Cover revealed for The Space Coast Tatler
Lighten up a little bit, my critics advised me after I revealed the cover of my second novel, The Murder Plague. That cover features a ragged, cowering, bloodied woman two-fisting guns, looking ready to spring into counterattack. Bullet holes and splattered and dripping blood decorate the background. The woman was described as both terrified and terrifying. My critics said there was too much cringe factor. I thought that’s what I was going for. But wisdom grows, if we’re lucky.
For The Space Coast Tatler, designer Barbara Russell convinced me to go with a lighter and more mixed message, reflecting the various tones and themes of this story, a little bit humorous, a little bit amusing, a little bit adventurous, a little bit sci-fi, a little bit bloody. A little bit country, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll.
The cover’s dominant image is of a man screaming “Murder” through a rolled up newspaper, indicating that the story is first and foremost about a loud little newspaper investigating a murder. Other images on the cover include a rocket launch, a radioactive materials warning sign, dripping blood (again) and palm trees, all presented in a graphic-novels style. The colors are bold and mostly primary.
The message: This story should be fun.
It is.
The story features a small-town newspaper publisher who hustles pool and carries a gun; a green reporter who clumsily attracts trouble; a kleptomaniac who speaks to ghosts; a rocket engineer who flips burgers; a motorcycle gangsters who feed bodies to gators; and a billionaire who plots to blow up Kennedy Space Center. Among others.
The Space Coast Tatler is a thriller about America’s last, great, intrepid journalists stumbling onto a domestic terrorism plot.
The Space Coast Tatler will be published in late May (exact date yet to be determined) by Off-University-Press, the same house that published my first novel, The Roswell Swatch. I’m also planning to publish my first collection of short stories, Disposable Girl & Other Tales of Brutality and Wonder, on or about the same date.
And here it is:
