This is no April Fools’ Day joke: there’s a new Kelley Armstrong book on the way! We’re so excited to reveal the cover for Someone Is Always Watching, designed by Talia Abramson. Keep scrolling for a Q&A with Talia and get ready to add this new thriller to your TBR when it comes out in January 2023!
Q&A with Talia Abramson
Did you read Someone Is Always Watching before starting on the cover? What stuck out to you the most?
When I started working on this cover there wasn’t a complete manuscript (if I remember correctly, it didn’t have an ending yet!), but I was immediately drawn to the dark psychological aspects of the story. I knew I wanted to visually translate the isolating feelings of not knowing who to trust or what to believe.
Were you given any guidance from the author/editor?
Yes! The editor always fills out a design brief that we go over together before I start the design process. It’s a really helpful document that includes a description of the plot, the tone, the target audience, and anything else the editor wants me to keep in mind. In this case, we knew early on that we wanted to head in a moody, atmospheric direction.
How did you create the cover? What tools or programs did you use?
I created the cover art in Photoshop, then added the text to the layout in InDesign.
How many drafts/designs did you go through before it was “finished”?
We were originally working with a different title that steered the first round of covers in another direction. And once we settled on this new title, we arrived on a direction we all liked in the first round of designs, but it took 5 rounds of cooler palette and type tweaks until everyone was satisfied.
What are some other book covers you’ve worked on? Do you have any coming up?
One of my favorite YA covers I’ve worked on is Vicki Grant’s Tell Me When You Feel Something. Outside the world of YA, some upcoming covers I’m looking forward to seeing in print are Every Summer After by Carley Fortune, and Mansions of the Moon by Shyam Selvadurai.
Someone Is Always Watching
By Kelley Armstrong
352 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735270923 | Tundra Books
Release date: January 3, 2023
The experiment began with the best of intentions. Take a young child who is responsible for a traumatic death. Maybe their entire family perished in a fire they set. Maybe they shoved their sibling off a balcony during an argument. If the child is too deeply traumatized – and stigmatized – to ever lead a normal life, wouldn’t it be better if they just . . . forgot? It was a three-pronged approach: erase their memories, insert new ones, and return them to their parents or place them with a new family. Blythe and her friends Tucker, Tanya, and Gabrielle, are now teenagers, attending a local high school, falling in and out of love with each other. But then a shocking event happens at school: Gabrielle is found covered in blood in front of their deceased principal, with no memory of what happened. It’s becoming apparent that their pasts weren’t erased – they were just walled up, and now those walls are crumbling.
Kelley Armstrong: instagram | twitter | website
Talia Abramson: website