I did it, again...

I liked this mock up of the cover for APoS-Derry. The barbed wire was my suggestion...but apparently it gives people Holocaust vibes. Which works if you've already read the book, since the Bogside of Derry did become a near ghetto under the British...

BUT...

I want people to be interested in reading the book, and this cover wasn't gonna get them to do that. It's stark in the extreme. So I've decided to start over. Add some color...maybe in the outline of the title and my name. Dunno, yet. I've let the designer know and she's open to restarting. I just need to up my game.

Something else was reworking the info on the back cover into something that got a much more positive reaction. Here's what I did:

In this wrenching coming-of-age epic set during The Troubles, Northern Ireland’s civil rights turmoil of the 1960s & 70s, Brendan Kinsella was just a boy trying to keep himself apart from the worst of it. A savant at fixing things, all he wanted was to marry a girl he loved, raise a family, and live his life in peace. But history was exploding around him, and it had different plans.

“The arc of Brendan’s (growing) maturity is depicted with great subtlety and restraint by Sullivan (during) what came to be known as “the Troubles.” This is an engrossing and intelligent work.” BookLife 

 “Raw, pulsing with life and danger, and building to a hard-to-shake climax, this epic novel ... centers on Brendan Kinsella, “a lad filled with hopes and dreams and prayers and promises” in Northern Ireland during the tumultuous 1960s...” Kirkus Reviews 

 Kyle Michel Sullivan is a writer and self-involved artist who’s lived in London, Honolulu, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Houston, and a dozen places in-between. His artwork has been purchased by collectors, and he used to write screenplays, which is how A Place of Safety began life. But it expanded and became a three-volume novel about an Irish Catholic boy during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. His goal is to build characters as vivid and real as possible.

Shorter and more involving, I think...I hope...