Shelf Candy Saturday (25)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Maria at A Night's Dream of Books where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is the Hallowe'en Part by Agatha Christie.

At a Hallowe'en party, Hercule Poirot aids mystery writer Ariadne Oliver in an investigation into the murder of a young girl-who may have witnessed a murder herself. But unmasking the killer proves more daunting than bobbing for apples.

Halloween is my favourite holiday and I'm already getting in the spirit so I had to pick an appropriately seasonal cover. I adore the signature editions of Agatha Christie's novels as I think the signature adds a quirkiness to the books (and the covers generally rock) but this was the first I actually brought.

It really sets the scene for a Halloween story. I love how the cover is done in shades of orange and black and the simplicity of only having the clouds, moon, creepy tree and pumpkin manages to grab your attention but without giving anything away. Looking at the cover you know there will be something creepy, at night and at Halloween but it's up to the viewer to decide what.

So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (24)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Maria at A Night's Dream of Books where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is the Darkness Rising trilogy (so far) by Kelley Armstrong.

New York City has been decimated by war and plague, and most of civilization has migrated to underground enclaves, where life expectancy is no more than the early 20s. When Deuce turns 15, she takes on her role as a Huntress, and is paired with Fade, a teenage Hunter who lived Topside as a young boy. When she and Fade discover that the neighboring enclave has been decimated by the tunnel monsters—or Freaks—who seem to be growing more organized, the elders refuse to listen to warnings. And when Deuce and Fade are exiled from the enclave, the girl born in darkness must survive in daylight, in the ruins of a city whose population has dwindled to a few dangerous gangs. As the two are guided by Fade’s long-ago memories, they face dangers, and feelings, unlike any they’ve ever known.

 

This is one of those books that I brought online and really didn't think much of the cover until it arrived. It's really pretty and shiny, and its actually a little harder to see the details as not only are the colours in the image above are more defined the shine off the cover means you need to look a lot closer. The cover is raised as well so some details are clearer to make out once you've felt them.

 

The cover really fits with the story of the book too with the crossed swords and the creepy hand really fitting with the idea of Hunters and Freaks, and the metallic circular background looks like something you'd expect to see in the underground tunnels of New York. I love how the title looks like a metal plate attached with screws, again fitting with the book.

 

This also gets massive points from me as it actually managed to scare my Mum. I passed it to her and she didn't spot the creepy hand on the cover until she went to pass it back and shrieked really loudly. I hadn't thought to mention the hand, but it freaked my Mum out. After she calmed down a bit she did admit that it fits really well with the book :)

So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (23)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Maria at A Night's Dream of Books where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is the Darkness Rising trilogy (so far) by Kelley Armstrong.

These are the UK covers for first two books in the Darkness Rising trilogy and I'm really hoping the as yet unreleased cover for The Rising matches.

These covers have a really unique look and I love the doubled up girl look to the covers with the silhouette in the background contrasting with the girl in the foreground. The images in the silhouettes also reveal the settings for each book, with the woodlands and circling crows from one specific scene in The Gathering and a girl isolated in the woods in The Calling.

I really like the simple colour scheme for each book with one in green and the other in blue. It also means that the titles which are metallic silver (extra points for shiny-ness!) stand out really well, although it's worth noting that it is the title, series and author on The Gathering but only the title and series on The Calling for some reason.

The covers aren't matt or gloss but a kind of soft touch almost neoprene feel. Not only is it a great tactile feel, but it also makes the books comfortable to hold for long periods of time (handy given I read each of these in a single sitting).

If you'd like to know what I thought of these two, check back tomorrow for my review of The Gathering and Monday for my review of The Calling.

So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (22)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is Moby Dick by Herman Melville.




When Ishmael sets sail on the whale-ship Pequod one cold Christmas Day, he has no idea of the horrors awaiting him out on the vast and merciless ocean. The ship's strange captain, Ahab, is obsessed with hunting down the famous white whale, Moby Dick, and will stop at nothing on his quest to annihilate his nemesis.





The Vintage classic covers hold a special place in my heart. While the covers of classics are usually dull and boring, Vintage always manage to make theirs stand out. Moby Dick is one of my favourites of their covers.

I love the black and white colour scheme, and the cover looks deceptively like a hand-drawn doodle. The sketchy style also gives a sense of movement to the cover which is great as the scene looks like it should be moving.

The whale even looks like a sperm whale which (according to wikipedia at least) is what Moby Dick was. I'm a total oceanography nerd so I love that this cover is accurate with the species of whale.

