It’s Cover Awe time! For those who are new to the site, this is where we look at covers we think are intriguing, pretty, or just really dang neat!
Cover design by Melissa Williams Design
Sarah: All the Holmberg covers have been so visually striking. I love the papercut design.
Amanda: Yes! I love a good theme that carries over to all of an author’s books. Don’t get me started on when a series changes cover styles halfway through.
Sneezy: *Happy sigh* The colours, plus the defined edges, plus the soft fairy dust…
CarrieS: The composition, with the birds at the top, lifts the whole thing and imparts a note of joy.
Maya: I love the way all the different blues are used to create depth and to guide the eye around the cover.
Catherine: I love the colours, and the slightly old-fashioned, silhouette feel.
Shana: This is such a relaxing cover. You can almost feel the breeze in the air, and I love the stylized wheat. I live in a gluten-free household—beautiful wheat is a guaranteed way to make me want to read your book.
Lara: I just started watching the new Dracula series on Netflix, so my first thought was – oooh, that is fancy blood! Perhaps a disservice to a beautiful cover, but the mind goes where it wants!
Cover design by the Guter Punkt Design Agency
Sarah: We could do an international cover awe edition!
Look at the German cover of Honey Badger 1! I love the model they chose for Charlie!
Amanda: They did a great job capturing both characters! I’d definitely watch that movie.
Maya: So fun! I love the incorporation of the honey badger into the title. And I love that it makes it clear that it’s an interracial (and interspecies!) love story. Helpful for those of us currently putting stories with protagonists of color at the top of their TBR!
Elyse: I love this so much more than the headless dude covers we get in contemporaries.
CharlotteB: WOW, I soooo wish this was the US cover. I love the badger O.
Lara: I’m probably one of the few people who’ve not read any books in this series, and this cover is pushing me towards that 1-click button in a visceral way.
Cover design by Elena Giavaldi
Amanda: I think this is FUCKING ADORABLE
Sarah: I like the color scheme but the overall design is a shrug for me. Our tastes are so different!
Amanda: Well it has millennial pink on it, so I am required by law to want it.
Sarah: SNORT. And rose gold, too, it looks like.
Sneezy: The whole thing looks almost pun-y to me, which is ALWAYS a win. (Plus her pen name is Darke!!! Get it? :P)
Shana: This makes me think of Bewitched, which is never a bad thing.
CharlotteB: This cover vibes “womens fiction I bought at an airport bookstore” to me rather than romance (although I like it).
Lara: I WANTS IT!
Cover design by Alessandra Morgan and Chelsea Cameron
Cover model: Amani Marco
Amanda: Holy abs, Batman!
Carrie: LOVE HER. Non-sexualized, practical workout clothes, real muscle – the only thing I dislike is she’s looking down like she lost something in her pants. Also the yellow and white against the black background is wonderful!
Amanda: I couldn’t blame her if she just wants to admire her abs for a bit.
Carrie: True dat!
Amanda: If I had abs like that, you’d have to wrestle me into a shirt.
Carrie: And if you had abs like that, you’d win every match.
Sneezy: With abs like that, she’ll have anyone she damn well WANTS. (Is it just me, or is her arm a different colour from the rest of her body?)
Tara: I’ve read this one and the model is a perfect choice for Tuesday, since she’s a crossfit instructor. I rarely love f/f book covers but this is one is excellent.
Maya: It’s wonderfully absent of an objectifying gaze–she’s partially naked, sure, but what’s being emphasized is her strength and not her secondary sexual characteristics. (But also, now I cannot stop looking at her arm, Sneezy!)
Catherine: Oh, I *like* this. She feels so real and human in a way women often aren’t on book covers – there’s no fantasy about her. (Also, she just looks like a nice person, somehow. Which is part of the realness, perhaps – I don’t usually find myself contemplating conversation with cover models because they are drawn to be looked at, not interacted with.)
Sneezy: She definitely looks like the kind of person who would help you out at the gym and share workout tips with you! (Maya, I haven’t been able to stop either!!!!)
CharlotteB: “I know, I’m really, really cute, but I’m also kind of shy, so I’m just gonna look down and hope you can see past my rippling abs to the Real Me.”
Lara: This cover has left me feeling like a stunned mullet.
I agree that Charlie N Holmbergs books have gorgeous covers. Sadly, I couldn’t get past the paper magician due to the many anachronisms and American expressions (the book is set in an alternate 19th century England). It was a DNF, such a shame as it was a great story.
@Kit agreed! I wanted to like the Paper Magician because it’s such an original magic system, there were some great almost cinematic scenes, but the story and characters didn’t hold my attention. I finished the first book but noped out after chapter 1 of the sequel. Cool concept, not so good execution.
I didn’t read Paper Magician, but I really enjoyed Veins of Gold. I recommended it to one of my friends as Howl’s Moving Castle in the Old West…ish.
And it was definitely a case of my seeing the cover in the library and going, “Oooo…pretty”
The Aiken Honey Badgers cover is a fine general cover but it doesn’t really convey the wackiness of Aiken’s writing (the American cover doesn’t either). Her books need covers like the Birds of Prey movie posters that are bright and fantastical.
Coincidentally, Public Domain Review is also having some Cover Awe today: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-art-of-book-covers-1820-1914
Anyone but you is definitely sexualized. She’s just wearing a bra! And she’s super ripped! But she looks sexy in a butch way, which is pretty rare for covers, even covers of f/f romances.