Cover Reveal! The House on Hemlock Hill, Forthcoming July 2026

We’re excited to reveal the cover for The House on Hemlock Hill, a middle-grade mystery, slated for release in July!

Cover Design by: Vagabond Creative Studio

Cover Art by: Brittni Nelson, the multi-talented author of The House on Hemlock Hill who is also an artist. Illustrations by Brittni are peppered throughout the book as well.

About the Cover Art: Here’s how Brittni Nelson created the cover art:

I knew I wanted to include my original artwork in the cover of The House on Hemlock Hill. Vagabond Creative Studio sent a few mocked-up designs based on direction from my editor Sophia. One mock-up stuck out to me—it had a spooky house on a hill. I used that image as inspiration, then used my actual house as a template to create a painting of a creepy, run-down house. (Honestly, the painting doesn’t look much different than our house did when we purchased it in 2017! The landscaping was overgrown, the deck was tipping over, and the house was generally neglected.)

The painting of the house was completed with watercolor paints. I have to credit my husband, Nate, for helping me get the lines of the roof and different walls correct. He is an engineer and talented drawer who understands how things are built much better than I do. I credit Vagabond Creative Studio for taking my painting and making it into the perfect cover for the story.

About the Book: A forgotten diary, a creepy neighbor, and rumors of a missing girl. What other secrets are hiding in the house on Hemlock Hill?

Twelve-year-old Alyssa isn’t happy when she and her family move from Chicago to a neglected farmhouse on Lake Winnebago. While exploring their new home, Alyssa finds a hidden diary written by a girl who lived in the house in the 1950s. She’s eager to figure out who wrote the diary and why it was hidden—maybe Wisconsin won’t be so boring.

While reading about farm life in the diary, Alyssa navigates her own new rural life. She struggles to fit in at school, her mysterious elderly neighbor seems to watch her every move, and she hears rumors about a girl who went missing decades ago from the house on Hemlock Hill.

The diary entries soon take a dark turn. The girl’s friendship with a questionable classmate falls apart and troubles with her father begin, then the entries suddenly stop. Alyssa searches for answers and finds herself in the middle of a seventy-year-old unsolved mystery.