Another feature I like is the font for Moby Dick. The little line joining the final ck makes it look like a diving whale's tail and manages to add a little something extra that may not necessarily be seen on the first viewing.

So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (21)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge.

When orphaned young Maria Merryweather arrives at Moonacre Manor, she feels as if she’s entered Paradise. Her new guardian, her uncle Sir Benjamin, is kind and funny; the Manor itself feels like home right away; and every person and animal she meets is like an old friend. But there is something incredibly sad beneath all of this beauty and comfort—a tragedy that happened years ago, shadowing Moonacre Manor and the town around it—and Maria is determined to learn about it, change it, and give her own life story a happy ending. But what can one solitary girl do?


When I was a kid I found a book in the library that I absolutely adored. Eventually they asked for it back and all I could remember was that it was something to do with Moonacre. It wasn't until years later when I watched the movie The Secret of Moonacre with my grandparents I finally figured out what the actual title of the book was (it was on the back of the DVD case). So after getting a cheap paperback copy and raving hysterically to my Mum about how I'd found it again after all these years, she brought me the collectors edition hardcover which comes with it's own slipcase:

After doing a happy dance I sat down to peruse the awesomeness of this edition, and awesome it is. The internal covers show a map of Moonacre and the village of Silverydew with another map of Moonacre Manor at the back. I'm a sucker for maps in books and the vintage feel of these is gorgeous as is the purple colour scheme that matches the cover.

 

The book is also illustrated throughout with old fashioned line drawings. The book was originally written in 1946 and I believe these are the original illustrations. This one is a sketch of Maria and Loveday at the Parsonage Gate. They really add something special to the book :)



So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (20)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is The Kitchen Witch by Annette Blair.

When Logan Kilgarven offers to help his neighbour Melody Seabright get a job at his TV station in exchange for babysitting his son, the last thing he expects is for Melody to bewitch the manager into giving her a cooking show. Melody is thrilled to have landed such an awesome job, but resisting the temptation of stuffed suit Logan isn't her only problem. The Kitchen Witch is an great idea for a show...as long as Melody can learn to cook.



I absolutely adore this book and it's cover. It fits the storyline incredibly well, especially as Melody has a real focus on fashion and that outfit looks just like something she'd wear. Even the tiny details like the cookbook (perfect for a witch who can't cook) fit well.

I love the simple, almost cartoon-y feel to it, particularly the cat (although honestly there should be two if you go by the book). It looks sketched out and I think it manages to stand out from the other photoshopped covers. This one is a contemporary romance (but is the first in a trilogy that ends up as paranormal romance - go figure) and it has a really unique look to it.

The oven, title, moon and stars are all foiled which adds a little something extra, especially as the other similar coloured parts (i.e. the silvers and reds) are matt so it creates a brilliant contrast. The white background also compliments the shinyness really well.

The one aspect I wish I could share with you is that it's a touchy feely book. Parts of the design are raised (Melody, the cat, the stove, the title and the moon) and you can even feel the individual roses on the dress as well as the pattern on the tights and the waves in her hair. It's the kind of book I could identify blindfolded just by feeling the front cover.

So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (19)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

One of the greatest love stories ever told, beautifully repackaged for a modern teen audience.

Cathy and Heathcliff, childhood friends, are cruelly separated by class, fate and the actions of others. But uniting them is something even stronger: an all-consuming passion that sweeps away everything that comes between them. Even death.

"My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks," said Cathy. "I am Heathcliff."

My shelf candy this week was inspired by The Windy Pages who featured the Twilight series as their shelf candy last week. I absolutely adore the Twilight inspired covers for classic novels, and I've picked out the Wuthering Heights cover as my overall fave. I love the dramatic lily on the cover with the creepy shadowy stairs behind, and the cover is the reason I've actually read Wuthering Heights.

The other Twilight-esque covers are:

I usually loathe the covers for classics as they are generally a case of find a painting from a somewhat accurate time period and just stick it on the front. A lot of the time the paintings aren't a good match and are frequently irrelevant to the storyline.

These on the other hand might be simple but they actually feature tiny details from the books themselves. Tess (from Tess of the D'Urbevilles) is a strawberry picker and a fire is caused by the careless use of a candle in Jane Eyre.

These are the first time I looked at a classic and thought "cool cover - I'd read that" and I can't be the only person. Strangely if you look at reviews on amazon a lot of people hate these covers due to the association with Twilight, and most of them claim you can't like Twilight and be capable of reading classics! Talk about judging people!

