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Cover Reveal: The Alchemy of Sorrow

June 29, 2022 by Justin Gross Leave a Comment

The image shows a green textured paper torn diagonally across a book cover. Not much is visible beyond the text “of Sorrow” a portion of a person’s head, and what could be some broken glass, plants, and a bit of broken pottery.

Hello all and welcome to the cover reveal for The Alchemy of Sorrow Anthology! I am so excited to be participating in the reveal today alongside a bunch of other fantastic bookish folk! Be sure to check out some of the content from the other people participating around the interwebs!

This anthology has stories from some of my absolute favorite indie authors and I can’t wait to get ahold of a copy and have my heart absolutely ripped from my chest! It’s gonna be a great time, I just know it. Alright. Less of me and more of the reveal, got it! Let’s go!

Book Information

The Alchemy of Sorrow
Editors: Sarah Chorn & Virginia McClain
Authors: M.L. Wang, K.S. Villoso, Intisar Khanani, Sonya M. Black, Angela Boord, Levi Jacobs, Krystle Matar, Virginia McClain, Quenby Olson, Carol A. Park, Madolyn Rogers, Rachel Emma Shaw & Clayton Snyder
Release Date: November 1, 2022
Publisher: Crimson Fox Publishing

Blurb:

Here be dragons and sorcery, time travel and sorrow.

Vicious garden gnomes. A grounded phoenix rider. A new mother consumed with vengeance. A dying god. Soul magic.

These stories wrestle with the experience of loss—of loved ones, of relationships, of a sense of self, of health—and forge a path to hope as characters fight their way forward.

From bestsellers and SPFBO finalists to rising voices, 13 exceptionally talented authors explore the many facets of grief and healing through the lens of fantasy and sci-fi.

Book Links:

Universal Link: https://books2read.com/AoS

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60284739-the-alchemy-of-sorrow

The Alchemy of Sorrow is available to pre-order now in ebook format, with physical and audiobook pre-orders opening soon!

About the Cover Illustration:

“For the cover of The Alchemy of Sorrow, we wanted to create an image that was evocative of all the stories contained within its pages, without being specific to any single one of them. 

Since most of our stories have female protagonists, we chose to center the image on a grieving woman. We wanted her to be a woman of color, to celebrate the diversity of our stories and authors, and to represent the majority of the world’s population. We asked the artist to portray her standing among ruins, with her grief transmuting into light, which in turn begins to transform her surroundings. 

We also took inspiration from the Japanese practice of kintsugi – in which a fractured piece of pottery is restored using precious metals mixed into the lacquer so that the item’s cracks become a beautiful feature of the piece rather than a flaw to be hidden away – and we asked if the woman’s skin could feature cracks lined with gold.

From those sketchy details, Zoe Badini conceived of this stunning image of a woman standing before a broken stained-glass window, with light coming from the cracks in her skin. The light forms swallows, a symbol of rebirth, and renews the dying jasmine around her.

After receiving Zoe’s gorgeous artwork, the task then went to Virginia to design a text layout that didn’t detract from it. She did her best to convey all the information necessary and make it legible without obscuring too much of the artwork.“

The cover illustration for The Alchemy of Sorrow. Image description: to the right of the image (the front cover) a woman of color stands before a broken stained glass window. Her body is riddled with glowing golden cracks. A pair of similarly glowing swallows flitter above her hands, held at chest level. She is surrounded by dead vines that curl around the window as well--here and there, a few glowing golden flowers are blooming. To the left of the image (the back cover), a pair of glowing swallows face each other in midair, framed by a few glowing flowers. The rest of the cover shows dead vines and a sense of decay, including a broken ewer.
The cover art for The Alchemy of Sorrow. Image description: to the right of the image (the front cover) a woman of color stands before a broken stained glass window. Her body is riddled with glowing golden cracks. A pair of similarly glowing swallows flitter above her hands, held at chest level. She is surrounded by dead vines that curl around the window as well--here and there, a few glowing golden flowers are blooming. To the left of the image (the back cover), a pair of glowing swallows face each other in midair, framed by a few glowing flowers. The rest of the cover shows dead vines and a sense of decay, including a broken ewer.   The text laid out across the front cover reads “The Alchemy of Sorrow” in gold across the top with a portion of the text hidden behind the woman’s head but still legible. Below that in white, the subtitle “A Fantasy & Sci-Fi Anthology of Grief & Hope” and below that, “ M.L. Wang, K.S. Villoso, Intisar Khanani, Sonya M. Black, Angela Boord, Levi Jacobs, Krystle Matar, Virginia McClain, Quenby Olson, Carol A. Park, Madolyn Rogers, Rachel Emma Shaw & Clayton Snyder” below that “Edited by Sarah Chorn & Virginia McClain”  The spine of the paperback layout shows the publishing logo for Crimson Fox Publishing the the bottom in a light gold color, above that the names Chorn and McClain written in white are separated by a pair of swallows depicted in line art in a light gold color. And above that “The Alchemy of Sorrow” is written out in a stylized font to match the front cover.  The back cover text reads as follows “Here be dragons and sorcery, time travel and sorrow.  Vicious garden gnomes. A grounded phoenix rider. A new mother consumed with vengeance. A dying god. Soul magic.  These stories wrestle with the experience of loss—of loved ones, of relationships, of a sense of self, of health—and forge a path to hope as characters fight their way forward.  From bestsellers and SPFBO finalists to rising voices, 13 exceptionally talented authors explore the many facets of grief and healing through the lens of fantasy and sci-fi.” And below that it reads “Find out more at books2read.com/rl/alchemyofsorrow” and then next to the ISBN Barcode it says in small white text “Cover Illustration by Zoe Badini ©2022, Cover Design VM Designs ©2022”

Ugh…. isn’t it so beautiful! The thing I think I am most impressed about with this cover is how much emotion is practically seeping from the image itself. There’s also something hauntingly beautiful about the imagery of death and destruction represented by the wilted flowers and vines and broken jug juxtaposed alongside the repaired cracks in the woman’s skin and glowing birds that appear to breathe life back into the flowers.

Okay, folks! There it is in all it’s glory and isn’t she stunning! I really hope you all grab a copy when you can because I know the stories within are going to wreak havoc on our emotional states and I really want that for you.

Filed Under: Blog, Cover/Map Reveal Tagged With: Angela Boord, Carol A. Park, Clayton Snyder, Crimson Fox Publishing, Intisar Khanani, K.S. Villoso, Krystle Matar, Levi Jacobs, M.L. Wang, Madolyn Rogers, Quenby Olson, Rachel Emma Shaw, Sarah Chorn, Sonya M. Black, The Alchemy of Sorrow, Virginia McClain

About Justin Gross

Justin is a lover of all things SFF and has been an avid reader since he was three. He is attempting to build the world’s largest private library (not really, but ask his wife and she might agree). Justin is always excited to gush over his favorite reads, which more often than not are also his latest reads. He likes trend toward sweeping epics, with complex characters and even more complex plots. Until recently he was totally against romance, but certain books have shown him that it can be done well. He currently has a love/hate relationship with grimdark.

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