Tin House

From Editing to Publication: How a Book makes it onto Book Shop Shelves. US Cover Design

/ Claire Fuller / 3 Comments

Spot the difference between these two images. Answers below

This is the third part in a series about how my next book, Hunger and Thirst moves through the process of editing to arriving onto bookshop shelves. The first part covered structural and line edits with my UK and US editors at Fig Tree/ Penguin and Tin House / Zando, the second part looked at copyedits and the difference between UK and US editions, and in this part I’m going to look at the US cover. (I’ve seen the UK cover, and it’s very different, but I’m not allowed to officially show it yet.)

Readers ask me a lot about covers: how the process works, how involved I get, whether I get any say; I’ve even been asked whether I design them myself given my art background.

The process starts early with Masie Cochran, my editor at Tin House / Zando asking me to send her any book covers I’ve seen recently that I’ve loved. I don’t know how much these feed into her planning, but I like that it makes me feel like I have some influence! So, I sent her half a dozen, and then a few months later she says she has a cover, and attaches it to an email.

It is the most terrifying moment clicking open on that email. What if I don’t like it? Luckily, that’s never happened with any of my books from Tin House. They’ve all been designed by their in-house Art Director who is now Beth Steidle, and who designed this cover for Hunger and Thirst.

I showed the cover to my husband and I kept opening the email over the course of the next day and I only loved it more. But, I had some very small comments, which I fed back to Masie who passed them to Beth, and then a while later I was sent the revised version.

Did you spot the differences between the two pictures? The one on the left was the first one I was sent and the one on the right is the final cover.

  • I wasn’t sure about how the sculpture’s right leg lifts up on the left of the cover. It gave her a look of a mermaid, and so Beth removed that.
  • I wasn’t sure that the flies looked enough like flies, and I wasn’t sure about the fly in the words ‘a novel’. So Beth changed the flies, removed the fly within the words, and put another fly on the sculpture’s arm.
  • Beth made some changes of her own to the colours and density of the dots etc.

The cover was officially revealed on CrimeReads website, along with an extract from the beginning of the novel (which I edited to make it shorter but still work as a narrative). I also wrote a piece about why this cover works so well for the story:

The main character, Ursula is a reclusive and famous sculptor, and so while the figure on the cover might be one of her carvings, it could also be Ursula herself caught in a moment of turning away from the camera. The first line of the novel mentions a murder and a body, so I love how the red shape on the head implies this might even be the victim. One of the narrative strands is the dares teenagers set each other, and it’s very clever how the fonts bring to mind words scrawled in haste or even graffiti. Another theme is the perception of women’s bodies and in particular body hair, and I love how this striking image picks up on this, not only in the angle of the sculpture to the viewer and the beautiful heft of her, but also how the dots give a subtle indication of hair. And then finally, you see the flies, four of them perched there; an unsettling suggestion that something bad is coming.

What do you think of the US cover – send me a comment!

Pre-order Hunger and Thirst in the US
Add Hunger and Thirst to Goodreads

US Cover of Hunger and Thirst, Revealed!

/ Claire Fuller / 2 Comments

I’m delighted to reveal the US cover of Hunger and Thirst which will be published by Tin House, an imprint of Zando, on 2nd June 2026. I love it so much: the boldness of the yellow font, the sculpture (the main character in the book is a sculptor), and the flies… I won’t tell you how the flies come into it; you’ll have to read it find out.

Yesterday, CrimeReads revealed the cover on their website, together with a piece I wrote about why this is the perfect cover – designed by Beth Steidle – for Hunger and Thirst.

They also published an excerpt from the beginning of the book, so if you’d like a taster before you pre-order, you can read it here.

And if you’re in the US here’s a list of places that you can pre-order it from, or of course you local independent bookstore.

For those in the UK and Canada, you’ll have to wait a little longer to see these covers. But let me know what you think of this one!

About the book
1987: After a childhood trauma and years in and out of the care system, sixteen-year-old Ursula finds herself with a new job delivering mail at a local art school, a bed in a halfway house, and—delightfully— some new friends, including wild-child, Sue. When Ursula is invited to join a squat at The Underwood, a mysterious house whose owners met a terrible end, she can’t resist this hodgepodge family. But as Sue’s behavior and demands become more extreme, Ursula who has always been hungry—for food—and more importantly for love, acceptance and belonging, carries out her friend’s terrible dare. And, for this, Ursula finds herself literally haunted.

