Dark-Hunter® News

Same Outstanding Series

Sensational New Cover Style!

Those of you who already have your Kenyon titles on pre-order (or who keep an avid eye on the ever changing face of our UK Books page) will know that April 2011 sees the launch of a mammoth re-jacketing programme for Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter® titles here in the UK.
Starting with the paperback edition of No Mercy (and a special re-issued version of Fantasy Lover, the book that launched the global Dark-Hunter® phenomenon) all 19 books in the series so far are set to take on an iconic new look.
This is of course, hugely exciting news! So we’ve asked the two lovely ladies behind it all to tell us more about the inspiration behind the new look. . .

Donna Condon, Editor

At Piatkus we adore Sherrilyn Kenyon and her amazing imagination continues to astound us. I mean, she was writing Paranormal Romance before there was even a genre called Paranormal Romance!
Her Dark-Hunter® series is a fascinating mix of supernatural and ancient mythology, powerful characters and sizzling relationships. So much more than ‘just another genre read’, these books are as much about the relationships of the characters that populate them as the supernatural elements within in them, giving them a really broad appeal. You don’t have to be a dedicated genre fan to love them and I decided that it was time to broadcast that message!
When I briefed our designer, I asked for a striking new cover style that emphasised the fact that Kenyon is a unique brand author with mass appeal. The design needed to hint at genre fiction, because of the supernatural strand running throughout the books, but we didn’t want the books to look exclusively supernatural, as we wanted to appeal to that untapped market of 20+ women who love series fiction, mythology, vampires, strong but flawed heroes, romantic storylines and lots of action, but might not necessarily gravitate to ‘genre-looking’ books.
So what we needed was a sophisticated, subtly supernatural and intriguing style which appealed to existing fans of Kenyon’s novels, but also enticed newcomers. I hope you’ll agree that this is something we have achieved!

Hannah Clark, Designer

The greatest challenge as the designer, when creating this new style for Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter® books, was to devise a look that had the flexibility and the longevity to stay fresh across the huge series of 20 books (and counting!). The new style had to be appealing to both existing Kenyon fans as well as new readers that might not naturally gravitate towards genre books. They needed a look that you would want to be seen reading!
In order to meet Donna’s brief, to create a sophisticated look that would have a broad appeal, it was important to be quite subtle. I have chosen strong, contemporary typefaces that hint at the genre, but still feel quite cool. The challenge was to create a formula that could be followed for all the books, but that wouldn’t appear repetitive 20 books down the line. So, the type and new strong author branding will stay consistent across the series, but we can then experiment with the characters and textures/backgrounds and colours with each one.
My inspiration behind the new look, very much started with looking at film posters. I wanted to find a way of presenting/framing the cover images that would give them a very distinct look. The sense of place wasn’t so important to me, so much as the atmosphere, so we stuck to simple textures and landscapes that hopefully subtly emphasise the supernatural element to the books. The textured edges that frame the background images are moveable, but their main function is to emphasise the heroic characters. The central focus of each book should be these powerful characters (who seem to be what existing fans relate to, and what have made the books a global phenomenon), so for each in the series we have worked with a great photographer to find models with intense and unusual looks and shot them using high contrast lighting to create a dramatic and atmospheric feel.
I look forward to seeing (and being seen with) these fantastic new look Sherrilyn Kenyon covers and hope you will too!

Publication of the new look Dark-Hunter® titles will be supported by book giveaways and online promotions so stay tuned to www.sherrilynkenyon.co.uk for your chance to win fantastic Sherrilyn Kenyon prizes!