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LIFE

Stephanie Perkins and the new hardcover covers

Joyce Lamb
Special for USA TODAY
"Isla and the Happily Ever After" by Stephanie Perkins.

Readers have spoken, and publisher Penguin has listened. Readers of Stephanie Perkins' popular Anna and the French Kiss, Lola and the Boy Next Door and Isla and the Happily Ever After are getting hardcover editions that sport covers that match each other. See, Penguin redesigned the cover concept after the first two books in the series had already launched, so when Isla came out, readers ended up with a book that didn't look like its predecessors. Some were not thrilled:

Kai A. (‏@amaterasureads): UWAH! The cover for Isla and the Happily Ever After is gorgeous! http://bit.ly/15TgRHB but pfft it won't match the cover of my other books!

Dahlia Adler (‏@MissDahlELama): @corinneduyvis Similarly obsessive, but the mid-series redesigns kill me. Like really? Next hardcover is gonna match the paperbacks? WHY?

Jessica Spotswood (‏@jessica_shea): @MissNenow Not at all! I'm totally tempted to buy new copies of Steph Perkins' ANNA and LOLA too because I love the new covers!

Andrea Benvenuto (‏@exlibrisandrea): Isla is here! Looks good with the redesigned Anna & Lola covers. Kinda wish there was a matching hardcover, though.

"Anna and the French Kiss" by Stephanie Perkins.

So Penguin unit Dutton Young Readers is releasing hardcovers of Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door with the new, Isla design, an unusual move by a major publisher and a testament to the power of avid readers.

Stephanie shares her take on the covers:

Stephanie: Anyone who passionately loves books — physical books, printed-on-paper books — has been there. They have felt the heartbreak. The agony. The shock, the frustration, the fist-balling levels of fury.

I'm talking about, of course, the moment a reader discovers that a publisher has repackaged the covers of one of their favorites series. Mid-series! And their complete collection will never, ever match.

It's one of the worst betrayals that can happen to a reader.

I have been there, and I have felt this devastation. So when my own novels were repackaged last year, it was odd — unsettling, even — to find myself on the opposite side of the crime. Within minutes of the reveal, my blog, Twitter feed and Tumblr were divided equally between oohs of admiration and cries of outrage.

I understood the readers who were disappointed. I felt the same way when Alison Jay's delicate, gorgeous illustrations disappeared from the covers of Shannon Hale's Bayern series just before the publication of Forest Born. In this case, the story had a happy ending. Hale's publisher heard the outcry and released a special edition with a matching cover, so that fans like myself could purchase the final matching piece.

I hoped that something similar might happen with my books.

Similar. But opposite.

You see ... I love my repackaged covers. They're bold. They're romantic. They have an edge. And the cities — so prominently featured inside my novels — carry the visual weight, allowing my readers to fill in the characters with their own imaginations.

"Lola and the Boy Next Door" by Stephanie Perkins.

I wanted the hardcovers of Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door to receive matching covers to Isla and the Happily Ever After. Not the other way around.

However, putting a new jacket on an old hardcover isn't cheap. Or convenient. A publisher is a business, after all, and they have to be shown — clearly and unequivocally — that there is demand for the product.

I am so happy and so proud to say that my readers have spoken. Loudly. My publisher and I have heard their rallying cries, and we're thrilled to be able to make this wish — a wish that we all shared — come true. To give this series its own happily ever after.

The new Anna and Lola hardcovers are a thank you, from us to my readers, for their enthusiastic and unwavering passion. For their love of these stories.

We love you, too. Thank you.

Find out more about Stephanie and her books at www.stephanieperkins.com.

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