Book Wars! Seraphina By: Rachel Hartman - Guest Post and Cover Discussion from author, Tina Connolly!!!

Book Wars a weekly feature hosted between two book review blogs – A Life Bound By Books & Much Loved Books!

It’s a fact that book lovers know all about the covers of the books they covet.  Often when a title is released here in the UK, it’s sometimes vastly different across the pond in the US.  So, Michelle from Much Loved Books Books and I have come together to create Book Wars to talk about the difference in covers when it comes to the US vs. UK versions.

We hope from time to time authors will chime in with their thoughts as well. We welcome everyone to comment and share their thoughts too! The more the merrier!

Today we have a slight twist for Book Wars, as part of the Ironskin Blog Tour we have asked author Tina Connolly to pick her favorite book, and give us her thoughts on the covers themselves.

Before we get to this weeks Book Wars, we have a winner to announce. The Book Wars winner for Storm Glass is..... the US Cover!!! Thank you to everyone who voted for both books, and for picking a winner.

Guest Post from author Tina Connolly:

Cover wars! I love seeing all the different ways a book can be interpreted around the world. (This is partly why I was so excited to get a second cover for Ironskin - I already loved the first cover, but then I got the chance to see ANOTHER awesome one!) I chose one of my favorite 2012 books, Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman. This is a gorgeous YA high fantasy of a girl and a world with some VERY unique dragons. Luckily it turns out that it did get several different covers as it got republished around the world.

Left USA: Right UK

USA I have to admit, I was really drawn in by the uniqueness of the US cover. I love how it looks like an old-fashioned etching. I can tell the story is set in a city, and of course, I can tell that there are dragons! To me, this cover said that the book was a "big" book, not a cookie-cutter girl and dragon story, and it really did not disappoint. Love this cover (and I love the red, too.)

UK This feels more like a standard YA fantasy cover to me. Again, I love the use of the dark red on the book. Again, I can tell there's going to be a dragon and a city. But the girl looks kind of modern, and the girl/castle/eye look like three different elements stuck together on the page. I wouldn't necessarily have picked this book up based on the cover, but it wouldn't have turned me off, either. And what's that around the dragon eye? Candles? It looks like a dragon eye chandelier. I was just looking for a book that had US & UK editions, but when I went on Goodreads, I found out there are a couple more covers for this, too! So:

R-L: German - Indonesian - Italian

German  All of a sudden we're into blue! Blue says sea monster to me, not dragon. (I don't read German, but the subtitle "Das Konigreich der Drachen" is no doubt "the kingdom of dragons", right? So I guess that explains things for you...) Mostly I don't understand what that large thing behind her shoulders is. SPOILERS HERE: I suppose it might supposed to be a wing-thing hinting at her draconic nature? But it's all tangled up in her hair and I can't tell what it is at all.

Indonesian Oh, I like this one! But I think partly I like it just because it reminds me of the US cover? The US cover made better use of colors with the touch of dark red – this one in all browns could have used something to punch it up.

Italian Like the German and UK covers, this one also fits squarely into what I currently expect a traditional YA fantasy cover to look like. However, there's nothing wrong with that, and this is by far my favorite of the three. It's a simple, spare cover that hints at the SPOILER I mentioned earlier: her draconic nature. From my tiny laptop the wing part of the dress looks a little photoshoppy, so I'd like to see it up close, but otherwise I think this is a fantastic and elegant way to clearly show the central conflict of the book.

About Tina Tina Connolly lives in Portland, Oregon, in a house that came with a dragon in the basement and blackberry vines in the attic. Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and the anthology UNPLUGGED: Web's Best SF 2008. Her novel IRONSKIN is out from Tor in Fall 2012, with a sequel in 2013. She is a frequent reader for Podcastle, and narrates the Parsec-winning flash fiction podcast Toasted Cake. In the summer she works as a face painter, which means a glitter-filled house is an occupational hazard. She likes re-reading books and eating pie for breakfast (preferably at the same time.) Website - Blog - Twitter - Facebook

Thank you Tina for some great thoughts about the covers for Seraphina, now its time for you, the readers, to vote for your favourite cover.

Let the Wars Begin: Its now time to make our decision, let's see what we think about the covers and pick our favorite cover.

Lisa WOW! So many pretty covers to choose from this week! I love the US cover, but for me it's coming down to the German cover VS. the Italian cover. I love the look and colors of both. I have yet to read this title but have heard many great things about it, so I think for this week, my favorite cover goes to..... the Italian cover.

Michelle This is a tough pick for me, I have not read this book but I have heard about it on the blogosphere. After taking a look at the covers above my favourite would have to be the UK version, just for how eye catching it is but also for how that although it is mainly red, there are different shades of red with some hints of other colours, yet its not too overpowering. The German cover comes in at a close second.

VOTE for YOUR favorite cover of Seraphina NOW!

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