Mogsy’s Favorite Covers of 2015
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Like a precious gift carefully wrapped in decorative paper, a book with a good cover fills you with excitement and anticipation and makes you want to open it right away! As you all know I am a big fan of lists, so I thought, What better way to spread the cheer today than with my Top Ten Favorite Covers of 2015?
Wishing you all much love and joy this holiday season, and I hope you enjoy the eye candy!
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Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen
I’m naturally drawn to interesting art styles, and this is most certainly the case with this cover design by artist Victo Ngai.
Tower of Thorns by Juliet Marillier
I just adore painted covers, and artist Arantza Sestayo did an amazing job with these. Like the cover art for the first book, this one is also giving me major hair envy.
The Voyage of the Basilisk by Marie Brennan
The books in this series make it onto my “Favorite Covers” list every year, because Todd Lockwood’s dragons are amazing.
Our Lady of the Ice by Cassandra Rose Clarke
Some covers exude pure atmosphere, like this one here. Brrrr! I feel cold just looking at it. Credit goes to Saga’s associate art director Michael McCartney, and to the artist Federico Bebber.
The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
If it’s more atmosphere you want, you get it in spades in this cover illustrated by Jonathan Bartlett. I love how amazingly detailed it is.
The Last Witness by K.J. Parker
Then there are covers that tell a story, like this one illustrated by Jon Foster and designed by Christine Foltzer. Looking at that cover, you can’t help but wonder…just what is going on there?
Twelve Kings in Sharakhai by Bradley P. Beaulieu
This cover by artist Adam Paquette made my jaw drop. To me, this is where the US cover wins hands down. I love the use of bold colors and the way it fills readers with wonder and a sense of “epicness”.
Last Song Before Night by Ilana C. Myer
Speaking of wonder and epicness, I have not read this one yet, but I had to feature the cover anyway. I love it when a cover shows off a book’s world. Art by Stephan Martinere.
The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milán
Then there are covers that are just too damn cool to resist, not to mention Richard Anderson’s covers are always great.
Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear
Covers depicting main characters can be tricky, but artist Cynthia Sheppard nails it. Karen’s strength and attitude comes through in this one, and now that I’ve read this, I also understand the tentacles.
Covenant’s End by Ari Marmell
Jason Chan is another one of my favorite cover artists, and I love the ones he did for this series. They’re all great, but I like this one the best. Simple, elegant, beautiful.
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
My tastes tend to run towards painted covers and more realistic art styles, but once in a while something different and awesome will catch my eye, like this striking cover by artist Will Staehle.
The Beast of Cretacea by Todd Strasser
Another book I have not read, but as soon as I saw this one I was sucked in by its cover. Great use of negative space and OMG the pretty colors. Here’s a cool story about the making of the cover, using the design by the author’s daughter Lia Strasser.
The Sin Eater’s Daughter by Melinda Salisbury
Same deal: haven’t read, but completely mesmerized by those amazingly bold colors and the contrast of the different hues. Not sorry at all that I bought this book based on its cover! Art and design by Jamie Gregory.
Cash Crash Jubilee by Eli K.P. William
This cover by Sean Jun brings it all together: color, atmosphere, and the sense of a bleak and bizarre future!
The BiblioSanctum 
Definitely good choices, they’ve all struck me as well!
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Happy Holidays, Mogsy, Tiara and Wendy! Your blog is definitely one of highlights of my reading year. Great job. 😀
Great choices…
V.E. Schwab has an amazing luck with covers. I really liked cover for Vicious and upcoming sequel of ADSoM.
I am also a fan of cover for Polansky’s Builders, Archivist Wasp, Nemesis Games, Older’s YA – Shadowshaper, Vermilion…
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Thank you for your kind words! I’m always grateful to our readers, you’re the reason why I love to blog and share my bookish thoughts 🙂
And I agree – I love the style of V.E. Schwab’s covers. And The Builders also caught my eye. I remember thinking, “Ooh, animals! I HAVE to read this!” 🙂
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Some pretty awesome covers here.
I think the Dinosaur Lord is my favorite, Grace Keeper is fantastic too. And although I’m not a SF gal, I love Our Lady of the Ice cover 🙂
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It just exudes atmosphere, doesn’t it? It’s one of my favorites because of that 😀 And yeah, Dinosaur Lords is just way too cool.
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This post made me realize how cool a job it must be for an artist to design and create book covers. I’m not sure I’d ever thought of it before but it must be so interesting and challenging to come up with a cover idea that represents the book’s vision and then actually turning that concept into reality. Makes me wish I had just a drop of artistic talent! These are all gorgeous!
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Yeah, I imagine it’s a real challenge, and my appreciation and respect for cover artists increases just thinking about it 🙂
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Some good ones there 🙂
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My two favorite artists: Richard Anderson and Todd Lockwood 🙂 I had to pick a favorite cover of the year, it would probably be The Dinosaur Lords.
The art for Last Song Before Night is absolutely beautiful. Listen to the Functional Nerd podcast last night with Ilana C. Myer and they mentioned how amazing the cover was.
I’m also like 99% sure that Karen Memory was Cynthia Sheppard’s first cover ever!
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Anderson and Lockwood are two of my favorites as well so I definitely made sure to feature one from each of them 😀
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Since I consume all of my reading in e-book form, I tend to forget how gorgeous some book covers are: my faithful reader only does black and white… So thank you for reminding me of the outward beauty that holds the words we fall in love with! 🙂
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I used to do most of my reading on my ereader as well, like 99% of it. After I started reading physical books again, it did make me realize how much I missed looking at books on the shelf and admiring their pretty covers 🙂
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Absolutely gorgeous covers! The Dinosaur Lords is definitely my favourite but I love the covers for Barsk, A Darker Shade of Magic and the Lady Trent series. All beautiful! 😀
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Agreed, the art styles are so different, but they are all so beautiful for different reasons!
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Oh, The Grace Keepers gets my vote for the best cover. It’s one of those books I’d buy based on the cover alone (yeah, I do that sometimes… I’m shallow like that).
But yes, A Darker Shade of Magic is gorgeous, and I like the second book’s cover, too.
I’m currently reading The Sin Eater’s Daughter and I like it so far – the reviews I’ve seen are very different – some people seem to love it but others gave it 2 stars, so I’m curious about the ending.
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Let’s be honest, who HASN’T bought a book based on the cover alone? 😉
And I’ve noticed a lot of mixed opinions on The Sin Eater’s Daughter as well, I’m looking forward to seeing what you think.
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What an incredibly attractive and eye catching list. I love The Sin Eater’s cover and Cash Crash – I’ve been giving those to sneaky peaks before now. It’s the one thing that I actually dislike about reading on the kindle. You don’t get the same association with the cover or for that matter the author. I read a lot more on kindle nowadays and that’s definitely something that I’ve noticed and it’s a real bummer for people like me – because I really do love covers and appreciate the work that goes into them.
Great list.
Lynn 😀
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That is very true. One of my favorite things about getting to read more physical books again now is being able to enjoy the beautiful covers 🙂
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