SUPERNATURALLY COVERED

Preamble pre-ramble: Here is a story none of you are going to read because you are going to scroll straight down to see the cover, and really I don't blame you because I would, too, and this cover? So totally worth skipping the introduction and jumping straight to the jaw-dropping, ZOMB holy CRAP how did they do it again beauty. So I'll just type my story for me, because that's kind of what I do.

I never liked my prom dresses. I always had this daydream of finding the perfect dress--the one that would make me feel thin and fashionable and sophisticated but in a fairytale princess sort of way. The one that would make me feel beautiful and confident. The one that would be uniquely ME, so that everyone would see me and say, "Yes, now we see who Kiersten is. How had we not noticed before?" The one that, for one night, would make me feel utterly and completely special.

Junior year I wore a tragically pale blue number I bought on sale that felt more like I was playing dress up than actually dressing up. Senior year I rented an ill-fitting maroon disaster that didn't do my pale complexion any favors whatsoever and cost less than my heels, which had to be five inches tall so the dress wouldn't drag on the ground.

So I never had my prom dress moment. (I did have my wedding dress moment the year after graduation, though, which more than made up for it, but pretend like I didn't tell you that part so my story has more of an impact, even though none of you are reading it.) My prom dress moment when I could look in the mirror and see myself revealed as another person, or maybe still just me, but a better, prettier me. That moment I knew I was dressed to show off the very best parts of who I was, to get only the best kind of attention, to shine.

Opening up Supernaturally's cover? That, my friends, was the best prom dress moment imaginable.

 ZOMB!  THE PRETTY!  THE PRETTY!

So much pretty. The red! And the flowers! AND THE DRESS! And that line above Evie's head that I am very, very fond of! And can I just say again how much I love the model they picked for Evie? I especially love that you can see her eyes better in this one. They are exactly how I always pictured Evie's eyes "like streams of melting snow."

But just when you thought you couldn't love this amazing red cover any more, I have EVEN MORE TO LOVE!  One of my favorite design aspects of my covers (aside from, well, everything) is that they wrap around so the image continues onto the back. THIS TIME WITH LIGHTNING.

ZOMB! The ELECTRIC pretty!

To sum up: SO. MUCH. LOVE. I feel like I won the cover lottery, and then I won it AGAIN. The design team at HarperTeen? Geniuses. I heart them. I'm kind of obsessed with them. (Alison, yes, I draw your name with hearts around it in the margins of my notebooks.) 

Covers are so terrifying because authors can spend hundreds of hours on the inside of books making them as pretty as possible, but the outside is utterly out of our control. We all want our books to sit on that shelf in their best dresses, screaming "PICK ME UP!" (which, to clarify, is not the sentiment I was hoping to express in my prom dresses, because a book screaming "PICK ME UP!" and a girl screaming "PICK ME UP!" are very different things), but we don't know whether or not that will happen. This time around I knew I'd be happy. I just didn't know how freak-out-oh-my-gosh happy I'd be.

Thank you, HarperTeen, for taking my book and giving it a prom dress moment of magic--covering it in the most jaw-droppingly beautiful way imaginable. Better than imaginable, even, because yet again you've exceeded my expectations. And Supernaturally doesn't even have to dance awkwardly with a boy in the middle of the gym.

My books have all the luck, apparently.

(You can have some luck, too. To be entered for the random drawing portion of the blurb contest, just post Supernaturally's cover image somewhere--twitter, facebook, your blog, framed in your office at work, tattooed across your back, whatever, I'm not picky, then tell me that you did. No links necessary. I believe you. Why wouldn't you want to share this cover?)