Today I’ve been exploring ways of having a cover designed for my new novel, Paper Lanterns. This is a digression. I’d intended to post an account about what happens to a book (in my case, anyway) between the time it’s been accepted by a publisher (what joy!!) and the actual publication date.

This whole blog, Writing Matters, has turned me into a time-traveller, taking me back and forth over more than two decades (with additional interruptions each Sunday when I post my Poem of the Week), and since I’d been remembering my feelings of delight when I was sent the first piece of A4 cardboard showing the front and back cover and the spine for The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society it seemed like a good time to start thinking seriously about the cover for Paper Lanterns.

Browsing through book shops and handling their various covers, has brought home to me that, whatever people might say about not judging a book by its cover, if the cover doesn’t attract the person doing the browsing in the first place, they won’t even pick it up, still less, read the ‘blurb’ on the back and start to make any kind of judgement.

So I opened my copy of my first published book and checked out the name of the company that had produced the cover - Baseline Arts Ltd, Oxford. They’d done a good job with mine and many of the other Transita novels so I looked them up on the web and rang them.

By the end of our conversation, I had a clearer understanding of the importance of the wording on the back cover. I wrote my brief description many months ago now - it’s what I’ve put up on the ‘My Novels’ page above. But then I decided it needed some amendment, so that’s part of what I’ve been doing today -It’s taken me ages to complete this version - and I’ll probably want to tinker with it some more tomorrow. For an experienced writer, I’m ridiculously slow, especially at writing short pieces. Here’s today’s version.

Any commments will be welcomed - and when I’ve got two or three versions of the front cover, I’ll be asking for your opinions too - though that’ll be a while yet.

PAPER LANTERNS

Told with insight and compassion, this novel moves between Hong Kong, Norfolk and the Midlands, and shows how the consequences of an act of infidelity have shaped the lives of three generations of women.

After a phone call from her younger brother, Ann travels to Hong Kong in search of the truth about their scandalous mother, Vivienne. Here, she discovers a series of letters and journal-entries which reveal a secret about her beloved grandmother’s early life that challenges her most deeply felt convictions. Ann must also face up to her own part in an event which took place just before her sixteenth birthday, and caused the break-up of the family.

Hong Kong itself, with its exotic mix of old and new in the bustling urban districts, and the quiet charm of beautiful Lamma Island, plays a key part in Ann’s reappraisal of her own life and marriage, and the unexpected dilemma that confronts her.