Michael doesn’t know he’s got a demon on his tail. He doesn’t know he has only four days left to live. All he knows is there are seven cigarettes left in his pack, and he’s quitting smoking after he smokes the last. He holds onto that. It’s the one small thing in his screwed up life that makes sense — that he can control. The only question left is whether he finishes the pack before the demon is finished with him. Seven Cigarettes is a seven-chapter companion novella to J. Powell Ogden’s young adult dark fantasy horror The Guardian’s Playlist Trilogy. The first pages of the book sound like it’s just going to be another teen paranormal romance but it quickly darkens to explore Michael’s struggle to balance the trauma of his past with the hope of a teenager.

Sifting through all the ingredients with visual potential in the book, our cover cooks extracted the switchblade a 17-year old drug dealer wields in a key fight scene. To create the illustration, our cover cooks thoroughly searched knife types that fitted the author’s description. The handle design and the unfolding, slightly grunge blade gives a sense of foreboding while the rosary-like chain nods ever so slightly to the Catholic backdrop of the book. The title was composed with the same font used in the cover design for The Guardian’s Playlist Trilogy, which perfectly suits young adult readers.