Not just a pretty face

They say one shouldn't judge a book by its cover. But let's be honest, we all do, don't we? So when it came time to decide on the cover for Misfortune Cookie I gave it a tremendous amount of thought. I wanted a cover that conveyed the story, about Hannah making the leap to move to Hong Kong, possibly with disastrous consequences. The illustration needed to tie in with the title. I wanted it to highlight the most iconic parts of the city. And I wanted it to reflect the book's style: romantic comedy, aka chick lit.


After bouncing several ideas around with my agent and my cover designer, we came up with the design. It took several iterations to get the colours right, but I was happy with the result. I liked the richness of the colours, the figure's thoughtful pose and the way it really offset the Hong Kong skyline (and that IS the view from Hutong, my favourite restaurant, and the location of a pivotal scene in the book).

So we uploaded it.

And the more I saw it the more convinced I became that it wasn't a traditional chick lit cover. Which may be fine. But then again, maybe it's not. Maybe it was missing one of the elements I wanted it to convey. Maybe it wasn't chicklity enough.

Chick lit detractors will shudder at the idea that any writer would want to pinkify her book, but then, chick lit detractors don't read chick lit, so they don't know how we judge our covers. I set about reworking the colour scheme, and this was the end result. 

What do you think?

Oh, and I also shaved down The Peak behind Hong Kong to accommodate the title. Apologies to residents for making a molehill out of your mountain.