Today is release day for The Grandest Bookshop in the World by Amelia Mellor, and, delightfully, the first time my illustrations appear on the cover of a published book. The entrancing cover design is by Affirm Press, and I contributed the characters and window illustrations. I can’t wait til I can go to a bookshop and see it for real. But, in the meantime, it has been a pretty exciting distraction from Covid lockown.
As for the actual story: it’s a glorious middle-grade fantasy adventure set in 1890s Melbourne, and the bookshop, known as Cole’s Book Arcade, was a real place. I loved it, and it feels like such a special story, grounded in Melbourne history.
Thank you so much to Meg Whelan, and the Affirm team, for bringing me into this project.
Here’s the book trailer:
And here’s a little close up of the MCs :
Sylvia Morris 