Cover Awe: Images within Images

Are we ready to look at some interesting covers?!

Reader, I Murdered Him by Betsy Cornwell. A young woman in a white dress. She has a red hate tipped over her eyes and is wearing a black domino mask. Her hair is up, but a few curls frame her face. Her eyes are hidden by the mask, but her lips are drawn in a smirk.

Cover design by Samira Iravani

Cover photography by Lee Avison/Trevillon Images

Sarah: GORGEOUS. Vengeance, and that cover, are both sweet.

Amanda: Yes! The mask and smirk are selling it.

Elyse: I love the smirk.

Sarah: It’s making me want to both seek revenge and become a fancy hat kind of person.

Sneezy: Ugh The mask and hat tilt is so dashing. “Do I want to be her or be with her?” Yes. The answer is yes.

Susan: Agreed – I like the gradient from red to blue and menacing to disguised, but that mask and her expression make it. She looks dangerous and like she’s having fun and I love it.

Garden of the Cursed by Katy Rose Pool. A woman in red holds up her forearm. In her fingers is a glowing card. Thorny briars are wrapped around her shoulders and waist. In the shape of her forearm is the image of a man, standing in front of a castle during a full moon.

Cover design by Samira Iravani

Cover art by Michael Rogers

Sarah: On some fashion and gossip sites I follow, there’s been Quite a Discussion about the re-appearance of opera-length gloves on red carpets. These are the gloves I am 100% here for.

Amanda: Images within an object are a cover trend I’m noticing more and more. I also definitely preordered this book based on the cover.

Elyse: This is one of those covers where you notice something new every time you look at it.

Sarah: Yup. I just noticed the playing card in her hand.

Sneezy: There’s so much going on here, and it’s delightful!!!

Susan: You ever want to buy a book just so you can display the cover? Because dang.

Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen. A lavender wallpaper with filigree and stalks of lavender. Brown bunnies sprint across the paper, but one appears to be dead. There is a silhouette of a woman's profile projected onto the wallpaper. Blood is dripping at the bottom of the lavender bouquets.

Cover art by Colin Verdi

Cover design by Katie Klimowicz

Shana: That creeps me out which I think is the point so…good job?

Amanda: If you notice, one of the rabbits appears to be dead while the rest are running away. What a subtle detail!

Sarah: Is there a word for when something is both gorgeous and creepy af? That’s this cover. I love the motif and the silhouette and the longer I look at it the more creeped out and unsettled I feel. There has to be a word for that, right?

Sneezy: I didn’t notice that until you pointed it out, Amanda!!! The details are so lush and the effect so atmospheric. This cover is so creative and well done!!!!

Susan: It took me a solid minute to notice the silhouette because I was focusing on the rabbits and the pattern repeating! I didn’t notice the dead rabbit either, but I think that’s what clued me in on it being a silhouette – with the placing, doesn’t it look like an eye?

Glory and the Master of Shadows by Grace Calloway. A photograph clinch cover of a man and woman. The man is shirtless and wearing dark pants. The woman has on a voluminous, soft pink, off the shoulder dress. Her palms are flat on the man's chest and they putting their foreheads together. She has dirty blonde hair, with half gathered back away from her face. Both models are East Asian, as are the characters in the book. There is a pinkish purple sunset in the background as they stand in an estate garden.

Cover photography by Jenn Le Blanc

Amanda: I love all the blush tones. I think it adds to the tenderness.

Elyse: I love covers that convey intimacy.

Sarah: Absolutely, yes. The use of color is exquisite, and I love the use of architectural detail to form a border around the couple.

Sneezy: This just makes me smile.

Comments are Closed

  1. Liz Crowe says:

    I’m in the market for a cover artists for a new self publishing project so THANKS for these great leads!
    xoxo
    Liz

  2. Vasha says:

    Ooh, that face made of wallpaper (mouth even creepier than eye) is definitely “Yellow Wallpaper” material.

  3. Jazzlet says:

    Ooooh that Reader I Murdered Him coveer is so good, her restrained grin claerly conceals an enormous amount of glee, loveit, want to read it, job done.

    The two creepy ones both manage to go on getting creepier the longer you look, wich is quite an achievement. Compare how far covers have come in the last thirty odd years, tor.com have a running series on eighties teen horror and those covers are so blantant they are boring, rather than beautifully creepy.

    I love that the Master of Shadows is actually grabbing Glory’s dress, so often when you see these clinches it looks like the woman would just slip out of the blokes’s hands because the blokes’s hands aren’t actually holding the woman, they are just placed in her general vincinity.

  4. DonnaMarie says:

    @SBSarah, if there’s a word for it, 99% chance it’s German.

  5. LML says:

    The woman on the Glory and the Master of Shadows cover looks like she is about seventeen years old. Which is, for good or ill, the age of many female main characters in historical romance. Usually women on the covers look older to me. Not old! Just older than a teen.

  6. denise says:

    what a beautiful bouquet of book covers!

  7. denise says:

    I looked at Jenn Le Blanc’s website, and none of her models appear to be underage. I doubt the model is underage on the cover. It’s so easy to assume someone is younger than they may appear to be, and that is subjective.

    I have also found many well-known authors are now using female leads in their twenties in historical romance.

  8. Susan/DC says:

    When I saw READER, I MURDERED HIM I didn’t realize it was a book title but thought it referred to the recent book by Lindsay Faye, JANE STEELE. The prologue to the Faye contains exactly that statement, “Reader, I murdered him”. Jane does commit several murders, but all are, shall we say, justifiable homicide. Sounds similar to but not exactly the same as the Cornwell: both have queer representation, both have anti-heroines, both are deeply indebted to JANE EYRE but strike out on their own paths.

  9. I’ve been a fan of SBTB since the beginning (I recommended a South African music video called Pot Belly that got featured here back in the aughts, lol) so it is so cool to see my book here! Thank you so much!

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