Last fall when I started this here little blog, my first post featured the cover art for Courtney Summers’ third novel, Fall for Anything. All of the design elements flowed beautifully together. It was the kind of cover that captured a mood, an ache of sorts, with a subdued color palette, a title that held its own without completely dominating the piece, and drops of detail about Eddie’s story.

If there was a cover to follow in FFA’s footsteps, it’d be the captivating face of Under the Mesquite.

I wish I had this novel in my hot little hands right now because I want to read whatever words are written in the sky and examine those characters that flow beneath the ground. I immediately want to stop what I’m doing, and listen to this story Lupita wants to tell me. Also, what’s so special about that tree? Never has a giant shrub (and basically the Zombie Plant of the tree world) looked so meaningful and beautiful on a cover.

There’s a quiet and peaceful spatial balance to Under the Mesquite’s cover design, and I think that’s why I can’t help but keep staring at it. Seriously, it’s like a little zen garden in the YA cover art world.

This may just have to be one of my first verse novels.