Why I redesign my covers…

I could wax lyrical on current trends in online readership and design strategies behind market domination but the truth is, the reason I changed the cover of my stand-alone adult novel
 An Island Lost is as simple as this:

It's both good fun and a vital part of the creative process!

I love designing covers. It's a pet joy of mine. I love playing with images and fonts, colours and embellishments to create the most visually appealing book I can. Not just visually appealing, but visually relevant.

Because I like my covers to reveal the essence of my book. 

Now that may seem like a no-brainer to you, but I am often disappointed by a book that promises one thing with its cover and delivers something entirely different with its content. You think, soft and dreamy and it turns out to be hard and dreary. Or vice versa.

And don't get me started on all the dreadfully dull crime fiction that is published by traditional publishers. It is as though they have said, 'Let's try to say as little as possible with this cover.' By trying to be all things to all readers, they end up with a cover that is boring, banal and blah!

Aussie paramedic-turned-author Katherine Howell tops that list of offenders and, sorry Harlan Coben, but you're up there, too. I love both authors' words, but their covers don't tell me a thing.

An Island Lost, an evolving tale...

I am known for changing my covers, it's true, but this particular book has seen several manifestations in its four years of publication.

I started with a slightly ominous, more masculine design in the early days which was done by a graphic designer by the name of Stuart Eadie. He did a great job, but I soon grew disappointed. It seemed too blokey to me and didn't really get the story across. It also seemed to alienate so many of my core readers—women.

So last year I did an about-face and redesigned the cover myself, this time with a very feminine look. I loved that cover, still do, but gradually have begun to wonder if it's a little too girlie. It looks like ChickLit and it's absolutly not that!

Back to the drawing board…

Recently, while pouring over images for my new Agatha Christie Book Club (cover reveal to come soon!), I found a photo that seemed perfect for An Island Lost—which is the story of a woman's journey back to her homeland, Papua New Guinea. The image is both fun and invigorating, and just slightly ominous. There's depth and there's illumination, and it's neither a book for men or a book for chicks. I think it encapsualtes the content perfectly.


But you be the judge! If you've read it, please let me know if you think this new-look cover better suits the book. If not, just let me know your thoughts, anyway.

Covers are not the most important part of a book, but they sure are fun to get right.

Happy (visually appealing) reading, everyone.
xo Christina

Tip-toe through the skull caves

 I blame it all on the cannibal skulls.

My fixation with murder, mayhem and mystery must surely have been sparked the moment I first glimpsed those brittle, moudly heads perched below the rocky ledge in deepest, darkest Papua New Guinea.

I was seven or eight years of age. My whole family had clamboured through the thick, dangling foliage for a good hour, sweat flooding our bodies, mosquitoes hovering over uncovered flesh, the sun snapping at us between breaks in the canopy.

Finally, just when I was ready to play the Tired Child card, our local guide called out, "E stap!"

And there they were: 27 skulls of longdead locals. Cannibals, we were told, respected members of their clan. Why else would anyone bother to haul their heads all the way up to this hidden spot?

There was once a second skull cave, one that bore the heads of white missionaries. Or so the rumour went. The cave had only ever been sighted twice before mysteriously vanishing in the forest, never to been seen again. 

Had it caved in? 
Had the rainforest gobbled it up?
Or perhaps it never really existed, was a myth started to terrify the dim-dims*, to keep us up at night. 

The jury is still out on that one, but from the moment I heard about it, from the second I spotted those skulls, my imagination was awakened, my creativity alive. It's no wonder two of my mystery books have centred around cannibal skull caves— An Island Lost and A Plot To Die For (Ghostwriter Mystery 2). See below.

My journey to the caves

Born and bred in Papua New Guinea (PNG), I was used to local folklore and sinister superstitions. My family often travelled to the eastern tip of the country, to the stunning Milne Bay where we co-owned a deserted island called Doini, an unprofitable copra plantation that had long been deserted by the locals.

Like most of the country, this region is glowing with a colourful past. It is a land where the ancestors of real-life cannibals still live, where missionaries still visit despite being headhunted in numbers, and where witchdoctors are as common as GPs.

