Every now and again I like to mess around with the covers to my novels. I suppose it is a bit like doing a review of the manuscript, only instead of words I am using images. The first cover that I created for The Devil Within Us captured something of the feel of the book, but I was never really happy with it. I think the first point of contention for me was that it only featured one of the several major characters, Artemisia Montessori, and she was never intended to be a protagonist. However, I wanted to get the book published and at that time I really did not have any better ideas coming to me, so I let Artemisia have her way. I attempted several new covers since then, but none of them really worked. My last attempt looked more like a movie poster than a book cover; I knew then that I was going seriously wrong in my design philosophy.

One of the most annoying things about this project was that I had an idea of what I wanted, but I just could not realise it. This is something that most people who are creative have experienced. It is very frustrating, but I knew that the best way to beat it was to go and do something else for awhile. I have found it wise to keep everything. It is very easy to dismiss something and then sometime in the future realise that it was the very thing that you were looking for all along. The idea of having an old map as the background image remained very strong in my imagination, and I suddenly had a notioin of how to use it. I called up a map I had used in previous incarnations of this troublesome book cover and started to play with it. From somewhere came the impulse to draw on the map like a traveller might do to to identify places of interest, and it worked! From that little doodle on the map everything else just flowed. I limited the number of images for simplicity, made the map look old and used, and retained the devil motif as I believe it is a strong image that links the title to the book. Instead of trying to feature as many characters as possible, I decided to treat them all fairly; none of them appear on the cover!

I am much happier now with the front cover for The Devil Within Us. I would be happy to hear what anyone else thinks!