“Roll up, roll up! Come, take a seat, turn the page and discover what astounding stories await you behind these two covers…”

My last two reads were The Somnambulist by Essie Fox and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. One is tied to the Victorian Music Halls of East London, the other to a mysterious monochromatic circus with unbelievable acts. It wasn’t intentional, but perhaps I was in need of a dose of the theatrical.

I love both of these covers and more than that, I think they do their jobs as advertisements for the book within extremely well. The silhouette designs on both are a shorthand way of indicating to the reader that they are historical novels. My perception of silhouettes also has a dramatic tinge to it: a backlit image of a person in a doorway, with no distinguishing detail, would probably be accompanied by a dum-dum-dum on the soundtrack on a film. Is it the boogey-man or the hero come to save the day? A silhouette can be vaguely sinister in that way.

Lesley-Anne Crooks, Sales & Digital Manager