The Best Fantasy Art Book Covers

Sometimes the books I read are good, but not so good that I want to blog on them. That gives me the opportunity to blog on the gorgeous art that covers fantasy books! This weeks post is on that one thing that will sell me a book no matter how bad the blurb--the cover. Since Christmas we have seen some really wonderful  covers go through here...and some not so wonderful covers, but we only say nice things here, right?  All of the books I read that make it here are really wonderful reads that I enjoyed, in some cases despite the bad blurbs and dismal cover art! For me, the book is what counts, and an indie author 's resources often don't stretch to include purchasing fine art for the cover!  Some, however do, and a few of those covers on books I've seen since January are featured today's post.


The two best covers of the year so far for me are on Jeffrey Getzin's wonderful novellas, Shara and the Haunted Village, and  A Lesson for the Cyclops. The artwork for both novellas is by the amazing Carol Phillips.

Both covers really represent the stories well and the attention to detail in the artwork is amazing.  For an indie author to put his resources into such fine covers for novellas is quite unusual, and I applaud his decision to do so.

>>><<<

Next on my list of eye-candy book covers is The Fire Rose, by Mercedes Lackey. This is a book published by Baen, so one would hope the art would be lovely, and it is. It has been out since the mid-nineties.

>>><<<

Another book that I bought for it's cover was The Winds of Khalakovo, by Bradley P. Beaulieu. It is a debut novel and bodes well for this author. The art represents the tale beautifully, and creates just that hint of mystery that sells books to people like me!

>>><<<

Another book that was intitally purchased for the cover was Magnus Opum by Aussie author Jonathan Gould. I LOVED this cover, because the stark simplicity reminded me of J.R.R. Tolkien's original artwork for his Lord of The Ring series.

The amazing simplicity of of Gould's cover hints at Magnus's story, and just as the picture by Tolkien of Bilbo on the Barrel coming to the huts of the Raftelves, it entices to you just look at it and think about the story.

>>><<<

Of course, A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson gets a gold star for the cover. TOR publishing never fails us when it comes to great fantasy artwork.

>>><<<

My final offering today is the cover of Tad Williams wonderful fantasy, The War of the Flowers.  I was moved to buy this book off the rack just by seeing this cover, and the book more than lived up to it. It was mysterious, and made me wonder about the tale.

>>><<<

For me, good fantasy does not have to be covered with great artwork. Many times indie authors don't have the resources to invest in art for covers; I should know! But if there is a fine picture on it, even if the blurb is bad or nonexistent, I will always buy the book for its cover.

The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey

As any good fantasy fan must, I love the work of Mercedes Lackey. We share the same birthday (different years) and the same abiding love of the genre of fantasy, music and the renaissance. +Mercedes Lackey writes immersive fantasy tales that are not only well-crafted; they rise far above your standard hack-and-slash sword-and-sorcery.  In her Valdemar series, Lackey takes the genre and amps it up.

This book is a bit outside my usual genre of epic fantasy. When I bought the Kindle download, I assumed The Fire Rose was a romance with a fantasy twist, maybe a book to while away a rainy northwest afternoon. In a sense I was right, but I was also wrong. First published in Oct. 1995, this is a full-on fantasy with a good dose of romance, set in Edwardian era San Francisco. For some reason, I had never come across this book, and was thrilled to find it as a Kindle download.

---

The Blurb:

Beauty Meets Beast in San Francisco

Accepting employment as a governess after hard times hit her family, medieval scholar Rosalind Hawkins is surprised when she learns that her mysterious employer has no children, no wife, and she is not to meet with him face to face. Instead, her duties are to read to him, through a speaking tube, from ancient manuscripts in obscure, nearly-forgotten dialects.

A requirement for the job was skill in translating medieval French, and she now understands the reason for that requirement, and assumes her unseen employer’s interest in the descriptions of medieval spells and sorcery is that of an eccentric antiquary. What she does not realize is that his interest is anything but academic. He has a terrible secret and is desperately searching for something that can reverse the effects of the misfired spell which created his predicament.

---

My Review:

Rosalind (Rose) Hawkins travels by train to San Francisco and is met by Paul du Mond, her employer’s secretary. Paul is a mysterious, rather arrogant man and Rosalind doesn't really know what to make of him, but she doesn't like him. She does not physically meet her employer Jason Cameron; rather she gets to know him only through the speaking tube in her rooms. I loved that twist; it reminded me of getting to know a person via email. The mind is not distracted by what the eye sees, and the conversation becomes the driving force in the relationship.

Lackey portrays her characters well, and in keeping with the era which she has set them in. Rose is intelligent, highly educated and strong. She is a lady in every sense of the word, yet she has a sense of adventure and loves the experience of learning. She has a backbone and she is not afraid to use it.

Of course, Jason Cameron is much more than he has presented himself to be, and he has many ulterior motives for selecting Rosalind out of the list of candidates who could have filled the position. Jason Cameron is a man of vast wealth and great power in every sense of the word. He is fully aware that his own hubris caused his transformation, and to his chagrin, his personality is vastly benefiting from the dose of humility he inadvertently administered to himself. 

Paul du Mond is also more than he appears. He is also a man with nasty vices and a cruel streak a mile wide, and he knows Jason’s plans for Rose. From the outset Paul is not pleased that Rosalind has been brought in to read to Jason. This jealousy drives the plot, and fuels the mayhem that ensues. Paul du Mond is arrogant, self-centered, and a sociopath. He reaches higher than his abilities can handle and has no moral compunction against using any means to achieve the desire of the moment.

