How the World Sees Me! A look at covers by Rhys Bowen

RHYS BOWEN: Recently I have had an astonishing number of my books sold to foreign countries. 29 languages in all to date, I believe. Some of them have published my books for many years: Japan has published all of the Molly and Georgie books. Their take on how Irish girls should look has always slightly scared me. They look as if they have just escaped from the nearest asylum.

 Lady Georgie looks a little bit better:

Italy has always published all my books in their ‘yellow’ series of Montadori. Where all the crime books are published. They have the typical old fashioned crime novel covers.

France now publishes my Royal Spyness and is doing a marvelous job with both covers and advertising. When I visited their offices in Paris last year I was shown the videos, the display cases and of course the social media. This has resulted in a lot of French fans who put pictures of the book on Instagram.

Germany now does mainly E-books of all my series. They are also enthusiastic and I did a half hour interview in German (ja, ich spreche Deutsch) for their podcast. That was fun, especially as they live in my part of the world—Stuttgart where I used to work in a corner deli shop during my gap year. Near to Freiburg where I studied and loved every minute. Also near to Esslinging where my father ran a factory. So lots of ties.

But more recent additions to my mulit-country publishing experience have caused me mirth and sometimes confusion.

Georgie is now in Russian. The covers all look like a healthy Soviet girl on her tractor.

It’s interesting what their concept of an English stately home is.

This is the Polish Molly Murphy series. Rather nice covers that speak to what the stories are about.

 This was a media picture for In Farleigh Field, I believe. Somehow it doesn't remind me of German Planes flying over the English countryside!

 More strong and hefty Georgie, I suspect.

Even England publishes very different-looking covers from my US ones (all of which I utterly adore)

The same is true for Bulgaria, Slovakia and all those countries in that part of the world.

China has now joined the ranks with an interesting cover. Some concept of Tuscany there.

Sometimes they are polite enough ask me what I think of the covers—especially Russia. They are good at doing this. I always tactfully reply that they know their readership better than I do.

My most fun encounter recently has been with a dear Syrian man who is translating my books into Arabic and finding it a bit of a strain to understand English expressions. I get desperate little messages which always start “dear great author,” or dear esteemed author,” and then he says could you please explain the meaning of Binky calling someone ‘old bean’. Beans are plants, are they not?  And don’t even get me started on cricket matches. I’ve had to explain those to the French and German translators—or at least try to explain them.

 Is this one Hebrew? I can't find out.

So in a way they are fun, as is receiving messages from all over the world. I got a lovely fan letter from Hong Kong yesterday. I have a fan in Austria who reads all my books in English, likewise a fan in Norway. I get many nice things said about me in Russia. Lots of Instagram comments I can’t understand (since I dropped Russian rather rapidly, when I realized I was the only member of the class who had not had two years of Russian in high school first.)

But it gives one a warm, fuzzy feeling to know there are young women all over the world who identify with Lady Georgie or Molly Murphy and have to share their stories on social media. It reaffirms that inside we are not so different after all.

Have any of you had fun and interesting cover experiences with other countries?