Back cover blurb

By Jenny Hilborne
Author of mysteries and thrillers


I consider myself fortunate.

For the past eight months, I've been reading and reviewing pre-publication novels for the New York Journal of Books. Every month, NYJB reviewers get a lengthy list of books to peruse. Anything containing great suspense and great storytelling grabs my attention, but with only a few lines of back cover blurb to go on, making a decision is still a bit of a gamble. I don't have time to waste and once I've selected a book I'm committed to reading the whole thing, whether I like it or not.

Usually, I'm not disappointed with my choice. Only one book I've read for NYJB has received an unfavorable review (I'm not going to name it, but the review will post on the NYJB site upon the books release in September). This is the book that prompted my little outburst in my last CFC blog post. Quite frankly, the book sucked, but I credit the author for the incredible back cover blurb that pulled me in. If the blurb had been written in the vein of the book, I'd have skipped right past it on the list.

Of course, back cover blurb isn't enough on its own. The cover is the mannequin in the window, the thing that gets readers to stop. Once they have stopped and picked the book up, the blurb is what keeps it in their hand and propels them to look inside. Authors can give a great pitch at book festivals, but the blurb is usually what sells (or doesn't) the book. It hurts when a reader decides to pass and sets it back on the shelf, or the table. Yes, that's happened to me in the past, and I questioned if it was my pitch or my blurb that failed me.

At book events, I love and loathe the question: "What's your book about?" Mostly, I love it, but I get that panicky feeling inside: how do I condense the whole 300+ pages into a succinct ten second pitch? It's the same thing authors face when writing the blurb. It's tough.

I've been asked by other authors about writing a back cover blurb, and I hesitate to give advice, usually because I don't know their story. All I can say is, the blurb that pulled me in on the aforementioned sucky book included emotion, intrigue and suspense. The plot seemed simple and told me a little about the victim. It hooked me and roused my curiosity.

When I write my own blurbs, I find the best hook in my story and use it on the back cover. I think a good blurb includes conflict and identifies the main character. It must speak to the intended audience. A reader looking for romance won't be happy with a romantic blurb that disguises a thriller. If the book includes both, make it clear.

Back cover blurb is as much of an art as the novel itself. A tight, crisp blurb makes it easier to pitch at a book festival. It makes it easier to love it when a reader asks that question: What's your book about?

Once upon a time

A long time ago, before I was a writer or a software engineer or a dancer or a flying angel or a horsewoman…

I was an artist.

It was destiny, in a family of people who drew and painted and sculpted, that I follow suit. My uncle actually made his living as an artist (eventually - after spending years working in an advertising agency). He has since passed on, but you can see some of his works here. As I was the first child, first grandchild, and first great-grandchild, the heat was on for me to fill my uncle's shoes. I was the Chosen One.

Except that my favorite thing to do was doodle. I didn't want to study line and work with light and shadow and color. I wanted to take a big sheet of paper and start in one corner with my crayons and pencils, and tell a story.

"Once upon a time," I'd say to myself, then start drawing. It might be a house that would hold a family and they would go on an adventure. Or maybe it was an airplane flying over some distant island and the tale would be about mermaids in the ocean and volcanoes and parachutes. Most of the time, there were animals. A forest of lions and deer and monkeys. The Great Plains, teeming with mustangs, all charging forward with long, waving manes and flying tails.

By the time I was finished, my "artwork" was a patchwork of scenes. They were fairly well drawn, with good perspective. But taken as a whole, it was a hot mess.

Nevertheless, I persisted in my art, spending a year at college as an art major, before I figured out that a) I didn't want to pursue art in the same vein as my family, and b) if I didn't get out of my parents' house soon, someone would have to die. So I dropped out of school and burst from my folks' house in a fit of marriage. Which is a story for another day.

Why am I telling you this story?

I've mentioned before that my first novel was plotted out on an Excel spreadsheet, with all of the characters and clues and a steady timeline lain out. My second novel started life in Excel, but I was never really happy with the plot points, so I went rogue and just started making stuff up. I say that very casually. What I did was open every scene with "Who is in this scene? What do they want? What obstacle can I throw at them to keep them from reaching their goal?" I am, by the way, amazed at the writers who always use the seat-of-the-pants approach. How do they know where the story is going to arc? How can they tell when they're done?

Now I'm writing the third mystery. As usual, I need to know what happened, then figure out how my character solves the case. I started with the Excel and got confused because there were a lot of new people running around in my head. Then I went to journaling these strangers and realized I could spend years writing everyone's diary. I needed to find a way to blend these actions or I'd never get the book written.

A blank piece of paper told me what to do. I sat down on the carpet, picked up a pencil and started in the corner. "Once there was a house on fire and a boy trapped inside. The house belonged to a man who had a lot of Dean Martin things. He was very sad when his things burned."

See? I'm a doodler

I wasn't drawing houses in flames, this time. There are lots of words and circles and lines with arrows going here and there and it looks like a hot mess to anyone who doesn't know what the book is about. But now I know what it's about.

If you'll excuse me, I've got some writing to do.

P.S. I'd show you my "storyboard" but I don't want to give away any spoilers.

Back to Three Pines

A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny.

For a tiny village that's not on any maps, Three Pines has more than its share of murders. Even the residents and the police voice that opinion. Luckily, the head of the Murder Squad at the Sûreté du Québec knows the village and its denizens well.

Artist Clara Morrow, who lives in Three Pines, has finally been "discovered" and is having her first solo show at the Montréal Musée d'Art Contemporain. After the show, her husband Peter has organized a party/barbecue in the garden of their home in Three Pines, with dozens of guests, some invited by other guests.

The next day, returning with a pile of newspapers that reviewed Clara's exhibit, Peter finds a body in the back yard. Hidden the night before in a flower bed in a remote corner of the garden, it's quite noticeable in the morning sunshine, due to its bright red dress.

The body is that of a childhood friend of Clara's, with whom she hasn't had contact in many years. Lillian Dyson, unable to succeed as an artist herself, had become a critic known for her cruelty to burgeoning artists. What she was doing at the Morrow's party was a mystery; she had no idea where Clara lived and none of guests admitted seeing her. Because Lillian was so good at alienating people, there is no shortage of suspects for the crime.

Gamache and his second in command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, once again move their homicide team to the old railroad station in Three Pines in order to investigate. Gamache and Beauvoir are still not completely recovered from the injuries they received in a warehouse raid many months earlier, though Gamache is in much better shape than his deputy. Somehow, though, the two men manage to make use of their inner demons as they solve the puzzle of Lillian Dyson's death in Three Pines.

Each of Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache novels has been outstanding, and each has seemed better than its predecessor. A Trick of the Light is no exception. As she has in the six earlier books, Ms. Penny draws us into the world of Gamache and Beauvoir and their team, and the isolated community of Three Pines. The policemen's relationship with the villagers doesn't hinder them from being objective, and all concerned are aware of this.

The characters are deftly created, as well. Few of them are one-dimensional; Ms. Penny is able to portray even the most minor characters as multi-dimensional.

There are a couple of problems with the book, however. It is necessary to have read the previous books in the series to have a proper understanding of this one (though perhaps reading the six books in the series for the first time is not really a problem). Secondly (and truly sadly), the reader eventually reaches the last page, the last sentence, the last word of the book with the realization that there will be a wait of many months for the next.

A Trick of the Light will be released on August 30, 2011.

*FTC Full Disclosure: Many thanks to the publisher, who sent me a copy of the book for review purposes.