Tomorrow, April 30, 2018, the anthology THE UNDERWATER BALLROOM SOCIETY is being published. It includes my novella, A SPY IN THE DEEP, which is the second (standalone) story in my series THE CASEBOOK OF HARRIET GEORGE.
In honour of the release of the anthology and A SPY IN THE DEEP, I figured it was time that the first Harriet George story, THE DINOSAUR HUNTERS, received a new, shiny cover so it didn’t feel left out. With only the briefest of drum rolls, here is the new cover!
In case you missed it on my social media, I am giving away 10 e-ARCs of the upcoming anthology, The Underwater Ballroom Society, via my newsletter on 31st March.
Would you rather dance beneath the waves or hide your smuggled magic there? Welcome to a world of sparkling adult fantasy and science fiction stories edited by Stephanie Burgis and Tiffany Trent and featuring underwater ballrooms of one sort or another, from a 1930s ballroom to a Martian hotel to a grand rock ‘n roll ball held in the heart of Faery itself.
“From the first page, I knew I was in good hands. This is my kind of fantasy – magic, adventure, and gorgeous writing. The Underwater Ballroom Society is the kind of fantasy that got me into reading fantasy.”
– Patrice Sarath, Author of The Sisters Mederos
Stories in this anthology
Ysabeau S. Wilce, “The Queen of Life”
Y.S. Lee, “Twelve Sisters”
Iona Datt Sharma, “Penhallow Amid Passing Things”
Tiffany Trent, “Mermaids, Singing”
Jenny Moss, “A Brand New Thing”
Cassandra Khaw, “Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball”
Stephanie Burgis, “Spellswept”
Laura Anne Gilman, “The River Always Wins”
Shveta Thakrar, “The Amethyst Deceiver”
Patrick Samphire, “A Spy in the Deep”
“This anthology is an excellent collection of stories and all of them are well worth your time.”
If you been hanging around my social media over the last couple of days (which, I assume, everyone does), then you will have probably noticed the announcement for the upcoming anthology The Underwater Ballroom Society, which will be coming out at the end of April. I’m really pleased to have a novella in the anthology, which is full of so many of my favourite writers. I thought about telling you about the novella, but I think I’ll save that for another post. What I want to tell you about today is the cover, which was revealed yesterday on the Book Smugglers blog.
Because, as well as contributing a story, I also designed the cover, which you can see here:
This is actually the first time that I’ve designed a cover for an anthology rather than for a novel or short story. The anthology consists of fantasy and science fiction stories all of which include at least one scene set in an underwater ballroom. You can read more about the concept in the cover reveal blog post. These stories include a wide range of genres, settings, and time periods. My first ideas for the cover were all scenes of or in an underwater ballroom. But, inevitably, when I sketched these out they tended to give the impression of a particular story or location. That can work for an anthology, but in my opinion, particularly with such a diverse anthology, it’s better to have a cover that represents the concept overall rather than any particular expression of the concept. I wanted a cover that would give the feel of the stories as a whole without actually showing a scene from a particular one of the stories.
So, I decided to do away with the ballroom altogether and go with “underwater” and “dancing” as my concepts, in a scene that at least hinted at a speculative element (as all stories are science fiction or fantasy to some degree).
I’m not an artist, so my covers use a combination of stock photos, but I really enjoyed the process of painting the water and combining the images to create this underwater scene. I hope you like it too.
Like I said, I will tell you more about my particular story and some of the other stories in the anthology as we get closer toward the publication date. For now, you can add this on Goodreads and subscribe to the anthology newsletter, which will give you the chance to win one of fifty free copies of the e-ARC when it is available. I will also offer a few free copies of the e-ARC on my own newsletter, which you can subscribe to here or on the front page of my website.
I can’t wait to share this anthology with you. There are a wonderful variety of stories for you to read by some amazingly talented writers, and I feel really privileged to have been invited to be part of it.
