This is another book cover that I illustrated recently for the excellent people at Penguin books. The book is called Little Shop of Homicide, and is the first in the new Devereaux’s Dime Store Mystery series by Denise Swanson. Ms. Swanson is the New York Times best-selling author of the very successful Scumble River mystery series, so it was extra exciting to be a part of the Devereaux debut! Here’s the premise of the book (from Denise Swanson’s website):

“Devereaux Sinclair is the happy new owner of the adorable old-fashioned shop in her small Missouri town. But when a revenge-crazed cop accuses Dev of murdering her ex’s fiancée — and the murder weapon is found with her fingerprints all over it — Dev’s store, and her life, quickly turn from charmed to troubled. If she doesn’t find the real killer soon, this five-and-dime owner will be serving twenty-five to life…”

It was fun to develop the look of Devereaux and capture the small-town feel of her dime store in the illustration. The book just came out this month, and if you’re a mystery fan like me, you should give it a read! (You can order it on Amazon, here.) Thanks to Elizabeth Phillips for the great art direction!

The Juno Charm is a lovely new book of poetry written by Irish poet Nuala Ni Chonchuir and published by Salmon Poetry, and it was relseased just last month. My “Midnight Peacock” illustration was chosen for the cover art because, as Nuala put it, the peacock is the symbolic animal of Juno, and the book includes several references to the moon. Nuala and the people at Salmon were delightful to work with, and I was quite excited to receive my copy of the book a little bit ago. If you’re a fan of poetry (or peacocks!) you should definitely check it out!

Visit the Salmon poetry page about the book here, and if you’re in the States and would  like to order the book, you can get it from Amazon, here. And, if you’d like to order a copy of the “Midnight Peacock” print for yourself, you can do so here.