Nightshade Blog Tour: Interview with Andrea Cremer!

Photo by Gina Monroe

Today I'd like to welcome Andrea Cremer, author of (the amazingly epic) Nightshade to Pirate Penguin's Reads! She's stopping by today to answer some of my questions I had about the cover for Nightshade. This interview today is part of a blog tour over at Teen {Book}Scene and if you're interested in learning more about Nightshade and its author, check out the complete scheduele here.

Clickables: Andrea's website, Andrea's Twitter, Andrea's blog

Nightshade has a gorgeous cover-what was the very first thought running through your mind when you were finally able to see it?

Wow. It was such captivating image. I think I held my breath for a while when I was first looking at it. I didn’t know what to expect and it’s so lovely. I was, and still am, ecstatic about the cover.

Were there various trial runs for the book cover or did the designing team nail it on the first try?
Very few tweaks were made. Originally the blood drop was longer and we spent some time getting Calla’s eye the perfect shade of gold. For those readers who have ARCs you’ll notice a difference between the eye on that cover and the eye on the official jacket.

Suza Scalora, the photographer for the book's cover, is pretty amazing! Were you acquainted with her work before?

I knew about her faerie books, which are wonderful, and I knew she’d also done book covers for Francesca Lia Block – a fantastic author – and I was thrilled Penguin had asked Suza to shoot Nightshade’s cover. I also had the chance to meet Suza! She came to Minneapolis on her tour for Evidence of Angels the week after the shoot. It was so much fun to talk with her. She is a beautiful and gracious human being.

Will the cover model for the next two books in the trilogy be the same girl from the cover of Nightshade?
Same model for WOLFSBANE, I’ve seen photos from the shoot but not the final cover yet. I can’t wait to see it, all I know is that the model looks fabulous and the cover will be green (my favorite color – yay!) I don’t know what the cover of BLOODROSE will be yet, so I can’t say for sure.

What would Calla say if she saw the book cover chosen for her personal story?
She would say: Why am I wearing make up?
I would say: It’s an artistic rendering. And it’s exquisite. Deal with it.
She would growl at me. Then say: There’s blood on the lilies.
I would nod.
She would say: Nice.