, and here is the concept:
The book follows a journalist who moves to a quiet coastal town, only to uncover a long-buried missing person case. As she investigates, she receives eerie warnings that she might be the next to disappear.
The cover should capture the dark, suspenseful, and mysterious tone of the story while appealing to readers of psychological thrillers.
Book Blurb: Some secrets are meant to stay buried.
When journalist Olivia Carter moves to the quiet town of Blackwood Bay, she hopes for a peaceful escape. But when she stumbles upon a decades-old missing person case, strange things begin to happen.
Anonymous messages. A mysterious figure watching her. Whispers of a truth that no one wants revealed.
As Olivia digs deeper, she realizes she’s not just uncovering a story—she’s being pulled into one. And in Blackwood Bay, the past never stays silent for long.
It’s a starting point! I highly recommend, looking at other book covers, from nearly any genre, and pay attention to what the most important bits of information are – they’re going to be the largest elements present. That’s the kind of object hierarchy you’re going to want to follow.
Aside from the hierarchy, couple of things really stand out to me here, the silhouette of the “shh” gesture and girl with the lantern, really overpowers the entire cover with it’s dominant size and highly contrasting color against the background.
Maybe split the two into separate objects and use them in an overlapping composition with very low opacity over the background - make the image as mysterious as the story behind it. You may want to use an entirely different visual.
The typography doesn’t feel evocative of the story setting/synopsis you’ve provided. Dig in to some of the specifics of the story, such as the era, or type of place it’s set in - both of those can help identify a typeface (or two to complement each other) for setting the title, and author text.
