This week we ask ourselves that age old question - does anyone bother to tell a cover artist what the book is about or do they just pick images randomly?
Blackwood Farm (Vampire Chronicles #9) by Anne Rice
Another Vampire Chronicles cover - you already know what I’m going to say. Generic, non-informative and doesn’t need to be because of the name. Here we have ahead and a strange weathered stone effect. I’m not sure where the weathered stone effect comes in unless we’re talking about the excruciatingly detailed description of every building I had to endure.
Deamhan (Deamhan Chronicles #1) by Isaiyan Morrison
Is… is she naked? She looks naked just holding a length of cloth to her breasts. Why is she naked? Naked with the tousled bed-head hair and the slightly-sultry-slightly-stoned expression. Did we catch veronica just as she got out of bed? And if so, why was this needed to present this book? It’s not a book about naked ladies - hair tousled or otherwise - it’s about a woman trying to find her mother alongside vampire-like monsters. Naked ladies don’t really feature, bed sheets round their breasts or not.
Y’know, in the extremely highly unlikely event of me buying a book because I wanted it to be about naked ladies I think I’d be kind of disappointed.
Selume Proferre by E.E. Ottoman
That’s beautiful. So utterly beautiful. I love it, the building is so gothic and ornate. The open book is elaborate and evocative of dark spells and hidden rituals. The shadows and patterns of light all add to the shaded, slightly dark feel of the whole thing. The dog just adds to the intrigue. This is a cover that screams arcane mysterious, occult rituals and hidden secrets in the depths of ancient - even sanctified - buildings
And it has absolutely nothing to do with the contents of the book. It’s so far from the contents of the book that even with the name of the book right there I checked three times to see if I had the right cover. Apparently I do.
...maybe I should check again.
Reckoning (Fallen Siren #2) by S.J. Harper
And yet another book where the cover is not quite on par with the contents. Emma is an FBI agent. She dresses as an FBI agent. I can’t imagine she would wear this professionally even if it does show off her tattoos. Similarly the guns - yes she has a gun, she’s an FBI agent - but a gun in each hand ready to kick arse? That’s not really the point of her.
We do have a classic back-to-us shot but I think it’s for the tattoos not the arse shot given the lighting.