But I think classics need to be repackaged to make them look accessible to people and I adore these. The only one I don't own is Pride & Prejudice, and that is only because I have a gorgeous set of matching Austens which I'm hoping to feature in another Shelf Candy post.

So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (18)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

Allie used to be a spoilt Long Island princess until her mother ran away with her tennis instructor and all the family money. Now Allie runs a diner in Brooklyn which has a doorway to hell in the basement accidentally opened by Allie and her friends six years previously. Now Ryan, a gorgeous demon hunter, crashes in her basement hunting down any demons that manage to sneak through. But when the door disappears, Allie and Ryan find themselves forced to pass through Hell itself to discover what is going on.

So this week I decided to go with one of those quiet little unassuming covers that you kind of ignore, but then one day realise are actually pretty spectacular. The main feature that I absolutely adore on this is how the designer chose to do the title. The words look like the materials they are constructed from - salt looks like it is made of salt and silver looks like it's made of molten silver.

I love the blue/purple background which isn't hugely surprising as I love those colours, but I also love how the lemon of the t-shirt complements and contrasts really well. The other background feature I adore is the Brooklyn bridge and shadowy impression of Manhattan in the distance. It matches the location of Allie's diner brilliantly.

The other factor I love and didn't realise until I read the book was that the girl on the front fits with the description of Allie, the main character. It's clear that the designer did their research and really made the different elements fit together well.

So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (17)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

First off, I have a quick look back at last week's shelf candy. I featured Shadows on the Moon by Zoë Marriott (here) and talked about how I loved the wrap-around on the cover graphics. I wasn't able to get a picture then, but I've taken one now to show how awesome it is:

My shelf candy for this week is A Taste of Magic by Tracy Madison.

Today is Elizabeth Stevens’ birthday, and not only is it the one-year anniversary of her husband leaving her, it’s also the day her bakery is required to make a cake—for her ex’s next wedding. If there’s a bitter taste in her mouth, no one can blame her.

But today, Liz is about to receive a gift. Her Grandma Verda isn’t just wacky; she’s a little witchy. An ancient gypsy magic has been passed through her family bloodline for generations, and it’s Liz’s turn to be empowered. Henceforth, everything she bakes will have a dash of delight and a pinch of wishes-can-come-true. From her hunky policeman neighbor, to her gorgeous personal trainer, to her bum of an ex-husband, everyone Liz knows is going to taste her power. Revenge is sweet…and it’s only the first dish to be served.

This is one of my favourite fun covers. It's cute and a little bit quirky and really suits the fun story it contains. The cut-off face leaves Elizabeth's appearance up to the reader and focuses the eye on the awesome red lipstick.

The cover also shows how she uses her magic. Liz bakes her spells into her cakes and cookies so the focus on the scrumptious looking cookie works really well. The 'love you' icing is a great tie-in as well as this is a paranormal romance after all :)

The other two books in the series have just as awesome covers, each tailored to how each character directs her magic:

So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (16)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is Shadows on the Moon by Zoë Marriott.

On my fourteenth birthday when the sakura was in full bloom, the men came to kill us. We saw them come, Aimi and me. We were excited, because we did not know how to be frightened. We had never seen soldiers before.

Suzume is a shadow weaver.
She can be anyone she wants.
Except herself.

Only one man sees through her illusions.
Only one man loves the girl within.
And he will not give her up.
Not even to a prince.

This has to be hands down one of the most gorgeous books on my shelf. It's just sooo pretty! I love the cherry blossoms bordering the photo and they just emphasize the oriental setting really well (the book is set in a fictional country called the Moonlit land).

The only downside is while the cover image is pretty, the book is outstanding in real life. The text is shiny and looks even cooler when you move the book and catch the light. The other thing you can't see from the front cover image is that the face continues on the back cover, as do the cherry blossoms.

The trailer also shows how awesome this book is:



So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (15)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is Endure by Carrie Jones.

Okay so technically, my shelf candy is a series based pick this week. All of the covers for the Need Pixies books are awesome and I had the hardest time picking out a favourite to be my main pick. I ended up settling for the newest installment, Endure. However because this is the conclusion of the series, the description is really heavy on the spoilers.




The other three covers are just as awesome:

I love the interplay of black and gold on these covers and the sparklies just add to the awesome. They manage to be simple but also really emotive. I love all of them, but Endure stands out based on the swirls and the eye looking out of the cover. It really makes you question why her iris is gold and what she's thinking.

