Here it is, the Weird Stories Gone Wrong Bundle! Or is that an Omnibus...
Whatever you choose to call it, it does mean that for the first time ever, all six books in the series are now available in one place as of today! Thank you to publisher Dundurn Press for pulling this 5-year project together.
You can download the e-pub or pdf format now:
Weird Stories Omnibus
It's been an amazing experience writing this series. It took five years to write and publish all six books, a significant output of words, effort and skill from everyone involved, including my amazing series illustrator, Shawna Daigle, who added just the right touch of weird to everything.
Here's a recent blog post with more top memories: 5 top take-aways writing a series
Since book six, Quinn and the Quiet, Quiet (Sept. '19) is the final book in the series, I thought I'd take this space to post my favourite illustration from each book, and tell you why:
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| Dix and the Smallish Officer Copyright Shawna Daigle, 2019 |
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| Book 6 |
Book 5. My favourite illustration from book 5 is William and the Mermaid Queen, because she's so terrifying! But also because I decided to write this book, Blackwells and the Briny Deep, because Shawna asked if we could do a book with mermaids, one of her favourite things to draw.
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| William and the Mermaid Queen, copyright Shawna Daigle From Blackwells and the Briny Deep (2018) |
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| From Alex and The Other c Shawna Daigle, 2018 |
Book 4. My favourite illustration from book 4, Alex and The Other, HAS to be the transformed pig aliens trapping poor Alex in their green gazer beam eyes. He-he!When I was writing this scene, I could see it SO perfectly, but I really wasn't sure how to explain it to Shawna, or if she (or anyone else for that matter) would get it.
She did get it. Perfectly.
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| Cover art, Carter and the Curious Maze Copyright Shawna Daigle, 2016 |
Book 3. I wrote Carter and the Curious Maze (2016) as a love letter to Toronto. It is a time-travel story set on the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition, not far from my house. My favourite illustration is definitely the cover (although all the inside illustrations are amazing too.) I love this cover the best of all six in the series, which is a tough call because they are all beautiful works of art. But this one took my breath away when I first saw it, and it still does.
Book 2. Myles and the Monster Outside (2015) is still my favourite book of the series, mostly because it came from a real-life spooky night I spent on the highway after a 4-day drive. It was such a relief to write that scene out of my head and onto paper!
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| From Myles and the Monster Outside Copyright Shawna Daigle, 2015 |
My favourite illustration from the book, and my favourite in the entire series, is the triptych of Myles, Courage the dog, and Myles's monster.
And finally, Book 1. When I started this journey with Jake and the Giant Hand in 2014, I had never worked with Shawna, and had never had an illustrator draw my weird scenes. It was a revelation. I gasped when I saw her first drafts for the book cover, and then the inside drawings. It is the very LUCKIEST thing that can happen to a writer: to see their ideas, drawn from the deep, dark, lonely well of their writing, become an image that exactly matches what they were thinking.
I cannot thank Shawna enough for capturing everything, every single cover and image (46 images in the series in total), so perfectly.
So, here is the final book cover and one final favourite image, which is one that we never used: the campfire story of The Giant Hand being told by Christopher in the cabin in the woods. I love this, because when I saw this cover concept, even though we went with Shawna's amazing giant fly in the end, I knew that the series was in excellent hands, and we were going to work together really well! THANK YOU SHAWNA, and everyone involved with the series, it's been a dream. |
| Alternate Cover, Jake and the Giant Hand Copyright Shawna Daigle, 2014 |
For all 6 book trailers, here is my YOUTUBE CHANNEL
2 comments:
A fun read! Ranking your book covers--what an interesting way to learn about the experience of being an author, and the stages of taking story from imagination into the world.
thank you Aboy! It has been an interesting experience for sure, watching each book in the series come to life with Shawna's illustrations. AND, it's not easy to pick favourites, since they are all so good. Thanks for dropping by! PD
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