A Cover for THE GARDEN INTRIGUE
I am thrilled to unveil the cover for The Garden Intrigue!
As some of you know, there was a slight kerfuffle over the cover for The Orchid Affair. (You can read the full story here.) So this time, my editor and I went through this cover together, every step of the way. Since fine art covers were no longer on the table, we found a model who looked like Emma, with her flyaway straight blond hair. We decked her out in bling, like Emma. (Emma is not subtle about her jewelry use.) And, since the book takes place largely at Malmaison, you can see the rose in her hand, a nod to Josephine’s famous gardens.
If you want to know some of the nitty gritty that goes into these book designs, check out that rose on the side. We had already used a rose for The Seduction of the Crimson Rose— but we all wanted a rose for Josephine’s garden. So the art department found a very different kind of rose. Mary’s rose was deep red and finely etched, rather like Mary. Emma, on the other hand, gets pink roses, a little bit windblown, just like Emma. Neat, no?
The Garden Intrigue comes out on February 16th…. Stay tuned for more!
LOVE the colors! I’m definitely liking it a lot, glad you were able to give plenty of input.
I like it a lot – the colors are fabulous! Glad you had plenty of input.
It’s very bright, but I’m sure the heroine will be bright too! I am so happy about this book cover!!
The colors are very eye-catching. I like the background. It all seems to fit with the book very well.
I chuckled a little at ‘slight kerfluffle.’ That was one way to put it!
My goodness, this is such a beautiful cover! I really love it! I hope they’re going to keep it just as it is for the paperback edition!
Thanks for your time and efforts on this from the get-go. It’s a great cover! (And I especially like that your name is nice and BIG on this book!)
Love the colors! Beautiful really! I can’t wait for it to be Feb:-) you have made me an addict to your books.:-) Just a quick question why are the fine art covers off the table?( Not a complaint just wondering. )
Thanks, Laura! About the fine art covers, honestly, I don’t really know. Publishing goes through trends like everything else, and I gather that one is now “out”. But if I can’t have a fine art cover, I’m so glad they came up with this!
Meep! I’m glad you are keeping the style of the book (flowers and sealed paper footer) I can’t wait!
Picked up “Carnation” again today… I had forgotten how much its like a warm, inviting blanket. Can’t wait to get back into the series!
I’m so glad you had so much input in this cover! I love that you kept the parchment band & the flowers (so pretty!) in the bottom corner. The background gardens are lovely – so cheerful & bright! I hope the trend comes back to fine art covers, though. They really made your books stand out. Plus we got to see the heroine’s full face, rather than half cut-off. 😉
Thank you for your efforts to make this cover as perfect as possible!
SO BEAUTIFUL!!!! I love the bright colors – I think I’m going to love Emma. 🙂 So glad they got it right the first time for you. Can’t wait for this one!!!
I have to say that I loved the fine art covers, but the new one is beautiful, too. In the end, it all comes down to whatever sells books, and I guess you have to trust your marketing team on that score.
I started buying your books in PB but, when they became available on Kindle, I switched over to that format. I now have the whole set on Kindle–yay.
The only bad part about Kindle (or even the color iPad) is that, even when the cover art is included, it’s just not the same. After initially buying a book off a relatively small computer screen where I can’t see much of the cover to start with, I don’t then spend any further time looking at it on the e-reader screen. I guess the flip-side is that I’m less likely to be put off by bad cover art. (I’m speaking of other books here, not yours!) Either way, it’s less of an influence as to whether I buy/enjoy a book. I really am less inclined to judge an e-book by its cover.
Speaking of artwork, where my mother lives there’s a copy of Francois Flameng’s Reception at Malmaison in one of the lobbies. I have to say that I love it, and it makes me think of the Carnation books every time I step off the elevator and see it.
It’s nice, but I still miss original. *sighs* BUT I CAN NOT WAIT TO READ IT!
I don’t think the font for your name looks nice with the rest of the cover, but the cover itself is simply gorgeous! I love the colours!
It looks wonderful! I squealed when I saw it!!! Can’t wait for the new book!
I really like the bright colors! I agree with Cho that you’re name is not quite right (too big in my very humble opinion), but I love the roses (the ones in the arch, the one in her hand, the few in the corner… love them!). I’m so excited to add it to my collection! 🙂
Hey, she has a nose!! Maybe Pink X we’ll get eyes. hehe
Actually, it goes well with the Orchid Affair cover and the colors are beautiful. Will agree your name is a bit overwhelming, but since you’re the REAL star of these books, I won’t slight it at all. 🙂
Cho is right: the dark blue blends in with the background, but his is alovely cover, altho I think it is a bit paperbacky. It is very compatible with Orchid, which is also quite pretty. Whatever, I hope they sell like hotcakes.
