WOW!
When Vanessa showed me the cover for Flight I was completely blown away. We were in Daunt Books, our backs turned from the crowd of people there for a book launch both of us safely guarding the ipad with the cover image on it.
I am so privileged that I now get to share this amazing cover, designed by Anne Glenn, with you, along with a few comments on the cover from Vanessa and Janet – from Firefly, the lucky publishers of Flight!
Annaliese x
I love book covers. I know they say don’t judge a book by a cover, but I think book covers can almost sing. Beautiful colours, design and texture can make picking up a book a real experience. That’s before you even start reading the book. I had deliberately not thought about the cover to my book because I had been warned previously that often you don’t like the cover to your first book as supposedly it never sums up the story that is in your head. The story that you have spent so long crafting. I had prepared myself to hate it and had told myself to just accept the fact, telling myself ‘be grateful your book is being published.’ Just before Christmas an email came through with nine potential covers to give me a sense of what they were thinking. I confess, I sat in my office and sobbed. I felt totally overwhelmed as I loved every single one of them and I didn’t care which one they picked. They more than summed up my story. The one they thought was their favourite was the one that I also thought would be the best one as I also thought it would appeal to boys too. That was their argument as well. They were going to send it out to get feedback and then let me know. A couple of weeks ago a final version was sent through. Again, I admit it I had a little weep. The font, the colours, the images, everything did what it was supposed to. It encompassed the story. The designer Anne Glenn had really nailed it. What a star! I can’t thank her enough.
Vanessa Harbour
The cover for Flight was designed by Anne Glenn. Anne always sends us many gorgeous ideas for every cover – the difficult part is to choose only one! This cover jumped out at me because it combined so well the different elements of the story: the horses, the danger, the war and the mountains. Vanessa’s novel is full of danger and excitement, and it’s also a very uplifting story of how two abandoned, shunned children, after terrible loss, will come to find a place that will welcome them, the way their love of horses gives them a chance to belong again. I feel this cover captured both the action and the beauty of Vanessa’s wonderful novel.
Janet Thomas – Firefly
MG Book Village 