Kevin Hearne‘s ass kicking druid Atticus O’Sullivan is back this spring with Tricked! The Iron Druid Chronicles kicks off with the next chapter in Atticus’ story in April 2012, and we’ve got our first glimpse at the cover, by Gene Mollica which depicts Atticus wielding the elemental fury of his druid magicks. Here are some of the thoughts of Hearne’s editor Tricia Pasternak from her SUVUDU post:

Once that first cover hit the interwebs, we got a tremendous response from you, Kevin’s devoted readers. We thought we’d liked the covers even before we unveiled them publicly…but when we had fans posting glowing comments on Kevin’s blog–and asking him for the cover model’s number!–that’s when we knew we had really and truly pulled it off. So our mission with TRICKED was clear–keep everything that worked for you, the fans…while giving you a little something new to buzz about. We hired Gene again, who hired the same cover model for Atticus. We kept Dave’s brilliant “Iron Druid Chronicles” logo, with its mock-up of Atticus’ necklace. And, most of all, we kept that now-notorious Atticus O’Sullivan air of sheer badassery.

But there are a couple of important differences: The color–that scorching desert red–is a reference to the story’s setting…and instead of wielding Fragarach, Atticus is showing off his bindings. We sweated over every detail of this cover–we went through several poses with the model, changed the cropping and composition, tweaked the color of Atticus’ hair–but considered nothing more carefully than getting the look of the bindings just right (I have several pages of notes from Kevin on the subject!) So this image is not just your first look at the cover–it’s your first taste of what’s going to be perhaps Atticus’ greatest adventure yet..

The Iron Druid Chronicles were some of my favorite reads of 2011, and I can’t wait to dig into the next chapter on April 24th. Stay tuned for SciFi Mafia‘s review of Tricked!

[Click the Image to Blow Sh!t Up!]