Cover art

I adore cover art. I love looking at it, thinking about it, and –yes–making judgments about the book based on it, although we’re admonished not to.

I used to love this blog for its thoughtful analysis of book jackets; he stopped blogging in 2010, darn it. He’s offered up this blog, The Casual Optimist, as an alternative, and I’ve been enjoying visiting that site now too.

I’ve renewed my already-love for Erin Davies’s book review blog, Flashlight Commentary. She has an ongoing feature where she tracks down cover art that is repeated across multiple books. She calls it Cover Cliches (brilliant!).

It’s a funny thing to see your book’s character on someone else’s book jacket. I blogged about it here when I only knew about one other book. I happened to mention it online to Erin…and voila, a day later she devoted a Cover Cliches post to “The Windswept Glance.” (If that doesn’t capture Phoebe’s essence, I don’t know what does.)

There are no less than 11 covers featuring this enigmatic model. Her hair gets cut, she gets a skunk-like white streak, she stands before castles and quite often she stands before the ocean. I believe the beach is actually part of the original image since it is replicated in three images–and hm, somewhat fitting for Phoebe for anyone who’s read the series. Her hair goes black; her hair goes blond. Her neck gets revealed (in one instance, looking uncomfortably lizard-like). I think it’d be funny someday to meet this model and find out what her voice sounds like. Is she as troubled as she looks?

Here, without further ado, is the link to the Windswept Glance covers. Enjoy!

(and here’s a sneak preview of one of the covers, the one I found the most compelling BESIDES of course, the Haunted cover!)

Phoebe near a stone bridge in the snow…it could happen.

P.S. I just realized something. This book is called Rehabilitation, and in the opening passage of Haunted, Phoebe says, “My therapy would be a lot more effective if I could remember what I did.” In an earlier draft, the word therapy had been “rehabilitation.” So really, C.B. Stone and I are on the “same page”…I slay myself.

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