Every cover sells a book and every cover has a story. For my new book Both Feet in Paradise the idea for the cover came from the protagonist’s love of butterflies – after all he’s in Sāmoa to study these brightly colourful insects. Sarah Bolland of Cuba Press designed the cover using an illustration of a green birdwing (Ornithoptera priamus) by Charles Dessalines D’Orbigny. He was a French botanist and geologist, and identified many of the flowers (and perhaps butterflies) sent home from South America by his elder brother, naturalist and explorer Alcide d’Orbigny.
Look at the butterfly carefully. Notice how there’s something not quite right about its top half, almost a blurring? And the way those antennae grab the book’s title? Maybe a hint or two about the world inside.
Andy Southall 