Thirty-six years later, Ursula is a renowned, reclusive sculptor living under a pseudonym in London when her identity is exposed by true-crime documentary-maker, Emma Zahini who is digging into an unsolved disappearance. But it is not only the filmmaker who has discovered Ursula’s whereabouts, and as her past catches up with her present, Ursula must work out whether the monsters are within her or without.

Pre-order Hunger and Thirst in the US.

US and Canadian Cover Revealed

/ Claire Fuller / 4 Comments

Today I’m finally allowed to reveal the US and Canadian cover for my fifth novel, The Memory of Animals. And oh my goodness, I love it so much. It’s designed by Beth Steidle, Tin House Associate Director of Design & Production, using art work by Lisa Ericson.

It will be published by Tin House on June 6 2023, and you can find out a bit more about it here.

The Memory of Animals is available to pre-order:
In the US from Barnes and Noble, here. 
In Canada from Indigo, here.
In the UK from Waterstones, here.

Please order from your local independent when you are able. 

Unsettled Ground published today in USA

/ Claire Fuller / 2 Comments
Hardback copy of Unsettled Ground on a stone wall in front of a pink flowering tree.

Unsettled Ground is published today, May 18 in the USA by Tin House, and in Canada by House of Anansi.

It’s already been getting great reviews:

“The close attachment to Jeanie’s and Julius’s limited points of view enrich the suspense as long-kept secrets are gradually revealed. But even the disclosures and resolutions can’t entirely domesticate “Unsettled Ground,” which carries its lonely, stirring music of loss to the end.” Wall Street Journal

“Fuller paints a devastatingly haunting picture of abject poverty, especially in her descriptions of the houses they dwell in, each of which becomes a character in its own right.” Booklist

“Fuller builds suspense over the twins’ fate and ends with a brilliant twist. This one is worth staying with.” Publishers Weekly

Buy Unsettled Ground. The novel is available to buy or order from all US (and Canadian) independent bookstores, chain stores, and online. If you pre-ordered it – thank you – and I’d love to see pictures of it on Twitter or Instagram!

Tonight I’ll be kicking off a 12 bookstore virtual tour with a Zoom event hosted by New York bookstore, McNally Jackson, where I’ll be interviewed by author, Lucy Tan. Signed books (with bookplates designed by me) can be purchased from the participating stores, at the same time as registering for a free ticket for the event of your choice.

And keep an eye on my Twitter and Instagram accounts for the chance for US readers to win a signed copy of Unsettled Ground together with a limited edition flexi disc single of one of the songs in Unsettled Ground, composed and sung by acoustic guitarist, Henry Ayling.

(Thanks to @suethebookie on Instagram for letting me use her wonderful picture of Unsettled Ground.)

US Cover of Unsettled Ground

/ Claire Fuller / 9 Comments

I’m thrilled to be able to show you the amazing US cover of Unsettled Ground for the first time. It was designed by Diane Chonette, the Art Director at my US publisher, Tin House, using art work by Valerie Hegarty. What do you think? Drop me a line and let me know.

The cover was revealed today on Entertainment Weekly’s website, and they have also published a sneak preview of chapter one. Read it here.

Unsettled Ground will be published in the US on 18th May 2021.

If you missed what the UK cover looks like, you can see it here.

Bitter Orange Paperback Published in the US today

/ Claire Fuller / 7 Comments

US paperback

The paperback is published today (Oct 22) in the US. It has the same wonderful cover as the hardback, but with a cut-back cover to show a quote from Time Magazine: “Unsettling and eerie, Bitter Orange is an ideal chiller”.

Although the novel is set in the blisteringly hot August of 1969, the novel has plenty of spooky, gothic elements for people looking for a book to cosy up with in a chilly fall.

It’s available today from all good independent bookstores, bookstore chains, and online. Click here to order.

In conjunction with my US publisher Tin House, I’m running a competition on Instagram to win one of two copies. You must have a US address to enter. Visit my account on Instagram: @writerclairefuller

Bitter Orange is an ideal book for book clubs, and this paperback edition has book club questions in the back to help get your discussion started. 

If you do read it, don’t forget to drop me a line to let me know what you thought.

Happy reading!

Bitter Orange Published in USA and Canada

/ Claire Fuller / 2 Comments

giveaway.jpg

Bitter Orange is published today (October 9) in the USA and Canada. And to celebrate I’m giving away one set of all three of my novels: Our Endless Numbered Days, Swimming Lessons, and a hardback copy of Bitter Orange (with its US cover).

To enter, just visit Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, and follow the instructions there. The competition is open worldwide.

