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Covered in 2012: There’s always room to drown

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Written by: Kelly on October 28, 2011.

I’ve been keeping tabs on the cover images popping up for 2012 releases, and you can keep checking back for some of the trends I’ve spotted over the next couple of weeks. I like to watch these things because for me, covers are what makes a title stand out. Not that I require a cover to meet the story, necessarily, but it’s a visual reminder of a description or a title or an author for me. A distinct cover is a great recall tool; having too many covers that feature the same themes makes a book a little more forgettable, not only in the mind but also on the shelves. It can’t hold its own.

Remember last year the surge of books featuring girls floating under water? It appears this trend will float us through 2012, too.


Anne Greenwood Brown’s Lies Beneath is a mermaid story, slated for release by Delacorte in June 2012. Mermaids are so not my thing but this one is set in Lake Superior, and I’m kind of fascinated by that.


Sarah Wylie’s All These Lives is a story of twins and cancer, and it is also slated for release in June of next year by Farrer, Straus, and Giroux.


So glad this underwater gal can also show off the wind swept hair effect so well. The Unquiet, by Jeannine Garsee, sounds a little bit like a few of the mind-bending books that have come out this year about mental illness. This one will be published next year by Bloomsbury.


Paige Harbison’s The New Girl is a mystery set in a prestigious academy, slated to be released by Harlequin in January 2012. I wonder if it involves drowning.

Of the covers above, the one that sticks out to me is Garsee’s. It’s not different than most of the others, but it has a crispness to it that strikes me a little more than the others. The book itself sounds like it’s up my alley too, with its psychological bent in the premise.

Can you think of any other 2012 releases featuring the girl under water? Do any of these covers speak to you more than any of the others?

Comments

  2. Covers are so important! I know a lot of my teens pick up books based solely on their covers. Interestingly, I had one teen select an ARC without a cover from my selection and she specifically picked it up because it was "clean and white". 🙂

  3. @Abby: I handed a copy of "Fracture" to one of my teens when it was just the blue paper cover with the title on it. Can I tell you how much she RAVED about that cover? She loved how plain it was. How simple it was. That was the review she gave me of the book — how that cover was so good because it was so plain and how she didn't like the fact it was getting a real cover. With a girl on it.

  4. When the Sea is Rising Red is similar – the girl isn't underwater, but she looks like she's just washed up on shore after drowning. I've mentioned before that I have great antipathy toward this cover.

  6. I've noticed a huge number of watery covers trending lately. Another is Of Poseidon, which obviously has a water theme. I really like the Garsee cover too, though all of them tend to make me feel like I'm suffocating 🙂

  7. I feel like, in the Sea is Rising Red, they've attempted to make a dead girl an object of attraction. That's where my dislike stems from.

  8. The only one that seemed different to me is The Unquiet. Cover trends are really starting to all blend together for me. It's to the point that I start to automatically ignore a title as soon as I recognize that it looks like another cover.

  12. Oops, I see you had Mara in your previous post. Like the death covers, all this floating is probably just a thinly veiled metaphor for sexual bliss.
    : )

  13. The Unquiet cover reminds me a bit of Hourglass with that reverse motion thing going on. At least it adds something distinctive and somewhat different from the others. You make a really good point about the purpose of covers and how creating something unique definitely goes a long way.