On the surface, Doini Island seems like any other idyllic tropical haven—glistening, crystal clear water, clapping palm fronds, friendly local villagers. But I had come to know it as a deeper, darker place, a land of honest-to-God mystery. And that creepy cannibal cave beckoned me each time we visited, never failing to inspire and impress.

And I have visited plenty.

I was just there, last week, on a reunion trip with my entire extended clan - 18 of us in fact. Doini is now an eco-resort, no longer the playground of a few lucky families, but its rough past remains, the cave still firmly settled in the middle of the forest, relatively untouched. Still beckoning visitors in.

And so I trudged there again last week, camera in hand, notebook at the ready. And while the path is so much easier today—thanks to longer legs and a tourist friendly track—the goose bumps still rippled across my body the second the skulls came into view. And I itched to tell another story based on those bones, reimagining their history once again.

If you haven't read my two novels that are set on fictionalised versions of Doini—and this blog has you intrigued—you can catch up with them at Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Nook and elsewhere:

• An Island Lost is the story of a young woman's journey back to a tiny Pacific island where her father once disappeared. It tells of her journey from an organised life in New York city to the chaos of Papua New Guinea, and climaxes at the very spot where my imagination took hold—that extraordinary skull cave.

• A Plot to Die For is the second adventure for Ghostwriter Roxy Parker who is invited to a boutique island resort to write the life story of an extrovert hotelier. When Roxy discovers the hotelier murdered, her head protruding from the sand in a ghastly local ritual, she must swallow her horror to uncover whodunit.

See the skulls firsthand

Or perhaps you want to discover the skull cave for yourself? I may elaborate on the journey in a future blog, but for now, check out Doini Island's website and start saving for your fare. It's no quick trip. From Australia, it requires two plane rides, a quick jaunt in the back of a truck, and a bumpy four-hour boat ride, but it's certainly worth the effort: http://www.doiniisland.com/

Otherwise, happy reading everyone, and may your life be filled with adventure and awe. Or, at the very least, a few sights that set your imagination on fire.

xo Christina

*dim-dim: a local Milne Bay nickname for white people

An Island Found

I'm heading up to Papua New Guinea next week and wondering whether Roxy Parker will be joining me this time, or whether Vilia Lea mght be strapped in beside me on the rattling Cessna 182 instead.

My loyal readers will know exactly what I'm talking about and why I'm buzzing with excitement. Born and bred in the South Pacific nation, I have set two of my best-selling books up there, or thereabouts.

A Plot to Die For (Ghostwriter Mystery Book 2) was set on a fictional island called Dormay in a fabricated island nation, but really it's just a luxurious version of an island called Doini where I'll be travelling to next week.

Similarly, my stand-alone novel, An Island Lost, is set on an island called Tubu which is a more realistic version of Doini, a very real island where I spent idyllic childhood holidays, complete with cannibal skull caves (I kid you not), empty shell-smattered beaches, and folklore so vibrant, it quivers.

This time, my whole family will be travelling with me to Doini, which is no quick hop, skip and a jump. Situated on the safe eastern tip of PNG in the stunning Milne Bay, we first have to fly into Port Moresby, overnighting in the capital, before catching a light aircraft to the ramshackle town of Alotau. From there we hitch a long boat ride to the island, boxes of supplies in tow, including fresh milk and heavyduty SPF.

Doini Island is postcard perfect, we're talking azure water, white beaches, vibrant coral reef, but it's also so rich in colour and texture a postcard would do it no justice. It could fill endless novels, which brings me back to my opening question....

Who should accompany me?

Should I take my 'Ghostie' Roxy Parker back up there, and see what mischief she stumbles into this time? Last time, if you recall, she found her hotelier client dead, buried to the head in the soft white sand.

Or is it time for Vilia Lea, my 'little girl lost' who came to terms with her extraordinary family history in An Island Lost, to start a whole new chapter in a long-awaited sequel?

What do you think?

I'd love to hear from you, especially if you've read one or both of those books. Until then,  a warning dear friends: from Monday, I'll be silent for a few weeks—WiFi is sacrilege on a place like Doini—but I'll be madly scribbling in my journal and turning the experience into an adventure you're sure to enjoy in the not-too-distant future. I can't promise that Roxy and/or Vilia will be quite as happy about it!

Happy reading everyone, and happy adventuring if you can manage it.

xo Christina