That said, all of the covers are thought-provoking getting the reader to question what exactly is going on. Usually I'm not the biggest fan of people on covers, but the simplicity of these covers works really well and caught my attention. The faces give the covers structure, and the simple colour scheme gives them a unique appeal.

Intrigued? Here's the description for the first book in the series Need:

Zara White suspects there's a freaky guy semi-stalking her. She's also obsessed with phobias. And it's true, she hasn't exactly been herself since her stepfather died. But exiling her to shivery Maine to live with her grandmother? That seems a bit extreme. The move is supposed to help her stay sane...but Zara's pretty sure her mom just can't deal with her right now.

She couldn't be more wrong. Turns out the semi-stalker is not a figment of Zara's overactive imagination. In fact, he's still following her, leaving behind an eerie trail of gold dust. There's something not right - not human - in this sleepy Maine town, and all signs point to Zara.
So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (14)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick.

No, she thought. No, please, God, I'm not seeing this

Seventeen-year-old Alex is hiking through the wilderness when it happens: an earth-shattering electromagnetic pulse that destroys almost everything.

Survivors are divided between those who have developed a superhuman sense and those who have aquired a taste for human flesh. These flesh-hunters stalk the land: hungry, ruthless and increasingly clever...

Alex meets Tom, a younge army veteran, and Ellie, a lost girl. They will fight together and be torn apart, but Alex must face the most difficult question of all: In such a vastly changed world, who can you trust?

This is one of those books that I brought soley for the cover. I hadn't heard of it and while the description sounds awesome, it was really the cover that got me to take it to the till. I'm not a huge fan of zombies but every exception I've made has been down to a gorgeous cover, and this is the best one I've seen yet.

I love that the cover is a gorgeous metallic aged gold cover and if you see it in real life it literally gleams. The simplicity of the girl's face also accentuates the destroyed city at the bottom, giving it more impact when you do notice it. The worn look to the edges of the cover also adds to the effect giving the book a timeless feel.

The US edition also has a face as the main focus, but they have used lines to mimic the electromagnetic pulse and a black/white colour scheme which makes it seem very creepy. Although the US cover is scarier, and definitely fits with the creation of the zombies, I prefer the prettier UK one.

So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (13)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is The Taker by Alma Katsu.

Have you ever loved someone so much that you'd do anything for them?

When Dr Lucke Findley turns up to his hospital shift in the small town of St. Andrews, Maine, he's expecting just another evening of minor injuries and domestic disputes. but instead, Lanore McIlvrae walks into his life - anc changes it forever. For Lanny is a woman with a past...

Lanny McIlvrae is unlike anyone Luke has ever met. Hers is a story of love and bretrayal that defies time and transcends mortality - and cannot end until Lanny's demons are finally put to rest. Her two hundred years on this earth have seen her seduced by both decadence and brutality - but through it all she has stayed true to the one true love of her life. Until now.


I love this cover. First of all I'm a sucker for any kind of red and black colour scheme as it manages to convey a lot while remaining simple to look at. Add a touch of white or silver and there's all the colours needed to make a striking cover.

This one also has a kind of tattoo like look from the sketchy roses and vines, and I love how the font conveys a Victorian Carnival feel. It almost looks like a vintage poster for a circus performance and while I have yet to actually read this it does seem to fit with the description.

The other thing I love (but sadly can't show as my camera isn't nearby) is that the outer edges of the pages are black. This is something I've noticed on a couple of books (you can see a picture of a similar effect on The Night Circus here) and I love it. It makes the book stand out although it takes some getting used to when you're actually reading the book.

So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (12)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones.

Private investigator Charlotte Davidson was born with three things: looks; a healthy respect for the male anatomy; and the rather odd job title of grim reaper. Since the age of five, she has been helping the departed solve the mysteries of their deaths so they can cross over. Thus, when three lawyers from the same law firm are murdered, they come to her to find their killer.

In the meantime, Charley's dealing with a being more powerful - and definitely sexier - than any spectre she's ever come across before. With the help of a pain-in-the-ass skip tracer, a dead pubescent gangbanger named Angel, and a lifetime supply of sarcasm, Charley sets out to solve the highest profile case of the year and discovers that dodging bullets isn't nearly as dangerous as falling in love.

