Some Cover Art That Caught My Eye...

It's Saturday and that means it's time for a spot of cover art here; sometimes I like it and sometimes I can't stand it but it all ends up here :o)

Solaris can be a bit hit and miss in the ol' art department (I find anyway) but these two titles caught my eye with differing approaches to simplicity. Check these out...

Meet Talus the world's first detective. A dead warrior king frozen in winter ice. Six grieving sons, each with his own reason to kill. Two weary travellers caught up in a web of suspicion and deceit. In a distant time long before our own, wandering bard Talus and his companion Bran journey to the island realm of Creyak, where the king has been murdered. From clues scattered among the island's mysterious barrows and stone circles, they begin their search for his killer. But do the answers lie in this world or the next? Nobody is above suspicion, from the king's heir to the tribal shaman, from the servant woman steeped in herb-lore to the visiting warlord whose unexpected arrival throws the whole tribe into confusion. And when death strikes again, Talus and Bran realise nothing is what it seems. Creyak is place of secrets and spirits, mystery and myth. It will take a clever man indeed to unravel the truth. The kind of man this ancient world has not seen before.

I'm well into 'Sherlock' at the moment so the blurb has really caught my attention. What I like about the cover though is that it all looks very simplistic but when you look closer, that's when all the detail starts to shine through. I spent quite a long time, the other night, just looking at the cover and finding loads of little things to look at :o)

Blood Kin is told from the dual points of view of Michael Gibson and of his grandmother Sadie. Michael has returned to the quiet Appalachian home of his forebears following a suicide attempt and now takes care of his grandmother old and sickly but with an important story to tell about growing up poor and Melungeon (a mixed race group of mysterious origin) while bedeviled by a snake-handling uncle and empathic powers she but barely understands. In a field not far from the Gibson family home lies an iron-bound crate within a small shack buried four feet deep under Kudzu vine. Michael somehow understands that hidden inside that crate is potentially his own death, his grandmother's death, and perhaps the deaths of everyone in the valley if he does not come to understand her story well enough.

I'm not sure I'll be reading this one but the cover here is very effective. The title has 'Blood' in it, lets make the whole thing red then. Eye-catching like a sledgehammer but it does the job very well and that's all that matters isn't it? ;o)

What cover art is catching your eye at the moment?