Light & Earth & Marrow
Hedge witch Tilly Reinicke resides in a bucolic village where magic and all manner of paranormal creatures are real—everyone knows it, but not everyone is necessarily kenning.
Tilly passes the quiet seasons alongside her dead but far-from-gone wife Ralda, cultivating their garden, respecting the Others, and teaching the children the ways and the Paths… until their peace is shattered by the rumble of construction next door.
Her new neighbors, Yola and Karsten Bell, are determined to control every last detail of their new home build… and are decidedly not kenning. As the nights grow longer and the most hallowed day of the year approaches, Tilly tries her very, grumpy best to guide, cajole, and reason with the Bells, before their unbelief in—and contempt for—the paranormal world endangers everyone.
For the Others do not suffer disrespect lightly, and soon they will walk the Paths again.
Cover design
For this cover, I focused on witchy, nature-heavy references. And the candle in the window, indicating a place of safety, is key imagery in the book:
Alyssa Winans did the front cover illustration and custom title treatment. This was our second time working with her, after she did the excellent cover for The Color of Time, and once again, she knocked it out of the park!
I did the spine and back cover in-house. This one is an interesting case because it’s so dark, and everything comes out darker in print, so the digital file looks almost washed out when translated from CMYK to RGB and displayed on a screen, but it’s quite dark and rich in its physical form.
Interior design
The candle is a key image that recurs throughout the book, so it made sense to use it as a chapter header decoration:
For scene breaks, I used an asterism, a somewhat rare (but real!) typographical symbol that was popular in German text in the 1700s. Jeannie Marschall is German, and I enjoyed the deep-cut reference:
Marketing
Here are some examples of marketing images I created to support the book:
Buy the book!
You can pick up your copy from Shiraki Press or request it at your favorite book retailer. Buying direct from our website is the best way to support our press, but I’ll also recommend Bookshop.org as an amazing way to support your local indie bookstore. You can even request it at your local library!
Light & Earth & Marrow (Shiraki Press)