In yesterday's post, I listed my comfy, cozy wish list, which included Circle of Fire by Michelle Zink, the third book in the Sisters of Prophecy Trilogy. While Circle of Fire isn't a comfy, cozy book, I enjoy pretty light, escapist reading on a lazy day, and it would fit the bill perfectly. But then I got off on a side tangent about the book cover, so I'm back to complete my rant.
Every book blog worth it's-not paper, not ink-file space, has done a post about book covers. Whether they are bad (this post from A Fuse #8 Production), follow a theme (this post from Shelftalker) or use the exact same model (this post from The Chick Lit Bee), everyone has an opinion. So, here's mine.
The first book of this trilogy, Prophecy of the Sisters, was published in 2009 with this cover:
Cool, right? It's eerie, dark, a little gothic, and reminds me of one of my other favorite books ever, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Awesome book, awesome cover, I'll talk about in another post.
Back to the Sisters. This post isn't really about the content of the books so here's a basic synopsis. Lia and Alice are twin sisters that are living out an age old prophecy of good and evil, but they are obviously playing on different sides, and not exactly the sides one might think. Depending on who succeeds, our world will be saved, or taken over by monsters. I'm assuming that book 3 will answer the taken-over-by-monsters question, but I haven't read it yet.
Back to the covers. So book one in hardcover was haunting and beautiful and lured readers in (see comments on Goodreads). Then the publisher decided to go another way for the paperback (which is not all together uncommon) and then used the similar design for the following hardcovers. But look at what they came up with!
So, on the left, we have the paperback cover of book 1, in the center we have the main cover of book 2 and the on right, the main cover of book 3. While it's a plus that you can tell that these are part of a series (although the first cover looks a little washed out compared to the other two), they look very generic-like some trashy paperback you'd pick up at Wal-Mart. (By the way, I was at Wal-Mart looking at the book section last night and it's sad, but even more depressing, they have a better selection than my local indy, that is unless I want to read about historic barns or how to make mooonshine.)
Back to the sisters. Doesn't the book 3 girl kinda look like Andy MacDowell, or it is just me?
Okay, it's just me.
Moving on again. ( I just cannot keep a train of thought together today!) Check out the Spanish language edition.
Better! Again, the first book stands out a little, but I really like the statues on the cover of the second two books. I'm digging gothic statues over generic girls on the cover. It makes the book look more ominous.
I could play this game with covers from over mothers (er, countries) all day, but I sense you are getting a little restless, so I'll just say if you want to see more covers, head over to Goodreads. They have covers for virtually any edition for any book and it's really fun (for me, at least) to see how other countries market their books. That was a fun part of my Young Adult Lit class too, everyone holding up their books and showing how covers have aged over the years.
So, that is my first cover rant. Any book covers out there that are blowing you away, or ticking you off? Any that look too similar to another and it makes you think someone got lazy with the clipart? Let me know in the comments or at misstiffreads at gmail dot com.
Happy Reading!
Oh, better titles for this post include, Spain Wins Gold in Book Covers, The Andy MacDowell Doppelganger, and The Gothic Statue Formulation.
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