Cover Reveal: The Alchemy of Sorrow

June 29, 2022 Petrik Leo Comments 0 Comment

Hi everyone! Petrik here. We have something exciting to post today! Novel Notions will participate in revealing the cover art to The Alchemy of Sorrow, a Fantasy & Sci-fi Anthology of Grief and Hope! I haven’t read this one yet, but everything I’ve heard about it seems to be showing that this is an anthology to watch out for. And before I show you, allow me to quickly show you the details regarding the book!

Title: The Alchemy of Sorrow

Public release date: Nov. 1st 2022

ISBNs for all editions:

eBook – 978-1-952667-92-3

Hardcover – 978-1-952667-93-0

Paperback – 978-1-952667-94-7

Audiobook – 978-1-952667-95-4

Editors:

Sarah Chorn – Lead editor

Virginia McClain – acquiring editor/coordinator

Authors: M.L. Wang, K.S. Villoso, Intisar Khanani, Sonya M. Black, Angela Boord, Levi Jacobs, Krystle Matar, Virginia McClain, Quenby Olson, Carol A. Park, Madolyn Rogers, Rachel Emma Shaw & Clayton Snyder

Publisher: Crimson Fox Publishing

Pre-order link for ebooks: https://books2read.com/AoS

Pre-order link for audiobooks: https://books2read.com/AoS (currently not available for pre-order in audio but it will be in the next few months)

Print pre-orders coming soon!

And without further ado, here’s the blurb and cover art to The Alchemy of Sorrow!

Book Description:

Here be dragons and sorcery, time travel and sorrow.

Vicious garden gnomes. A grounded phoenix rider. A new mother consumed with vengeance. A dying god. Soul magic.

These stories wrestle with the experience of loss—of loved ones, of relationships, of a sense of self, of health—and forge a path to hope as characters fight their way forward.

From bestsellers and SPFBO finalists to rising voices, 13 exceptionally talented authors explore the many facets of grief and healing through the lens of fantasy and sci-fi.

About the cover illustration:

For the cover of The Alchemy of Sorrow, we wanted to create an image that was evocative of all the stories contained within its pages, without being specific to any single one of them.

Since most of our stories have female protagonists, we chose to center the image on a grieving woman. We wanted her to be a woman of color, to celebrate the diversity of our stories and authors, and to represent the majority of the world’s population. We asked the artist to portray her standing among ruins, with her grief transmuting into light, which in turn begins to transform her surroundings.

We also took inspiration from the Japanese practice of kintsugi – in which a fractured piece of pottery is restored using precious metals mixed into the lacquer so that the item’s cracks become a beautiful feature of the piece rather than a flaw to be hidden away – and we asked if the woman’s skin could feature cracks lined with gold.

From those sketchy details, Zoe Badini conceived of this stunning image of a woman standing before a broken stained-glass window, with light coming from the cracks in her skin. The light forms swallows, a symbol of rebirth, and renews the dying jasmine around her.

The cover illustration for The Alchemy of Sorrow — to the right of the image (the front cover) a woman of color stands before a broken stained glass window. Her body is riddled with glowing golden cracks. A pair of similarly glowing swallows flitter above her hands, held at chest level. She is surrounded by dead vines that curl around the window as well–here and there, a few glowing golden flowers are blooming. To the left of the image (the back cover), a pair of glowing swallows face each other in midair, framed by a few glowing flowers. The rest of the cover shows dead vines and a sense of decay, including a broken ewer.

After receiving Zoe’s gorgeous artwork, the task then went to Virginia to design a text layout that didn’t detract from it. She did her best to convey all the information necessary and make it legible without obscuring too much of the artwork.

The cover art for The Alchemy of Sorrow — to the right of the image (the front cover) a woman of color stands before a broken stained glass window. Her body is riddled with glowing golden cracks. A pair of similarly glowing swallows flitter above her hands, held at chest level. She is surrounded by dead vines that curl around the window as well–here and there, a few glowing golden flowers are blooming. To the left of the image (the back cover), a pair of glowing swallows face each other in midair, framed by a few glowing flowers. The rest of the cover shows dead vines and a sense of decay, including a broken ewer. The text laid out across the front cover reads “The Alchemy of Sorrow” in gold across the top with a portion of the text hidden behind the woman’s head but still legible. Below that in white, the subtitle “A Fantasy & Sci-Fi Anthology of Grief & Hope” and below that, “ M.L. Wang, K.S. Villoso, Intisar Khanani, Sonya M. Black, Angela Boord, Levi Jacobs, Krystle Matar, Virginia McClain, Quenby Olson, Carol A. Park, Madolyn Rogers, Rachel Emma Shaw & Clayton Snyder” below that “Edited by Sarah Chorn & Virginia McClain” The spine of the paperback layout shows the publishing logo for Crimson Fox Publishing the the bottom in a light gold color, above that the names Chorn and McClain written in white are separated by a pair of swallows depicted in line art in a light gold color. And above that “The Alchemy of Sorrow” is written out in a stylized font to match the front cover. The back cover text reads as follows “Here be dragons and sorcery, time travel and sorrow. Vicious garden gnomes. A grounded phoenix rider. A new mother consumed with vengeance. A dying god. Soul magic. These stories wrestle with the experience of loss—of loved ones, of relationships, of a sense of self, of health—and forge a path to hope as characters fight their way forward. From bestsellers and SPFBO finalists to rising voices, 13 exceptionally talented authors explore the many facets of grief and healing through the lens of fantasy and sci-fi.” And below that it reads “Find out more at books2read.com/rl/alchemyofsorrow” and then next to the ISBN Barcode it says in small white text “Cover Illustration by Zoe Badini ©2022, Cover Design VM Designs ©2022”)

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