IYANWA's Prequel FAHLI front cover reveal

After many versions, and ideas, I'm ready to share:

This is the front cover for FAHLI — the prequel to IYANWA.

FAHLI front cover, illustrated by C.J. Biggin

I got some time to myself out in Joshua Tree over winter, and I went out with a simple, single plan: write and draw. Write as much as I could, and when I was done writing - draw. Stop for nothing but rest, air, and tea. I'd been carrying ideas around for the FAHLI cover for a while, I had even gotten a good distance into the first draft of it years ago, but it wasn't there. So, I decided that going solo into the desert might help me get out of my own way before anything useful could happen. Although this isn't a post about writing, I'm still so pumped to know that this is living evidence that when you put your mind to something, and have little distractions, serious progresss can be made.

Back to the sketching. After the euphoria of writing 'The End', and taking my foot off the gas for an hour (went and saw a super interesting art installation as only Joshua Tree can provide!), I created thirty thumbnail ideas, give or take. Most of them were rubbish, but that was kind of the point — when you sketch fast and small you stop being precious about it. I got the bad ideas out quickly and was able to move on. I'd also not drawn for a long time, so it was a bit of a rough ride getting back on the bike. But a few of those rough little drawings ended up shaping what you're looking at now, which was really the whole point. I also realized that sometimes the scrappiest, most throwaway sketch has something in it that the cleaner, more considered ones don't.

Because FAHLI is a prequel to IYANWA, keeping it visually consistent was really important to me. I wanted someone who had read IYANWA to pick up FAHLI and feel immediately at home. Of course it would be the same world, and the same energy, same heartbeat, but it wanted to feel like this was its own thing. I spent a lot of time thinking about what IYANWA's cover said and what FAHLI's needed to say differently. IYANWA is night. FAHLI is day. That sounds simple but it shaped almost every decision — the warmth of the palette, the way the light sits behind the characters, the feeling of openness versus the feeling of mystery.

The lettering mattered a lot too. I won't pretend I cracked it perfectly on either cover — I'm not sure I did — but what I wanted from both titles was something that felt organic and alive. Both titles glow, which for me reflects something beating at the heart of each story. Something within them. I wanted the letters to feel like they belonged to the world rather than sitting on top of it (if that makes sense).

Have a close look at the background of the FAHLI cover. There are a few details hiding in there. I'm not saying what they mean yet — that would spoil things — but they're there for a reason, and I think once you've read the book and you come back to the cover, they'll land differently. I love that about book covers. The best ones reveal themselves slowly. You think you've seen everything and then you read the story and suddenly the cover has context and depth. That's what I was reaching for with FAHLI, and with IYANWA before it. Whether I got there is for you to decide.

A well read IYANWA

The other challenge is, we all know the adage 'don't just a book by its cover', but really, we do it all the time. So covers have about a second to do their job — you're standing in front of a shelf full of books, all of them beautifully made, all of them competing for the same moment of attention, and something has to make you reach out and pick one up. One second. Maybe less. That's a weird, almost impossible thing to design for, and the longer I spent on it the more I understood why it's so hard. Too much detail and the cover gets noisy, your eye doesn't know where to go and so it moves on. Too little and there's nothing to hold onto, nothing to spark that first flicker of curiosity. The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle and it's different for every book...

Drawing the front cover for a while (a long while!) kept me deep inside the composition, so you stop being able to see it clearly. So, I showed early versions to friends and family and got some great ideas for small tweaks, and general feedback, which I listened to earnestly. A friend pointed something out about the composition that I'd completely overlooked, and once I saw it I couldn't unsee it. I re-did Izzy's face several times on Iyanwa — and then the main character from Fahli — also several times. I'm glad I asked. The version you're looking at now is better because of that conversation.

Hardcover case of IYANWA

There's also a hardcover version that I'll be sharing soon, and I'm really excited about that one. The hardcover case for IYANWA was something I approached very differently to the jacket — simpler, quieter, more classic. I tried to do the same with FAHLI and I think it works, but I'll let you be the judge of that when I share it.

For now — here's FAHLI. I hope it makes you curious. I hope it makes you want to know what's inside. And I really hope that when you do read it, you come back and look at the cover one more time.

More soon.