I've been on a bit of an accidental blogging hiatus lately with real life getting in the way of my book time, and I'm thrilled to have my first post back be for my favourite meme :)

I don't usually like covers with people on them as they can a) look really weird and b) not even vaguely resemble the characters. That said, I fell in love with this one to the point I bounced up and down in the bookstore and got my Dad to stretch and grab it for me (stupid high shelves - short people read too!).

While this isn't how I see Charley in my head, it does fit really well with the story. The skull ring is a great nod to her role as the Grim Reaper and the mix of shadows and light shows how dark and light interplay in the book, both with the story matter and the sarcastic humour.

I also love the marbled background and the smoke like swirls tie in perfectly to a mysterious smoke-like entity Charley refers to as Big Bad. All in all it is a beautiful cover that cleverly ties into the book itself.

So, what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (11)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs.

Grace just moved to San Francisco and is excited to start over at a new school. The change is full of fresh possibilities, but it’s also a tiny bit scary. It gets scarier when a minotaur walks in the door. And even more shocking when a girl who looks just like her shows up to fight the monster.

Gretchen is tired of monsters pulling her out into the wee hours, especially on a school night, but what can she do? Sending the minotaur back to his bleak home is just another notch on her combat belt. She never expected to run into this girl who could be her double, though.

Greer has her life pretty well put together, thank you very much. But that all tilts sideways when two girls who look eerily like her appear on her doorstep and claim they're triplets, supernatural descendants of some hideous creature from Greek myth, destined to spend their lives hunting monsters.

These three teenage descendants of Medusa, the once-beautiful gorgon maligned by myth, must reunite and embrace their fates in this unique paranormal world where monsters lurk in plain sight.

I love the simplicity of this cover. Usually I'm not a massive fan of covers with people on them, but this stands out from the crowd for me. I love how the bottom of her braid is twisting and curling, and it fits with the idea of the main characters being descendants of the snake-haired Medusa of Greek myth.

I even like the print on the hardcover of the book itself. The swirl really echoes the slipcover and the print is the most gorgeous metallic turquoise colour.

So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (10)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice.

In a darkened room the boy sits, waiting for the story to begin. His companion is a young man, cloaked in shadow, his voice low and soft. Only the pure white of his collar is visible in the gloom.

The story of this man's life is about to be told. A story of a vampire facing the dark stretch of eternity, cursed with an exquisite craving for human blood.





Confession time - I've tried Anne Rice's books a couple of times before and I've never really been able to get into them. I've always found them to be overly descriptive and have given up quickly, although weirdly I love the movie of Queen of the Damned.

Over Christmas I picked up a lucky dip of dark fantasy books from WH Smiths and this was one of the books included. I absolutely adore this cover and will definitely be trying to read it again purely based on the cover alone.

At first glance it looks like plain red writing on a black background, but then you notice the background looks like black silk and the writing is scattered with little doodles. It manages to be both incredibly simple and deliciously complex at the same time to stunning effect.

So what's your shelf candy this week?

Shelf Candy Saturday (9)

Shelf Candy Saturday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews where each Saturday bloggers defy the saying "never judge a book by its cover" and showcase one that really catches their eye. Covers play a huge role in the books I choose so it's great to have the opportunity to showcase the pretties :)

My shelf candy for this week is The Luxe by Anna Godbersen.
 

Imagine, if you will, New York City, 1899...

Society's elite: the glamour, the grandeur, the glittering parties, the most handsome beaux, the most beautiful debutantes...the rich girl, the humble boy, the forbidden love, the stolen glances, the whispers, the scandal, the mystery, the revenge.

You are cordially invited to step into The Luxe where the secrets are dark and the sins are delicious...R.S.V.P.



The Luxe has one of the most gorgeous covers I have seen in a long time, gorgeous enough to get me to pick up a copy. I'm not usually interested in historical books, but the sumptuous cover drew me in long enough to notice the Gossip Girl comparisons and then I was hooked on the idea.

Not only is there a beautiful (if impractical) dress, but the sketchy doodles around the edge of the cover are gorgeous and really give the cover a unique look. The doodles are also raised so the book has a great textured feel.

It isn't just The Luxe that has a gorgeous cover, the other three books in the series have equally beautiful and decadent covers (though I must say I like the Envy dress best):

These do remind me of a vlog that Kristi from The Story Siren did on Youtube a while back on covers with "girl in dress" (you can watch the video here). Girl in a dress seems to be a favoured cover design tool of publishers at the moment, and I think The Luxe series is an outstanding example.

 So what's your shelf candy this week?