The author says:
Only God defines the future. Jessica Thaller struggled to complete anything in life. She quit college twice, jumped from one entry-level job to another, and let Hector crawl back into her heart one too many times. The last reconciliation resulted in her getting pregnant. Jessica decides to keep the baby over the objections of her boyfriend and parents. Jessica wakes up from a coma unable to recall the event that landed her in the Intensive Care Unit. Her very survival sparks a national firestorm over a forsaken breath. How does she deal with those who despise her existence? God has a purpose for the tragedy, but will she stay on the path he gave her long enough to see the reason for her life?
Genre: Christian Thriller
Nathan says:
I’m a little stymied here. I really can’t tell what the novel is about — i.e., the “national firestorm” described in such vague terms in your description that I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. The cover’s competent, but not really intriguing — but without a description that actually spills the goods, I’ve got no idea what direction it needs to be intriguing in.
Judging by the cover, I’d say the book was a literary novel about pregnancy
Also, there is nothing here to suggest Christianity, which I am guessing might appeal to your audience.
I guess from the blurb her survival is somehow at the cost of the baby – why exactly this would cause a national firestorm, I cannot guess. I will not try either as this was not the ‘blurb critic’ page. I will work on the assumption it is as it says, a thriller. Possibly with politics thrown in.
Cover is definitely competent but deadly dull. First thing that it conveys is a depressing colour scheme, then combined with a very unexciting font; I would maybe see this as a pamphlet on postpartum depression – a thriller not so much. While tweaking those two aspects would help, I do not see it still being very thrilling, nor conveying much of the drama inherent in a ‘national firestorm.’ I would start again, perhaps look at other books you think might fit the genre you are writing in?
The typography is right for a thriller, but not the artwork. The art would have said literary or historical to me.
The “national firestorm” probably has something to do with her pregnancy, because Christians have a fetish for pretending that being anti-choice makes them oppressed.
The cover is competent, but tells nothing about the content besides “pregnancy is involved”.
Let’s remember that your host is a dedicated Christian and keep the tangential insults out of it, shall we?
Not to mention that we’re not doing any good by insulting the submitters’ beliefs, whatever they are.
And don’t anyone dare make any assumptions about my own beliefs about any of these topics, based upon that statement.
I am getting a “pregnancy drama” kind of vibe from this, but that’s about all I’m getting. I’m not entirely sure from the description, but I’m thinking this is basically kind of a fictionalized retelling of the Terri Schiavo case, with the difference being that the rabidly anti-life (and anti-Christian) bigots in this case are initially pushing to murder the protagonist’s unborn baby instead of the woman herself. Of course, having the mother awaken from her coma in the midst of the legal and social fracas to inform the rabidly pro-abortion far-left “mainstream” media who’ve been building some kind of radical pro-abortion narrative on her case that the agitators advocating for her baby’s murder are acting without her consent and against her explicit wishes would be highly inconvenient to that narrative and hence make them want to murder her too.
In view of the actual political and social firestorm Terri Schiavo’s case ignited in its time, and the rise of new methods of political thuggery such as “doxxing” and “swatting” we’ve seen in more recent years, it’s not at all difficult to see how a controversy could arise around a pregnant woman’s being whacked on the head and people going against her wishes in trying to have the baby murdered. That said, a pregnant gal on the cover is… just a pregnant gal on the cover. Those jagged tear lines at the top and bottom do hint generally at more drama to come, but not very specifically at this being a thriller with political and religious and social conflict all rolled up into a massive nationwide firestorm of controversy.
My recommendation: instead of those grayed-out strips at the top and the bottom (which incidentally make the byline difficult to see), why not show something we’ve seen in every such controversy since the advent of television, namely mobs of angry protesters? With that picture of a woman heavy with child (clearly somewhere in the third trimester) sandwiched between two shots of angry protesters waving signs and pumping their fists in the air, it almost wouldn’t even matter what the original source of those pictures was; before they even read any words, prospective readers would see about as literal a demonstration as they could get of the “pregnancy amid controversy” which is this story’s main subject. Of course, the slogans and symbols on each set of protesters’ signs should ideally be at least somewhat relevant to the subject at hand, so (presumably) we’d want to see pro-abortion protesters in the one section and anti-abortion protesters in the other; or pro-euthanasia and anti-euthanasia, or whichever controversy is most closely related to this story’s central conflict, of course.
As to being specifically a Christian thriller, a subject so fraught with political and religious controversy as this one already has Christianity and its many enemies “baked into the cake” so to speak, and therefore needs little more than some minor detail on the cover to make it obvious. Just showing the pregnant gal wearing a cross on a necklace, or some of the protesters carrying signs with crosses on them (with the antagonists having a red circle with a slash mark through it imposed over those crosses) would be enough to let people know about that aspect of the story. While I’m sure niche sellers such as Christian bookstores would be more than happy to carry a book like this if it’s everything the author makes it out to be, there’s no reason not to appeal to as broad a market as possible, so one needs not draw too much attention to specifically Christian imagery; just let it be there and let prospective buyers draw their own conclusions.
RK, I’m as anti-abortion as they come, but I’d appreciate you leaving the incendiary politics out it. Your suppositions about the plot of this book could easily have been conveyed without the “rabidly anti-life (and anti-Christian) bigots” bit.
Wow. So the very mild, possibly pro-choice comment is a ‘tangential insult’ but the whole ‘“mainstream” media who’ve been building some kind of radical pro-abortion narrative / baby murder’ stuff is just fine??? Okay then. Silly me. I thought this was a site for reviewing book covers.