Besides being a master creator of some of the most popular sword-and-sorcery in the fantasy genre, +Mercedes Lackey also knows how to write fabulous twists on traditional fairy tales  She knocks it out of the park with this tale.

A lot of people are writing modern takes on fairy tales but they frequently fall short of the mark. They forget that there must be a great plot that goes well beyond the original or it’s just a rehashing of the tried and true. The Fire Rose goes way beyond the traditional tale of Beauty and the Beast, to the point you completely forget the original tale that sparked this idea of novel.

NO ONE melds romantic tension and magic into a tale as well as Mercedes Lackey. Her romance is classy and her magic is always well crafted and sensibly depicted, making this book a great read for any day, rainy or not. The final chapters of this tale are gripping and the ending is completely satisfying, and was unexpected--the best kind of ending.

This book is a stand-alone book, but I will most definitely be reading the others in this series of books, the Elemental Masters. 

Alison DeLuca, The Night Watchman Express; Mercedes Lackey, Arrows of the Queen

My sincere thanks to Johanna Garth for awarding me the Blog on Fire award! You can read her entertaining columns here, at Losing Sanity


(BTW, Johanna is also the author of the book Losing Beauty, an updated version of the Persephone myth, and I must say that is an amazing urban fantasy in and of itself. I will definitely be featuring that book at a later date! )



'THE NIGHT WATCHMAN EXPRESS'


Alison DeLuca hits the ground running in the opening chapters of 'The Night Watchman Express', and the story never stops moving until the last page. Miriam, an unhappy young girl is orphaned when her wealthy industrialist father dies. With no other family, her father’s business partners, the Marchpanes, become her guardians. The Marchpanes immediately move into Miriam’s house, and take over her father’s rooms. (Mrs. Marchpane is deliciously evil.) They make their attempt to gain full control of Miriam's money and her father's company.


Gradually, Miriam begins to find common ground with the Marchpane’s son and their other young ‘guest’ when a nanny who is both wise and skilled in certain magics is hired. Mana is a woman who is of a race of people, who are considered to be second-class citizens, and contrary to the Marchpane’s hopes, she turns out to be exactly what both Miriam and the two boys needed.


There is a reluctant camaraderie that develops between Miriam and the the two boys. The three of them do a certain amount of exploring the grounds of the estate, and discover a strange machine that her father has constructed. Another interesting thread is also Miriam's strange emotional attachment to her father's typewriter-like machine, which she has claimed for her own since his death, and keeps hidden in her room.


The Marchpanes are not pleased by Mana’s good influence on Miriam, and they fear her. They fire Mana and get rid of Miriam.


Nightly Miriam has heard the mournful Night Watchman Express, a mysterious train that passes close to her home, on its way to a sinister place called Devil's Kitchen where children are enslaved, and become subjects of evil experiments. Though she has never known where it actually went, the sound of it has terrified her.

At last, in an effort to be rid of her and gain full control of her fortune the Marchpane’s have her kidnapped and placed on The Night Watchman Express.

In the course of her adventures, Miriam becomes a strong young woman, and her resourcefulness and courage make for a great adventure. Mana is much more than she appears to be on the surface, and the two boys have parts to play in the story. All of the characters are clearly drawn, and the threads of the story are woven seamlessly through each of the protagonist’s stories to make a wonderful fantasy adventure.


The story is told almost as if it were a fairy tale, but it has a gritty steampunk quality that makes it a perfect rainy weekend read. There is danger, there is darkness, and suspense; there is a serious good vs. evil plot. I found that I was thinking about the characters at the end, and wondering what was going to happen next. This story captured my interest from page one, and kept me reading all the way through it to the end. I enjoyed it immensely, and I am looking forward to reading more of DeLuca’s work.

'ARROWS OF THE QUEEN'

‘Arrows of TheQueen’ By Mercedes Lackey  begins with the Companion Rolan choosing a new rider, Talia. Rolan is a special being that is visually like a horse, but is more like an angel in that they are messengers of the Goddess.    Together, they journey to Haven, capital of Valdemar. She lives with a clan of Holderkin, a socially and religiously strict group which believes in female submission and polygynous marriage. On her 13th birthday, she boldly rejects an offer of marriage, declaring her desire to be a Herald and she is punished severely. Because she does not really know anything about the Heralds, or how they are even chosen, Rolan places a temporary block on her memory until he can get her to people who can explain everything.

When she arrives in Haven, Talia is informed that because she has been chosen by Rolan, she is to be Queen’s Own, a special Herald who advises the Queen.  Since she is so young, and still must be trained, she is given the task of caring for the Heir, Elspeth.  Elspeth is a spoiled brat, and has been manipulated by an evil nursemaid.  Talia is also an Empath, and her training in that area of talent is very important. 

There are many twists and turns to this tale, and as Talia grows, the story matures too.  Talia’s story, and the world of Valdemar is compelling and drawn in such a way that one is captivated and I, for one, could not put the book down once I picked it up.  As I frequently say, I only review books that I love, and this book hooked me to the point that I have purchased every single Mercedes Lackey book ever written, and I have enjoyed every one of them!  ‘Arrows of the Queen’ is the first book in a trilogy. None of them are excessively long, and I highly recommend this series of books!