Any word on more mass market versions?
And if anyone eants to see a beautiful cover, it’s Blood Lily’s. Totally irrelevan tot eh book, but Gorgeous.
Cho is right: the dark blue blends in with the background, but his is alovely cover, altho I think it is a bit paperbacky. It is very compatible with Orchid, which is also quite pretty. Whatever, I hope they sell like hotcakes.
Any word on more mass market versions?
And if anyone eants to see a beautiful cover, it’s Blood Lily’s. Totally irrelevan tot eh book, but Gorgeous. (the PB version)
Ha! The storming of the Bastille was a “slight kerfluffle” next to the Orchid Affair cover uprising! 🙂
I think the cover is stunning and would definitely call out to me in a bookstore. If we can’t have the fine art cover, I’m glad the elegant parchment paper and wax seal look for the title was retained. Can’t wait!
I’m sorry I’m going to differ with you all and will be brutally honest…but I do not like these new covers at all.
The fine art covers are what attracted me to the books (The History of the Pink Carnation at least) though I stuck around for the rest because of Lauren’s writing…
but these covers are not any different from the stuff you find on the racks at the drugstore.
It is too bad because the cover does not reflect the quality of the story. If I was not familiar with LW and came across the last 2 covers at Borders or Barnes & Noble, I would definitely skip it.
I agree with Lyne. I don’t like the cover. I appreciate that it does have the paper and seal for consistency… but I still don’t like it.
A local bookstore owner had Pink Carnation on her recommendation list, so I decided to check it out. I would never have started the series if the covers had looked like this one, Orchid Affair or even Mistletoe. The fine art covers are what ultimately made me decide to start reading them – by purchasing the books, not even checking them out of the library.
I switched from buying paperback to hardcovers with Blood Lily solely because I disliked the paperback cover of Blood Lily.
I read the rest because I enjoy the series… but I do avoid mentioning the series to friends partially because of the new covers and what they convey about the type of book and the type of reader (whether those conveyances are correct or not).
Coming from the male perspective, I think the cover is stunning with an understated eroticism (She’s an alluring damsel!) and the background shows similiarities to Thomas Kinkaid’s incomparable landscape paintings. The cover may draw interest/curiosity in the bookstores but all of us devotees know that word-of-mouth spreads the reputation and popularity of an author more efficiently than anything else!
The Garden Intrigue is really very pretty and eye catching. The colors are beautiful and I do like this one. I have to admit that I was a big fan of the fine art covers and made a previous comment back when the Orchid Affair cover was released. If this is the new trend in the covers, then “C’est la vie”
(translation: That’s life) True fans of Lauren Willig will buy the novels no matter what the covers look like.
I honestly think it goes in 3s. I love all of her covers, because it leaves something mysterious about them. For example: The first three just had the seal. The second set of three lost the seal, but had flowers in the corners…and the next two have seals, AND flowers. The covers are amazing, because I feel like they color the book, and they give an idea to the story. I am reading orchid affair now, and the color coordination of that book is perfect to the story. I am honestly so happy that I found this series. It never lets me down. It’s beautiful, and beautifully written.
While the cover art will not stop me from buying the book, I still have to say I don’t like the new style. It just reminds me of those taudry romance novels you see in the drug stores. The fine art covers are so beautiful and so different from other book covers. I saw The Secret History of the Pink Carnation the cover just totaly jumped out at me and I had to know what that book was about. Can’t really say that would have happened with the new cover style.
The first time I saw the Pink Carnation it was on a shelf with a bunch of books at the Good Will and it was the beautiful cover that caught my eye. It was just good fortune that the story was so great and I have gotten every book since and love them all. That said I do not like the new style of cover. It seems to put the books in the wrong catagory, as if they are just silly romances. I only purchase books that I know I will read again, the covers with the old artwork are so elegant and beautiful that it is a shame that this change has been made. I look forward to a reversal of trend soon!
I will certainly keep buying the books, but I, like several others, would not have been drawn to this cover. This is honestly the sort of cover that I would be embarrassed to been seen reading from while out and about. Yes, the colors are bright and eye-catching, but they have gone so bright that they look artificial and very “studio photography”. And what is up with the partially headless woman thing? It seems to suggest that this woman is merely a body with no brain. I hate to be so harsh on this cover, but it looks so much like the books I can find at the corner gas station. And with a title like “The Garden Intrigue” I was expecting some seriously lush and well blended colors.