COVER REVEAL | Not With a Bang by Temi Oh

Simon & Schuster has unveiled the haunting cover for award-winning author Temi Oh’s upcoming novel Not With a Bang, a family drama set at the end of the world.

The striking cover centers on Hero, the massive planet looming in the sky. Cover designer Katie Forrest knew from the initial briefing that capturing Hero’s haunting, ethereal essence would be crucial. After reading the manuscript and researching the speculative fiction market, Forrest moved away from bolder, more graphic initial designs toward a final approach that showcases Hero’s presence as beautiful and ominous.

Oh was involved in the cover decision-making process and saw several iterations before the final design. “She made Hero look exactly the way I imagined, awe-inspiring, beautiful and dreadful,” Oh shared. What particularly resonates with the author is the juxtaposition at the heart of the design: the ordinary row of houses at the bottom contrasted with the strange, looming planet above. This visual balance perfectly captures the interplay between the mundane and the extraordinary that defines Oh’s speculative fiction.

The cover’s composition speaks to the novel’s core tension, how everyday life continues even as something incomprehensible transforms the world around it. The design invites readers into a story where domestic spaces exist beneath cosmic threats, and where the familiar and the alien collide.

Temi Oh is the award-winning author of Do You Dream of Terra-Two? and More Perfect. She has also written stories for Marvel’s Black Panther and Doctor Who, and worked on shows for Netflix, the BBC, and Sky.

Read a synopsis of the book below:

Our father had imagined the end of the world so often that, for a while, he believed that he caused it.

The Minton family is in crisis. After losing his job, Marcus begins stockpiling cans, running evacuation drills and digging a doomsday bunker in his back garden. While his wife secretly grapples with a devastating diagnosis, his four daughters begin unravelling in their own way. Chantale is haunted by dreams of disaster and Briar’s obsession with a missing classmate has drawn her deep into the seductive world of a UFO cult.On the morning of Aaliyah’s wedding, an extinction-level event tears the world apart. The Mintons must fight their way through a devastated city—back to safety, survival, and each other.