I agree with you on this, Mandy. Both AJ and RK need to have the same criticisms for their comments. It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you’re on about the abortion / Christianity issue, those beliefs need to be kept off of this page so all feel free to post here. As for the cover itself, I have to agree with you as well that it needs something to indicate the book is a Christian novel. Maybe have the woman wearing a cross. Despite RK’s blatant bias, I actually agree with his/her suggestion of showing protesters from both sides. This gives the image the greater representation the drama within the novel.
Mandy, “Christians have a fetish for pretending that being anti-choice makes them oppressed” isn’t a very mild, possibly pro-choice comment.
And I hadn’t gotten as far as responding to RK’s comment yet. Concluding that it’s thus “just fine???” is, frankly, irrational.
CALM THE HELL DOWN, PEOPLE.
Nathan, I figured you hadn’t seen, nor had time to post a similar message for RK at the time of my previous post. Glad you did. (The following is NOT directed at Nathan, or anyone in specific, but to all who post here.) When politics and religion get posted, feelings get hurt, people get angry, and nasty things get said. What we all have to remember is that this site’s sole purpose is to let people give suggestions to improve the posted covers for self-published authors’ books. People posting comments need to check their religious/political beliefs at the door. If you are offended by the author’s book and/or cover, and can’t post a comment without arguing or being nasty, the best thing to do is not post anything at all. Critiquing in any form is best when you are actually trying to give helpful suggestions so the author can improve and reach/satisfy his/her target audience.
In view of the book’s highly controversial political and religious nature (in-universe, at least; the description claims the protagonist’s situation touches off some kind of national firestorm), telling people to “check their religious/political beliefs at the door” makes about as much sense here as it would when talking to people attending church or going to a televised candidates’ debate. Pretending that what each of us believes isn’t biasing our critiques is an exercise in futility that fools no one. Instead, while acknowledging these inevitable biases, we should remember to stick to the point: we’ve got a book cover to critique here.
That said, it seems to me if the book’s subject is as inflammatory (in-universe, at least) as the description claims, maybe the cover should be a bit inflammatory; or, to put it another way, we ought to be seeing some of the inflammation implied in the description up there on the cover. Conceding that my critique’s wording was indeed extremely partisan, isn’t that kind of inflammatory partisanship exactly what the target audience needs to see? If the book’s subject is quite demonstrably capable of igniting a flame war here, shouldn’t we be seeing people spoiling for a fight there?
RK, have to disagree with you on this point. The book obviously is geared to the Christian market. The author told us so. People who object to its contents would not even be looking at it. Therefore, we, as the critique providers, absolutely have to take the target audience in mind. As stated above, I do agree with the idea of showing the hostility of both sides of the subject on the cover, but insulting one side or the other in our posts is childish, and pointless. It does nothing to help the author, it does nothing to change the author’s views, and only opens this site up to pointless arguing. I’ve been in a writers critique group with an individual who had the completely opposite political views as I did. This could have led to nasty verbal arguments, and could have destroyed the entire group. Instead, we agreed to disagree and moved on from there. He read my works, and I read his. He gave me honest feedback, and I returned the favor. He helped me to improve my stories, as I helped him. The only time political issues came up was when it affected the story. Both of us were writing for an audience not limited by political beliefs, and wanted to avoid issues that would upset readers from either party. When that person intentionally wrote books geared toward people of beliefs similar to his own, I didn’t worry about it offending anyone who disagreed, including myself. I wasn’t his target audience. I’d critique it for writing, plot, characterization, continuity, etc. It worked out well for all of us in the group. To this day, even though I’ve moved over a thousand miles away from him, we still critique each others works via the internet. In a nutshell, your ideas on showing the protesters from both sides was a good, useful suggestion for the author. The biased way you did it only led to anger and resentment. It obscured your very valuable suggestion by insulting the writer. Remember the old cliche’ about honey and vinegar. It applies.
I think this is again one of those examples of a cover that is meaningful mostly to the author themselves.
There is nothing at all to suggest anything relating to the book’s description. There is certainly nothing to suggest “thriller” let alone “Christian thriller.”
I think that the cover needs to be rethought in its entirety. Either elements included that indicate more specifically the nature, subject and themes of the book or entirely different image chosen.
This is my problem with it. It’s just not doing anything. There’s a somewhat boring color–the denim blue–and a pregnant woman. This could be anything. It could be a married woman, expecting her first or fifteenth child. It could be an unmarried woman, torn between keeping her child, or giving it up for adoption. Hell, it could be a murder mystery, with the to-be corpse the heavily-pregnant mistress of a sinister politician. There’s just nothing here, other than the pregnancy. No excitement, no hints, nothing.
The font is okay, if unexciting. It’s workmanlike, which is itself okay.
I would also remove the “a novel.” Hopefully, your reader will know that. I can indeed see why you added it–without it, the ambiguity could be even greater, leaving the interpretation wider, as in, “well, maybe it’s a how-too book for new parents.” So…I guess, leave that in. Altho, if you have a tagline, that would be a better way to get there from here. Even something like,
Or, the same, with “But why?” at the end. Something that will convey, “fiction” without you having to say “a novel.”
Sorry. If you do nothing else, I’d at least consider perhaps a transparent base layer with a cross, perhaps with flames at the bottom, behind the primary image. Something to at least convey conflict and Christianity. Right now, I just don’t think you’re helping this book sell.
I actually quite like this cover – it caught my eye and made me look more closely. 🙂
I do agree, though, that it would benefit from content that said “thriller” more strongly. I’d also suggest putting the author name in a darker colour, as it doesn’t stand out as well as it might.