OUOC – The Cover Art

The cover art for Once Upon Our Childhood was designed by Carmen Sutherland of Spark Creative.

This was an amazing design process dating back to 2014 – I secretly believe I’ve tried the hell out of Carmen’s patience over the years but she has been quite gracious every single time I have reached out to her, including just the past month.

Anyway, she read the hell out of the book and then created a hell of a cover! What does the cover have to do with the book, you say? I just see swirls of pink and purple, and an angry bird.

Sacrilege, don’t say that again! Ha, on a serious note, I recommend selecting the print version so you can explore the full cover at length but what Carmen has brilliantly done is include a subtle foreshadowing of the journey each main character travels.

Starting from the front cover, you’ll likely pick up that bird (nobody can miss that and I won’t disclose the species), a tree (again, won’t disclose what kind), a needle, a razor, what else? … and then as you make your way to the back cover, a bottle spilling out liquid, and three rings. You’ll come to see the relevance of each of these items as the plot unfolds.

Needless to say, I LOVED Carmen’s idea of embedding in the cover meaningful markers that represent key milestones in the period the readers spend with the girls, and I hope you end the book happily connecting all the dots.

Enjoy the treasure hunt when Once Upon Our Childhood goes live Jul 7 (and in interim, a snapshot of the first cover mock-up)!

P.S. – Quick plug that OUOC is now available for pre-order on additional eBook retailers, and in print on Amazon! Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the Amazon print version will be available for shipping to Nigeria so I’m exploring local print options. If you’d like to be notified when that is available, click the button below!

L.