The Best and The Worst from My 5 Favs!

I ran through a few different idea’s for this week’s book cover topic on Top Ten Tuesday.  Things like, ‘worst covers for best books’ or ‘book cover makeovers’.  I just knew I wanted it to be something about terrible book covers.  For some reason bad book covers on amazing books is a bane of mine.  It’s usually what holds me back from reading a book everyone is raving about.

I decided to showcase 5 of my favorite authors, highlight the ones I thought had the worst cover, and then showcase the book with the best cover.  What do you think?

1. TJ Klune

TJ Klune is such an amazing writer.  I mean, I can’t rave about him enough.  He’s one of my favorites.  Bear, Otter, and the Kid and the sequels are all so great, but they have such dreadful covers.  I love that they’re full of imagery from the story, like Ty wearing a vegetarian shirt and you can see their house in the background, but if you don’t know those things about the characters already then you just have an unappealing picture.

On the other hand, look at Into the River I drown!  You can feel the emotion radiating from that cover.  I haven’t even read it yet but I can feel the pain.  The hands are reaching for him, his face looks sadly peaceful.  I don’t even need the synopsis to know that this guy is feeling all sorts of pain.  It just speaks to me.

 2. Melina Marchetta

Melina Marchetta is an author whose strength is in her characters and their relationships.  She writes the best connections I’ve ever read.  On the cover for Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil, I don’t feel like there’s anything to grasp onto.  It doesn’t tell me anything about the story, or what happens.  I think it’s emotionless.

I’m not usually a fan of books with people on the cover.  They look cheesy to me, but on Quintana of Charyn there’s something about the tilt of her head, the tightness in her jaw, that tells me there’s something fierce in this girl.  She’s someone I want to know about.  And having read this trilogy, and loving it, that image is perfectly Quintana.  I feel like she’s going to smile and I’ll see those crooked teeth, and her particular brand of insanity.

3. Josh Lanyon

I really hate books with half naked people on the cover.  I know it may seem like I read them a lot, but that’s because I enjoy romance and for some reason they seem to go hand in hand.  It makes me thankful that I read most of these on a Kindle.

Both of these Laynon books have ab-crazy covers.  That should make me dislike them both, but actually there’s something about the coloring on The Monet Murders that’s just gorgeous.  I love the water lilies faintly on his t-shirt and how the coloring sits on the gray background.  It’s just really pretty, even with the quite yummy abdomen.

4. Ilona Andrews

The cover of Burn for Me is just so painful.  Not only is the coloring just so off, but those people standing there awkwardly, I don’t even know who they are!  They’re definitely not Nevada and Mad Rogan, no way.  Nevada would be in a t-shirt, hair pulled back, and there’s no way Mad would ever stand there with his shirt halfway down his body.  This cover is blasphemy!

Sweep in Peace, on the flipside, is gorgeous!  I love the burnt orange background with the blue cloak.  There’s something that’s so magical about it, like all of it is just swirling around her in sparkles.  It begs to be read, and I will.  Soon!

5. Jordan Castillo Price

Okay, so neither of these covers is technically bad.  I chose Secrets as the one I like worst only because it’s so blah.  Secrets.  Yes, a man whispering secrets to someone.  Very nice.  How does that have anything to do with Vic, Jacob, or the case they’re working on?  It’s not really that kind of secret.  I think they did a recover of it, I’ll have to go look.

Now, GhosTV, that one is perfect.  Vic screaming on the screen, the TV on and you can feel something mystical about it.  Jacob is sleeping on the bed…  I don’t know, it’s just one of my favorite PsyCop covers.  I love the imagery.

 What are your favorite and least favorite book covers?

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by The Broke and the Bookish!