I don’t typically group books by theme for these things, but it’s always funny when a theme emerges from randomly putting book covers together.
Amanda: I love this damn color palette so much. And also #hairgoals.
Shana: Damn. What a beauty! I love the colors and their coy glances
Sneezy: Oof!!! The coziness!!!! The sexual tension!!!!
Sarah: This is an excellent cover. So much tension, so much casual intimacy.
Elyse: I agree with the love for the color scheme. This is one of the best illustrated covers I’ve seen.
Amanda: The Lunar Chronicles got a cover redesign with stepback covers. Yes, I did buy all of the new editions.
You can see all of them and their stepbacks here.
Susan: Oh those are BEAUTIFUL..
Sneezy: Melt me heart on a spoon, that’s just gorgeous. Those colours are just wizardry.
Sarah: Hello yes hi greetings.
Tara: That is so beautiful.
Sneezy: *pounce*
Maya: Apparently it came out in 2018 and I found both the ebook and the audiobook at my library!!
Amanda: This conveys so much more than the old cover, though it’s still a nod to it (i.e. the enamel pins on the jacket.).
Sneezy: *Heart eyes*
Maya: SO CUTE
Amanda: I love a forehead kiss in any romance. Also, love a cover couple who actually looks happy together!
Sneezy: They look so tender and loving towards each other!!!!
Elyse: I love covers that convey intimacy and this definitely does.
VERY interesting use of stepbacks on those Lunar Chronicles books. In all four cases the outside image says “adventure fantasy,” the inside one says “romance.” Used to be that when romance novels would use stepbacks, it was often to have an innocuous picture like a gate or tree on the outside, a steamy clinch on the inside, so that bookshop browsers could flip the cover to get a promise of the heat the book contained but wouldn’t be seen reading such a thing in public. Has our society advanced no further than that? The Lunar Chronicles stepbacks are not particularly torrid. So their target base is okay with being seen reading fantasy but not romance?
@Vasha, I wonder if it’s also a messaging thing in YA—the conversations around teen girl characters getting arcs that aren’t just about romance and boys, sort of an anti-Twilight backlash—and the stepbacks offer a chance to make the romance the B-plot to whatever the A-plots are for the characters. It’s been a few years since I read The Lunar Chronicles, but I believe the main characters’ chief arcs were about finding autonomy where they had none (and stopping The Bad Guys). I thought of them as YA romantic fantasies more than YA fantasy romances, but it’s been a few years.
@ Vasha, The Lunar Chronicles covers also look very manga, both inside and out. It looks like they are rebranding them as shoujo, which has a very specific vibe, not quite fantasy and not quite romance but a little of both, and also has a particular audience. It’s a younger audience than would read full-on romance or even young adult, so they’re probably trying to signal the romance level to readers without raising red flags to parents.
The First Love, Take Two cover shows them without shoes. I love this detail.
@Darlynne
The First Love, Take Two cover shows them without shoes. I love this detail.
Oh, yes. It puts me in mind of a somewhat implausible scene in Pillow Talk where Doris Day is curled up on a couch with Rock Hudson … while wearing spike heels. Yup, looks cozy.