A fundraising scheme at Mahina State University (“Where Your Future Begins Tomorrow”) forces pregnant Professor Molly into the role of “tutierge” (that’s tutor-concierge). While she’s battling morning sickness, a meddling mom, and the Student Retention Office. The last thing she needs to deal with right now is murder.
But here we are.
Mother’s Day, Professor Molly #6
The physical book covers for the Professor Molly series have been undergoing a minor makeover. The back covers have been reworked to have similar layouts, and the name-title order on the books’ spines is now the same. (There is no universally-accepted convention for which comes first, but it was bugging me that half of the Professor Molly book spines had the name at the top and the title at the bottom, and the other half were the opposite. Now they’re consistent.)
There have been no major changes to any of the cover designs. With one exception: Mother’s Day. That cover had always been my least favorite. It was supposed to evoke Professor Molly approaching an imposing lava-rock dwelling, but I didn’t think it accomplished its goal. It didn’t evoke the sense of a venerable, once-grand house gone to seed. Nothing about it said “Hawaii” [1]. And in my opinion, the design wasn’t particularly pleasing to the eye.
At first glance, the new cover says less about the plot. There’s no decrepit old mansion in the jungle, just Molly standing with her briefcase on a Hawaiian beach. We don’t know whether she is walking toward the water or away from it. In the story, we learn that she’s pregnant, but the front-facing direction of her silhouette disguises any tummy bulge. In Mother’s Day, Molly is trying to conceal her delicate condition from the administration at her family-unfriendly workplace.
In the new cover illustration, Molly might have walked down to the water’s edge to take a break and think over what to do about the murder plot she’s sure will come to fruition any day now. But while the setting is somewhat foreboding with its hint of shadow, it’s also colorful and evocative of her island home. Molly’s silhouette takes up a smaller portion of the picture, allowing the viewer to appreciate the beauty of her Hawaiian home.
If you’ve read the previous books (specifically The Cursed Canoe) you know that Molly lives on the east side of the island, so she is watching a sunrise, not a sunset. Despite the indignities heaped upon her by the Mahina State University fundraising machine, Professor Molly can look forward to a brighter day ahead.
[1] The Fever Cabinet cover doesn’t really evoke Hawaii either, but in this case I think it’s okay. The theme of the abandoned asylum and the archaic medical equipment are so central to the plot that it seems right for the cover design to focus on those elements.
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