Friday Face-Off: The Night
Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme created by Books by Proxy! Each Friday, we will pit cover against cover while also taking the opportunity to showcase gorgeous artwork and feature some of our favorite book covers. If you want to join the fun, simply choose a book each Friday that fits that week’s predetermined theme, post and compare two or more different covers available for that book, then name your favorite. A list of future weeks’ themes are available at Lynn’s Book Blog.
This week’s theme is:
“Do not go gentle”
~ a cover featuring THE NIGHT
Mogsy’s Pick:
The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter
I have featured books with multiple editions for the last few Friday Face-Offs so this week I thought I would simplify things with another head-to-head contest. While there were plenty of covers to choose from featuring the night, I decided to go with The Midnight Queen, a Regency fantasy novel which blends together magic, romance, and historical fiction elements. The story follows Gray Marshall, a student at Merlin College who falls out of favor with the school following a midnight errand gone awry. Disgraced, he is sent away to the summer home of the arrogant and unpleasant Professor Appius Callendar until such time the college can decide his fate.
It’s there that Gray has the pleasure of meeting the professor’s middle daughter Sophie. Even though he was told none of the Callendar girls were born with any magical talent, Gray senses something strange about Sophie. The two of them strike up a friendship, and so when astounding revelations are revealed about Sophie’s past, Gray is wrapped up in the whirlwind of events.
Let’s check out the covers:
Ace Books (2014) vs. Allison & Busby (2016)
And as a bonus, here are the covers to the sequels too, even though I haven’t read them yet:
Lady of Magick by Sylvia Izzo Hunter
Ace Books (2015) vs. Allison & Busby (2017)
A Season of Spells by Sylvia Izzo Hunter
Ace Books (2016)
Winner:
These are all beautiful covers (especially if you love owls) but for The Midnight Queen I’m going to have to go with the 2016 Allison & Busby edition for this one.
What do you think? Which one is your favorite?
The BiblioSanctum 
I definitely agree. Both Allison & Busby editions are better. They would definitely be worth owning!
LikeLike
I know, so pretty!
LikeLike
Being quite partial to owls (as my avatar shows…) I totally love these covers and agree with your choice: the figure being partially hidden by the title adds a further layer of mystery to the overall impression. 🙂
LikeLike
Haha, I was thinking these covers would be brilliant for owl lovers 🙂 As someone else had pointed out, they’re one every cover, I didn’t even notice that!
LikeLike
Ooh yes, agree, these are all lovely covers- but your pick is just stunning!
LikeLike
I really love the colors!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Eh, nt my style, but the Busby Lady of Magic one
LikeLike
That one’s pretty, I think it’s less “busy” than the Busby one for The Midnight Queen.
LikeLike
I think A Season of Spells might be my favorite of the bunch, but I like the second Lady of Magick cover too. And of the Midnight Queen covers I’m with you on the Allison and Busby one.
LikeLike
Makes me wonder what the Busby cover for Season of Spells would look like once it comes out!
LikeLike
I prefer the Ace covers as the birds are clearer in them…
LikeLike
Yes, and I also like that they are not the main subject, just an embellishment 🙂
LikeLike
Lovely covers. Love the A&B editions 😆
LikeLike
Me too! I love the art style.
LikeLike
Yeah, that was my favourite when I first looked through them. Lovely choice.
Lynn 😀
LikeLike
It’s very eye catching, despite the dark colors!
LikeLike
I like the Ace covers better. All the covers have amazing colors, but I don’t really like the way the owls are drawn on the Busby ones.
LikeLike
I like the art styles in the busby covers, but I also love the simple elegance of the Ace covers, so I know what you mean 🙂
LikeLike
I actually prefer the Ace cover for The Midnight Queen. Probably because I’m partial to the color purple. 🙂 But I love how all of the covers feature owls!
LikeLike
A few weeks ago, there was a Friday Face-off where the theme was purple, and this was almost my choice – that really is a nice rich shade of purple!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The cover (the Allison & Busby one) is what made me pick up The Midnight Queen when I found it in a charity shop, so I’d have to go with that. All three books are super pretty; it’s one of the reasons I made a point of buying paper copies of them all instead of kindle editions, because I wanted them on my shelf.
LikeLike