novels appeared even more indirectly. Since this approach is so pared down, it needed a real "pop." The photographs in the center of each cover image provide that. Each began as a straightforward, realistic photo of or related to the setting of the novel I was covering; a photo manipulation app began the transformation of each into something more "rich and strange" (to quote The Tempest, a shaping motif in Stewart's This Rough Magic), and further work with shading and contrast did the rest.
Covers for books that are part of a series (whether a series of standalone books in the same genre and style, as with Stewart, or successive installments about the same characters) need to "read" as related and yet also distinct...recognizable as part of a group, yet impossible to confuse with each other. This approach demonstrates how much color can do to create that balance between similarity and difference. The layout and black backgrounds are identical in each cover, but the strong hues of the type and sunburst firmly identify each as a different book. Keeping the type of the book title both large and prominent also helps.
Of my three cover approaches, this is the one that moves the furthest from the mood, genre and era of Stewart's novels. It's the type of cover meant to grab attention and attract a new audience, and would be paired with carefully wrought back-cover and sales text to offer a more literal context for the books.
The entire group is here; individual covers appear at larger sizes in subsequent posts.
