Malinda Lo

Every month I like to highlight new releases from the 2009 Debutantes, along with the authors’ thoughts about their covers (first impressions and all that, right?). Here are the cover girls who came out last month:

The Demon’s Lexicon (Simon & Schuster) by Sarah Rees Brennan

Two brothers are hunted throughout England by a powerful magician’s circle after their mother steals a charm, and when the eldest is marked by a demon, the younger uses swords and dark arts in an effort to save him but unwittingly uncovers the darkest of secrets.

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Q: Did you have any specific hopes about what your book cover would look like?

A: No, not really, but I knew that my publishers were planning for a guy to be on the front, and I hoped he would be cute. And he is!

Q: What’s your favorite part of your final book cover?

A: The boy’s eyes. (And oh, my second favourite: how bright it is. I love the way it leaps at me from my shelves and looks like totally its own thing.)

Prada and Prejudice (Razorbill) by Mandy Hubbard

A modern teen ends up in Regency England where she must learn to navigate high-society — and her growing attraction to the 19-year-old Duke of Harksbury.

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Q: Did you have any specific hopes about what your book cover would look like?

A: I pictured a photographic cover that would show something old-meets-new, like perhaps a girl wearing a regency style dress but she’d have hot pink high heels poking out. Or she’d be weairng her 21st century apparal, but leaning against a guy wearing breeches and boots.

Q: What’s your favorite part of your final book cover?

A: I love the swirls! Originally the background was more of a wall-paper style thing, and then they swapped that out for the swirl background, which I totally love.

Paris Pan Takes the Dare (Putnam) by Cynthea Liu

So what if it’s a rite of passage for every seventh-grade girl in town to spend a night in the woods? Paris Pan only just moved here, the woods are super creepy, and she has enough weirdness to deal with in her own family. Finding out a girl died mysteriously years ago while on the Dare—right near Paris’s new house, no less—is bad enough, but the unmistakably ghostlike noises coming out of the broken-down shed at the edge of the Pan’s property? Definite deal breaker.

All Paris wants is to make friends, try to fit in, and not have to deal with a dead girl. But everyone has to take the Dare, and the new girl’s turn is up…

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“I really love the final product. The title treatment is gorgeous. Absolutely my favorite part of the cover.” — Cynthea Liu

Fairy Tale (Delacorte) by Cyn Balog

A teenage oracle whose boyfriend slowly turns into a fairy goes to great lengths in order to keep him human.

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Q: Did you have any specific hopes about what your book cover would look like?

A: I think I had more fears of what I didn’t want! I wanted it to be cool and simple and Twilight-y, but I was really afraid they’d but a goofy guy in tennis shoes and wings, holding a football… way too literal.

Q: What’s your favorite part of your final book cover?

A: Just that it’s so simple — it’s breathtaking and memorable. My designer is a genius — I get more compliments on the cover of the book than its contents!