Friday Flourish: Black Heart, Red Ruby

Happy Friday Everyone!

I'm super excited today to share another of my recent cover designs, this one for author Teresa Yea who I had the privilege of working with on Love in a Time of Monsters. Teresa never fails to come to me with a project that makes me positively giddy at the thought of working on it, and given how madly in love I was with the way Monsters came together I couldn't wait to team up with her again on her newest release, Black Heart, Red Ruby.

Black Heart, Red Ruby is contemporary gothic horror, so we originally discussed a design that would be dark in nature–lots of blacks and reds combining to create a bold, heavy look–with the heroine as a focal point. After submitting the first round of idea boards, Teresa and I ended up back at the drawing board, realizing the direction in which we'd been heading just wasn't suiting the story the way we'd hoped.

We came to the conclusion that we needed to simplify, keeping the design very graphic, type-driven, and full of grit and texture. You guys already know how obsessed I am with typography, so I couldn't be happier with how the final design turned out. I hope you all love it and decide to add it to your reading lists!

BLACK HEART, RED RUBY

(releases June 30th)

Ava Nolan grew up in the shadow of her father's obsession with macabre artifacts. An elixir brewed from witches’ blood. A cabinet of mummified cats. And Arabella's Curse, the missing prize in his collection: a ruby with the power to resurrect the dead. With a father who resents her existence, a dead-end job, and her expulsion from school to live down, Ava sets out to recover the ruby and reclaim her self-respect. Luckily for Ava, local legend says the ruby is buried in a crumbling mansion by the sea, not far from her new home.

But life as an amateur relic hunter is not without its share of emergency room visits. Or cutthroat competitors. And nearly plummeting to her death doesn’t terrify Ava half as much as her uncle, a gentleman grave robber with a vendetta against her father and sinister plans for the ruby.

Entangled in a web of family treachery, Ava finds solace with a lonely boy who fills her nights with stolen kisses and her head with ruby lore. But there's something strange about Ben Wolcott. He's a bit too cunning, a bit too preoccupied with keeping Ava out of his basement, and much too interested in Arabella's Curse.

Find Black Heart, Red Ruby:

Goodreads • Amazon • iBooks • Kobo • Google Play

Find Teresa:

Website • Twitter • Facebook

You can find more of my cover design work at Seedlings Design Studio!