The Canadian cover, from House of Anansi, is almost the same as the UK version.

HoA

 

Early US reviews have been great:

Kirkus (starred review)
“In the vein of Shirley Jackson’s bone-chilling The Haunting of Hill House, Fuller’s disturbing novel will entrap readers in its twisty narrative, leaving them to reckon with what is real and what is unreal. An intoxicating, unsettling masterpiece.”

Entertainment Weekly
“In her new novel, Claire Fuller enhances the mystery with luscious detail: sights of ghosts, smells of overripe fruit, echoes of Cara wailing. The plot’s movements are rendered secondary, at least in the early going, to the atmosphere, and it’s to the novel’s benefit; with sensations so alive on the page, you’re constantly kept on your toes, attuned to the mania. You’ll ask, beguiled: What’s really going on here?”

Buy Bitter Orange.

Win a Bitter Orange Hamper

/ Claire Fuller / 4 Comments

hamper

Bitter Orange is published in the USA a week today (9th October). Tin House, my US publisher is running a competition for US readers to win a Bitter Orange hamper if you pre-order the book before publication day. And you can get a 30% discount off the full price if you order online through Powell’s Books, using the discount code ORANGE. Once you’ve pre-ordered, send your proof of purchase to tinhousebooks@tinhouse.com to be entered into the competition.

The book is already out in the UK and Germany, and you can read what reviewers have been saying.

In the US it’s been appearing on lots of round up lists of what to read in October, including:

  • Time Magazine: “Unsettling and eerie, Bitter Orange is an ideal October chiller.”
  • Entertainment Weekly: “Fuller (Swimming Lessons) weaves between two timelines in this story of a love triangle hurtling toward tragedy. Set predominantly in the English countryside circa 1969, Bitter Orange explores attraction, obsession, and the power of storytelling.”
  • NYLON: “Fuller is a master of the quietly eerie; she’s excellent at creating an aura of pervasive dread—and sustaining it till the very last page.”
  • Lit Hub: “A beguiled introvert, a manor in disrepair, and other people’s secrets? Easy sell.”
  • Vulture: by author Tana French – “Reviews say the book has an unreliable narrator, beautiful writing, and hints of Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier. No way can I resist that.”

If you like the sound of that, pre-order from Powell’s Books, or anywhere else you fancy. Just keep your receipt.

Cover Reveal for Bitter Orange (US)

/ Claire Fuller / 15 Comments

Bitter Orange_cover hi-res.jpg

I’m absolutely delighted to reveal the cover for the US version of my third novel, Bitter Orange, which will be published on October 9th by Tin House. I’d love to know what you think!

From the attic of Lyntons, a dilapidated English country mansion, Frances Jellico sees them―Cara first: dark and beautiful, then Peter: striking and serious. The couple is spending the summer of 1969 in the rooms below hers while Frances is researching the architecture in the surrounding gardens. But she’s distracted. Beneath a floorboard in her bathroom, she finds a peephole that gives her access to her neighbors’ private lives.

Before long they are spending every day together: eating lavish dinners, drinking bottle after bottle of wine, and smoking cigarettes until the ash piles up on the crumbling furniture. Frances is dazzled. But as the hot summer rolls lazily on, it becomes clear that not everything is right between Cara and Peter. The stories that Cara tells don’t quite add up, and as Frances becomes increasingly entangled in the lives of the hedonistic couple, the boundaries between truth and lies, right and wrong, begin to blur. Amid the decadence, a small crime brings on a bigger one: a crime so terrible that it will brand their lives forever.

Bitter Orange is available to pre-order from your local independent bookstore (please consider using them first), or Amazon.

(The UK cover will be revealed in the next few weeks.)

Swimming Lessons Paperback Published in US

/ Claire Fuller / 4 Comments

SL1

The paperback of Swimming Lessons is published in the US today. My publisher, Tin House, has created a beautiful version of the hardback jacket using darker tones. And this version has book club questions in the back. If you do read it for your book club remember to take a picture of your group with the book and I’ll post the best to my Instagram account.

UK readers will have to wait a little longer for the paperback to be released.

The pictures above were taken and posted by some wonderful bookstagrammers, and if you’re on Instagram, I’d highly recommend following them all, not only for some wonderful bookish features, but lots of friendly bookish chat and reading suggestions.

Click to read more about Swimming Lessons.

Thanks to: @theloudlibrarylady @gracerajendran @bkInbooks @booksforyears @booksonherbrain @dlgillis20 @les_livres_ jennicapps15 @lblovesbooks for the pictures.