Thursday, August 6, 2009

A New Cover for Larbalestier's "Liar"

As an update to Justine Larbalestier's cover of Liar--two posts down there's an explaantion and discussion of the issue--Bloomsbury has redesigned the book jacket for the US hardcover release. The details are on Larbalestier's blog.

Personally, I love that they maintained the form/style of the black and white cover, but this is in color, with a young woman much truer to Larbalestier's character. It looks great. Her eyes are especially striking, IMO.

Behold:

(If it looks a little blurry, definitely follow the link above and see a larger version and hear the tale in Larbalestier's own words.)
What's wonderful is that, although this is a single, highly vocal occurrence in the blogosphere, hopefully sales of this book will prove to publishers that the excuse "books with black people on the cover don't sell" is outdated and false. I don't usually buy hardcover books, but I may just have to pick this one up when it's released. (I really do love the eyes, they're very compelling.)

1 comment:

JenniferWriter said...

I agree: it's encouraging that this author was able to speak out and her publisher listened. The cover looks great--better than the first, in my opinion. I have to say, they managed to find an incredibly light skinned black woman but...I guess it's a compromise.