Cover Reveal: The Complex Art of Maisie Clark by Sabrina Kleckner
We are thrilled to help reveal the cover for the upcoming YA contemporary story, The Complex Art of Maisie Clark by Sabrina Kleckner. Check out all the info below and add this one to your TBR for the anticipated June 2025 release!
After years of imitating her dad’s artistic style, eighteen-year-old Maisie Clark throws away everything familiar in the hopes of crafting her own voice. But when an attack on her family’s portrait shop brings past hurts to light, and a meet-ugly-turned-cute with a grumpy photographer challenges her views on art, Maisie wonders if “finding herself” might lie closer to home than she realized.
Illustrator: Ana Bidault
Designer: Karli Hughes
Author’s note on the cover:
The Complex Art of Being Maisie Clark is about a portrait painter who, in the midst of an
existential crisis, leaves the small town she loves in the hopes of finding her artistic
voice abroad. The result is chaotic and messy. Maisie makes a lot of mistakes during
her first semester of college in London, but she also finds a lot of joy, and I think this
cover captures that duality perfectly. There are so many small details—from Maisie’s
mis-matched eye makeup to the shattered camera lens to the angry cat in the
sweater—and they are all relevant to the story. Huge shoutout to my illustrator, Ana
Bidault, for taking such care in depicting Maisie’s world!
The Complex Art of Being Maisie Clark
by Sabrina KlecknerPublished by: Flux Books
on June 10. 2025
Genres: Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Young Adult
Bookshop
Goodreads
All eighteen-year-old Maisie Clark wants to do is leave her tiny town in upstate New York. Crescent Valley is home to Glenna’s, the family-run portrait shop she loves more than anything. But after years of imitating her dad’s artistic style, Maisie fears she will never find her own voice. So, she comes up with a plan: quit working at Glenna’s, go to art school in London, and, most importantly, stop painting portraits. If she can’t find her voice by the end of the year, she’ll give up art entirely.
Unfortunately, pushing outside her comfort zone is (surprise!) uncomfortable. Maisie struggles to connect with her eccentric new flatmates, feels farther away from her best friend than ever, and hates every art course she signed up for—especially photography, where her talented but prickly partner, Eli, is not afraid to point out her every mistake on their semester-long project. Maisie is already questioning all her life choices when a crime strikes Glenna’s, reopening old family wounds she thought she’d long healed from. It’ll take even more discomfort, as well as help from Eli, her older brother, Calum, and his earnest boyfriend, Benji, to confront the layers she’s painted over the past. But maybe, just maybe, the keys to finding herself lie closer to home than she realized.
