Table for One: cover reveal!

my second novel has a lovely jacket & a quote from Lizzy Gilbert

Getting a book cover right can be a tricky beast. It can be stressful, to-ing and fro-ing over email with agents, editors, various art departments. Everything is subjective. You might not like a colour or a font. A publisher has a whole marketing department dedicated to researching the market and wants the book to stand out on shelves. For many of my non-fiction books, it has been a long and painful process of getting it right. Luckily for me, I’m married to a designer who has good taste, so when I run things past him, he either nods or shakes his head. We get there in the end.

When the cover art for my debut novel Olive popped into my inbox in 2020, it was my first experience of something landing in perfect form. I was on holiday in Portugal, on my way to stay at my Dad’s villa called os girassois (“the sunflowers”.) My husband and I were on a train to Loulé having stayed at the delightful hotel Case Mae in Lagos. I’d received the email from Harper Collins as the train pulled out of the station. I immediately loved it. The yellow (a bright sunflower yellow), the illustration of Olive with her long dark hair. The green leaves. My first and only thought was: “there it is!” No notes. This rarely happens.

The cover for Table For One took shape relatively easily too. A few concepts were presented, we all agreed on a favourite — and then it got finessed over and over, until it was right. I felt in safe hands, working with the same designer who worked on Olive — Ellie Game — who has designed some of my favourite covers (such as Sarah Winman’s Still Life and the huge bestseller Yellowface.)

I will be officially announcing everything more widely on social media channels in January, but I couldn’t help but give my Hyphen community a little early preview. Huge thank you to the team at Harper Collins, especially my editor Charlotte Brabbin for getting the vibe right, Ellie Game of course, and the brilliant illustrator we worked with: Ruby Ash. I LOVE this cover and the bright inviting colours; I think it might be my favourite of all of them.

The dog. The spaghetti. The colours. The wine. The book. The candle. The stripes.

TABLE FOR ONE comes out on April 24th. You can pre-order your copy now and it’ll land on your doorstep on publication day 👇

This is the UK pre-order link below. For USA peeps — and I will share stateside links as soon as they’re ready!

And what’s the novel about about? It’s about learning to be alone, intergenerational friendships and how to find your way after becoming very lost. A modern love story about what it means to be happily alone, not lonely.

If you would like to invite me to your literary festival or book event to speak at; or interview me for a magazine or podcast in 2025, please do send through your request to hello@emmagannon.co.uk — the calendar is already filling up!

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“TABLE FOR ONE is a fast-paced, funny, touching, and nuanced story of a group of smart young women struggling with the problems inherent to marriage, motherhood, singlehood, and purpose. Gannon never takes the easy way out in her fiction.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert

“25 books we can't wait to read in 2025”
— Cosmopolitan

“The unforgettable new contemporary fiction novel for 2025 that will get everyone talking”
— Harper Collins UK

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