Sunday 9 July 2017
Last Seen by Lucy Clarke
Release Date: 19th May 2017
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publisher: HarperCollins
Genres: Crime / Mystery / Thriller
Seven
years ago, two boys went missing at sea – and only one was brought to
shore. The Sandbank, a remote stretch of coast dotted with beach huts,
was scarred forever.
Sarah’s
son survived, but on the anniversary of the accident, he disappears
without trace. As new secrets begin to surface, The Sandbank hums with
tension and unanswered questions. Sarah’s search grows more desperate
and she starts to mistrust everyone she knows – and she’s right to.
Someone saw everything on that fateful day seven years ago. And they’ll do anything to keep the truth buried.
Twisty, pacy, and superbly plotted, Last Seen is the perfect psychological page-turner for fans of Clare Mackintosh and Sabine Durrant.
GUEST POST FROM LUCY CLARKE
DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER
Fancy coming behind-the-scenes with me to discover how the
book jacket for LAST SEEN was created? My publisher, HarperCollins, have an
incredibly talented team of designers, who work tirelessly on creating
eye-catching book covers. I was lucky enough to be involved in the design
process from the get go.
Step 1: Choosing a title
We wanted a title that was not only appealing, but also
helped position the novel clearly as a psychological thriller. After several
weeks of batting ideas back and forth, my editor suggested LAST SEEN. I loved
it immediately and we approved it that day. Here are some of the more sea-themed
title ideas that I originally brainstormed:
·
The Waves At Our Door
·
Undercurrent
·
Saltwater
·
Her Secret
·
The Darkest Summer
·
A Mother’s Truth
·
The Drowning
·
Strange Light
·
The Sandbank
·
The Whispering Huts
·
The Whispering Tide
·
Wild Light
·
Night Wave
·
Backwash
·
Not this Tide
·
Tides will break
·
Dark Summer
·
The Silver Sea
·
Wild Swimming
·
Lost in the light
·
Through the dark
·
Towards the sun
·
When the sea stands still
·
A blink of the sky
·
Oceans between us
Step 2: Image
selection
Once we had a title in place, I took a trip to London to
discuss the cover direction with my editor. She presented me with a series of
images selected by the design team. After looking closely at each of them, we
decided that we loved two options: a water-based image, or an image peering through
a gap in two beach huts, setting the reader as voyeur.
Here are some of the original images:
Step 3: Cover
concepts
Once we had some key images selected, it was over to the
design team to do their magic and come up with a range of concepts. These were
the top 6 options that my editor presented me with. Although all the options
were strong, it was a unanimous decision to go with the top left concept. We felt
that the red and blue colours were striking, and that the positioning of the
boys helped draw the readers’ gaze into the story.
Step 4: Final tweaks
The design team set about making their final tweaks, like ensuring
that the colours ‘popped’. We also decided on a tag line to capture the
suspenseful tone of the novel: Two
missing boys . . . Is anybody watching?
Meanwhile, proof copies were sent to carefully selected
authors with the aim of finding a cover quote. I was hugely excited by the
wonderful feedback, and decided to opt for a succinct quote from internationally
bestselling author, Clare Mackintosh. ‘Impossible
to put down.’
I absolutely loved being involved
in each step of the cover design for LAST SEEN. It’s fantastic to have a book
on the shelves that I can be truly proud of, inside and out. I know you’re not
supposed to judge a book by its cover, so I guess you’d better read it for
yourself 😉
Lucy x
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