Jared Lemus’s debut novel, Magic in the Land of Eternal Spring, is a suspenseful, mythic story about survival, devotion, greed, and the inescapable pull of the past. In the remote Guatemalan town of Huecotenango, outcasts and wanderers have built lives alongside residents with extraordinary abilities, including a woman who can shapeshift into a jaguar, a healer who absorbs the ailments of others, and a young woman indebted to the god of the underworld. When two brothers arrive after a crash on the outskirts of town, their illicit work threatens to disrupt the community and sets its residents on a dangerous collision course.
Lemus is the author of Guatemalan Rhapsody, which won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Story, and elsewhere. Magic in the Land of Eternal Spring will be published by Ecco on April 20, 2027.
Debutiful is honored to reveal Magic in the Land of Eternal Spring’s cover, designed by Vivian Rowe, along with a Q&A with Lemus about its creation.
While writing the book, did you have any ideas for what you wanted the cover to look like?
Absolutely none. I think in music—melodies, rhythms, tempos—and words. Trying to conceptualize what a cover might look like while juggling the story and prose of the book, I might as well have written the book while hiking Mt. Fuji on a unicycle, because it would have taken me an equal amount of time to accomplish either task.
Can you explain what the design process was like once you started working with your publishing team?
My editor asked me if I had any directions for the art team, and I said something along the lines of, “Here are things I’m into: tattoos—American Traditional in particular—and loteria cards.” And Vivian did such a good job with the design for Guatemalan Rhapsody, that I just trusted her to do the same for the novel. And she delivered.
What was it like seeing your finalized cover for the first time?
I was at a loss for words, it was that gorgeous. I remember I was getting ready to go pick up my kids from school when the email came in, and I got so enraptured—I couldn’t stop looking at it—that my kids ended up spending the night at school.
How does the cover work to convey what the book is all about?
I think the word “magic” in the title sets up expectations, and the image of the jaguar with the poppy plants over its head and around its neck, like a crown with a leash, gives the cover this mythical quality that delivers on the promise of the premise. We also often associate big cats with danger, and that’s what’s waiting around each corner, each page, of this book.