Photo Credit: Portrait of Sonya Knips, Gustav Klimt, 1898, oil on canvas, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, Austria: Aavindraa/Wikimedia Commons/PD Old 100
The cover for my upcoming book The Specter is here!
For most authors, every cover has a story behind it. For me, my fiction is all about the characters and my covers are all about people. My fiction is also all about people in the context of their time grappling with their own past. I wanted a cover that would reflect this.
When I started coming up with ideas on how I could convey this about The Specter, the idea of featuring a woman in a pink dress came to mind immediately. The pink dress and the woman with red hair relate to a character in the book and the painting I used reflects a portrait of that character mention in the book and its effect on Vivian Alderdice, the main character of the series. I can’t give away more than that just yet – you’ll have to read the book to make the connection.
I’ve always adored old paintings and old images and this one by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt caught my eye right away. On the one hand, the woman (identified in the title as Sonya Knips) is the picture of late 19th century womanhood in her pretty in pink dress, her right hand clasping a pink handkerchief demurely at her knee, the picture of innocence. On the other, there is a defiance in the way her eyes stare directly at you, the way she is leaning forward a little with her left hand grasping the arm of the chair in which she sits. Some of this isn’t visible in my cover but you can see the full painting and learn more about its background here.
Ironically, Klimt was known more for his later work as a symbolist painter which is vastly different from this painting. Symbolism was a movement that led into surrealism and the idea of making the real unreal relates to my newsletter this month, which will be sent out at the end of this week.
The buy links will be up on my website very soon. For now, you can read more about the book if here and more about the series here. You can also read an excerpt from the book here.
