Best Covers of the Year: Part 2

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For Best Covers part 1, click here. It has been a pretty darn good year for covers. Let's get to the rest of the list!


It takes all the conventions from the urban fantasy book cover playbook (broody, pouting heroine plus weapon, plus posing) and elevates them. The background is outstanding. Looking at her sword arm, I was hoping she was part cyborg. Maybe she is. I need to read it to find out.



I love everything about this cover (except maybe the overabundance of words on it.) It is gorgeously drawn. It is gorgeously colored. The details are perfect. You get a sense of her walking through the forest, with the movement of the leaves and her positioning. The lantern even looks like it might mid-swing.



My favorite cover that looks like a movie poster. In fact, I am already in line to see this movie because it looks awesome. The detail on that cover is pretty impressive.



Funniest cover: Every time I see this cover, it makes me laugh. Every single time. I hate zombies. I hate clowns. But this cover? This is funny.



And for your non-funny zombies, this one really stood out. It shambled to the top of the zombie heap. There were some good (and by good, I mean gross) zombie covers this year, but this one made me hesitant to close my eyes at night.

Have I mentioned that I hate zombies?



There were a lot of beautiful, scenic covers this year. Covers that made me want to be wherever the cover depicted. This was my favorite. It looks like that chair is waiting just for me. The colors are beautiful. It's so still and just...still. 



This book cover, for me, was extraordinary in that it employed so many of my pet peeves and I still thought it was beautiful. The different fonts? I wish the author's name was at the bottom, so as not to draw attention to the fact that it is in a different font. The blurry, unfocused background? BUT, the art is simple and elegant. The colors are understated and lovely. There were a lot of "between the wars" books that employed a similar style, and this was my favorite of the bunch.



When I first saw this cover, I was struck by the pearls. There are many other things to look at, of course. You could be struck by the gorgeous lavender of her panties. You might wonder about the feel of that rug (?) under her. You might be curious about her positioning. I can't take my eyes off the pearls, and the way they're being used. This series is being re-printed with different covers. The new covers are pretty, in their own right, but they're lacking the...imagination and seduction of the originals.



I'm curious about what is going on. You've made me turn my head sideways to try and figure it out. The colors are a mix of happy (with the green and the rose petals and the gorgeous color of her dress) and murky. That water looks kind of disgusting. Absolutely nothing about this cover leads me to believe that there will be ghosts when I open the book...but there are.



So, I laughed when I first saw this cover because it reminded me, instantly, of Xanadu. I'm not sure why. But, it really is very pretty. It isn't the first image that comes to mind when you see the title has vengeance in it, and that's not a bad thing. It looks light and airy at first glance. The more you look at it, though...



So what if two of my favorite artists, Waterhouse and Turner, had a baby? I think it would be this cover. The story itself is inspired by The Lady of Shalott (poem here, painting here).


I hope next year produces as many great book covers as this year. Happy Holidays, everyone!

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