Check out this double take, wet pavement style.

The Lucky Kind by Alyssa B. Sheinmel: I’ve reviewed this title before. I really like this cover, despite the fact I don’t think it represents the story at all, except for maybe reflecting the quiet nature of the story inside. I like the coloring, and I like the font quite a bit. The Lucky Kind was published in May by Knopf/Random House.

Then I saw this one:

Dry as Rain by Gina Holmes will be published by Tyndale House in September. When I first saw the cover, I thought it looked familiar, but it was different enough not to be a double take. But upon closer look, it is actually the same stock photo, just stretched and cut through the middle by the title and author bar; it was so blown up that the street lamp from the cover above doesn’t make it into this cover. You can tell it’s the same photo by the way the couple holds their hands, by the umbrella in both images, and by the outfit the guy is wearing in both photos.

I haven’t read Holmes’s book, but it seems like the image fits with this book a little bit more. Perhaps because these do look like adults and it does give an idea of a book for more mature readers than the Sheinmel book.

I don’t think one cover does it better than the other, though I think they so give quite different feelings to each cover with the placement of text and sizing of image. The first gives more insight into environment and offers the idea that place is an important element in the story, whereas the second, focused in more on the couple, offers the idea that the relationship is more important than the environment.

What do you think? Does one do it better?