Design an ebook cover for a collection of folk/fairy tales

The Woman Who Married the Tree and Other Tales

Tyler Runde

Tyler Runde currently resides in Illinois, where he wakes up ridiculously early in the morning so he can get a few hours of writing in before a regular 9-to-5. in what little spare time he has left over he likes to build and fly quadcopters, his one and only hobby. This is his first book.

The Woman Who Married the Tree and Other Tales is a collection of short stories written in the style of traditional folk/fairy tales, particularly Russian folk/fairy tales. They feature the standard fare of princes and princesses, witches, the rule-of-threes, and good (occasionally) overcoming evil.

Young adults and upwards. Not all the stories are appropriate for children, as some of them feature graphic depictions of violence and deal with adult subject matter on occasion.

Since the tales are a mix between ones that are more light-hearted, somewhat funny, and others that more serious and dark, I'm thinking that the cover should maybe have a somewhat somber feel to it that is somewhere between these two ends of the spectrum. I've included a few images that either inspired or remind of certain tales in some aspect. The wolf attempting to capture the hare inspired the very first tale I wrote, which inspired me to go on to write a whole book of such tales. One story features a woman who escapes her imprisonment in a mountaintop cave with the help of a flock of birds. And a general theme in many of the tales is the communion/conflict between humankind and animals/nature. The title story itself features a woman who marries a tree in order to lift a curse, then must chop the tree down to absolve the union.

Anything too cartoony with bright, vibrant colors that might put a potential reader in mind that these stories are aimed at/appropriate for children, though not all of them are unsuitable for kids either.