Princess of Blood by Tom Lloyd – Cover Reveal

So here it is: the cover of Princess of Blood in all its monstery goodness. After the brilliant Stranger of Tempest cover we of course went back to Jon McCoy to do this one too and I think you’ll agree it’s a cracker – artwork to grab you by the throat! Before the throat grabbing commences, however, I’d like to talk briefly about the cover concept for Stranger.

This time round it was a harder thing for me, the author, to decide what I wanted. For Stranger it was easy. There was no question in my mind – “Think the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, but give Gandalf a shotgun”. (Okay, so I jest a bit there, but not a lot.) As soon as the characters got into Shadows Deep and I started building the shape of it in my mind, I couldn’t get that image out of my head – and why would I want to? The book was different enough to Tolkien that this (massive) nod to one of the most iconic scenes in fantasy could be forgiven.

But I hadn’t had that moment in Princess. Don’t get me wrong, I had had a whole lot of fun writing the book, and it has all the true pleasures in life (such as monsters and explosions), but I found myself unable to choose one scene I liked the best! And I didn’t see any clear opportunity to shamelessly evoke a giant of the genre either. So instead I sent a list of suggestions to my editor, Marcus, whose reply was along the lines of, “duh, giant ghost-demon monster thingy, of course!”

AND SO I GIVE YOU: GIANT GHOST-DEMON MONSTER THINGY!

This time round, we’re setting our stall out early. Not to get into too much detail, but the cover action is from a scene right at the start and features an ancient automated magical defence mechanism of sorts. (It’s almost like the builders of a labyrinth from a now-extinct civilisation didn’t want people breaking in to steal stuff.)

Obviously, everything gets worse for a lot of people from there on while the Cards drink, snort, swallow, shag, or blow up everything they can get their hands on in the meantime. Having come into the employ of Toil – a tomb raider and master spy rolled into one – Lynx and his mercenary friends have run the gauntlet of a monster-haunted ruin while being chased by the elite troops of a powerful military-religious order and are looking for a bit of respite.

Instead, their new mission takes them to the venerable city of Jarrazir. Toil has heard whispers that an academic is close to opening an ancient Duegar labyrinth for the first time in human history. With her usual cynical view of history, Toil realises this means everything is about to kick off there and so she travels with the Cards to get in on the fun. As her various agendas start to collide and conflict, even the cold-hearted ruin raider and her band of lovable scamps start to feel a little daunted.

But when you’re too stubborn, determined, reckless, drunk, or stupid to know the meaning of defeat, fortune is on your side. Or something is anyway. Most importantly, the Cards are a company full of gamblers and few of them would bet against the Princess of Blood when that card appears on the table.

Here’s the official blurb from Amazon:

There’s a new Card in the Mercenary Deck – one Lynx isn’t sure if he’s happy to see or not. The assassin Toil now wears the Princess of Blood on her jacket and even Lynx would admit she’s a woman cloaked in chaos and bloodshed.

Their new mission is to escort a dignitary to the pious and ancient city of Jarrazir – beneath which lies a fabled labyrinth. Having barely survived their last underground adventure the mercenaries aren’t keen for another, but Toil has other plans.

Under threat of siege and horrors rising from the labyrinth, even the Mercenary Deck may have to accept that Jarrazir’s prohibition laws aren’t their biggest problem.

Princess of Blood is up for pre-order right now and will be released on July 27, 2017. In the meantime, the first book of the God Fragments, Stranger of Tempest, is now available in paperback. (Read the Overlord’s review here.)

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