Choosing a political thriller book cover
Do Not Keep Silent has been out for about fifteen months. It’s a political thriller that has elements of romantic suspense and protest fiction, as well as a healthy dose of espionage.
Some of the scenes are visceral and violent and put characters you genuinely care about in horrendous danger. One reviewer said, “I was up and down with tension.”
The Original Cover
But the original cover did not reflect that danger. In many ways, I’m still proud of it. It was calm, and clever, even if I do say so myself. After all, I was the designer. I’d contacted a superb photographer called Jonathan Van Smit, who gave me permission to use one of his images from the 2019 Hong Kong protests.
I zoomed in on one section of his original photograph – a young protester looking down at her phone, and then slightly pixellated it to symbolise the perils of state surveillance. The image represented the main character, Mae Yang in a quiet moment of the protest she organises in Do Not Keep Silent. The problem is, for a political thriller book cover it was too quiet.
The Design Brief
Do Not Keep Silent needed a cover that better represented the nature of the novel. So I turned to Get Covers, a Ukranian book cover design agency. You can see the result at the top of this post.
As its title suggests, Do Not Keep Silent is not a quiet book. It’s loud, with heart-rending action scenes that put the reader right in the middle of a protest just as it turns violent. Even in Chapter One, sirens wail, helicopter rotor blades whump overhead and police non-lethal rifles are fired.
But the very heart of Do Not Keep Silent is its two central characters, protest leader Mae and the drifting Pete, who meet on the Peak and against all odds fall in love. Through their relationship, the impact of Mae’s protest and what is happening across Hong Kong in real life is explored in microcosm.
The New Cover
After a couple of false starts, Get Covers came up trumps. I love the way the new cover captures Mae’s essence as she looks to the future with a mixture of resignation and hope. Hong Kong’s skyline is clearly shown and the idea of the protest is literally front and centre. The new design actually looks like a political thriller book cover. Now I just have the same old puzzling question I always have: should I go for a matt or gloss finish?
Blurb for Do Not Keep Silent
In Hong Kong, speaking out is dangerous.
Mae Yang spent years building a protest she knows may destroy her. Arrest, prison, disappearance. The risks are clear, but she accepts them anyway.
Trying to escape his past, Pete Anderson arrives in Hong Kong. Instead, he finds Mae and a city bracing for impact. Their connection is immediate, but unsustainable. Mae’s life belongs to the protest. She has no space for anything else. For Pete, the choice is simple: walk away, or join a cause that demands everything.
As Mae’s protest approaches, surveillance tightens and pressure mounts from all sides. Loyalties fracture. Family ties shatter. Private choices carry public consequences.
When hundreds of thousands take to the streets, history is no longer something that happens to other people.
Do Not Keep Silent is a gripping, emotionally charged novel about resistance, sacrifice, and the moment when ordinary lives collide with events too large to escape.
Links
Do Not Keep Silent is available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.
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