Top Ten Tuesday #365

Hi all! Hope you’ve all had a good week, I’ve had a bit of a whirlwind last couple of days, I had a job interview in London yesterday and went to this really cool exhibition at the British Library today, it’s all about the news and the way it’s been told over several centuries, and they had so many cool artefacts from across history right up to the present day. If you’re in London, I would definitely recommend it, it’s running till the 21st August. One of my personal favourite exhibits was a news clipping on the Jack The Ripper murders, but the stories go even further back, there was even an article from the time of the Great Fire of London! I have to admit it was kind of the perfect exhibition for me as it combined two things I love to nerd out about: history and news!

Anyway, it’s Tuesday, and so that means it’s time for another Top Ten Tuesday, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week is a cover freebie, which I know you guys always love, so I’ve decided to share my favourite Red, White and Black covers in honour of my fave author VE Schwab, who often has this colour scheme on her book covers (and no, the covers will not all be her books!). I decided to make this one a bit trickier for myself in only using covers that had all three colours on them, but it turns out it wasn’t actually that hard: lots of covers use this combination! So here we go:

1. Children of Blood and Bone-Tomi Adeyemi

I love this cover, I think it’s really striking, the whole dark background and the white hair really makes the red in the text and the headscarf pop and I love that the Black MC is front and centre on the cover.

2. Ruin and Rising-Leigh Bardugo

I actually prefer the redesigned cover for this with the firebird on it because I just like those designs better, but this fit the brief for the colours I was going for this week. I do like the red, I think that’s very striking, I’m just not really a big fan of what I think is meant to be the palace design (the black building).

3. Romanov-Nadine Brandes

I love the colours on this so much, the red and the gold feel very Christmassy to me, though it’s not a Christmas set story! The white is only really in the title text, but it’s there, so I’m counting it. I think the colour combinations on this are just genius, the red, the white, the black & gold, it just all goes together so well, and there’s such intricate little details like the drops of blood, ugh just so gorgeous.

4. A Psalm of Storms and Silence-Roseanne A. Brown

I love the designs on these covers so much, they’re so intricate, and gorgeous and so wonderfully reflective of the West African inspired setting and again, it’s great to see two Black characters front and centre on a cover like this. I almost wish I’d read this in physical copy so I could have the gorgeous covers on my shelf, but I can’t regret it too much as Jordan Cobb and AJ Beckles are fabulous narrators.

5. Ace of Shades-Amanda Foody

This is definitely my favourite of the three Shadow Game UK covers, the colours are so vivid, and I love the level of detail. From the card suits making up the background of the cover to the silhouette of the City of Sin, to the playing cards falling down around the title, it’s all just so cleverly put together and I really love it. The other two covers for the series are fine, but I just like the colours and design of this one the best (and was slightly sad they changed the UK cover colour for Queen of Volts from purple to green).

6. Caraval-Stephanie Garber

Okay so this one may be a tad more tenuous than some of the others on the list, but there is a splash of red at the centre of the starburst there, so I’m counting it! I love the simplicity of all these covers, the designs are all actually fairly simple, but the colours really make them pop.

7. A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder-Holly Jackson

All three books in the series would have worked for this prompt, but I chose the first one for the simple reason that it’s the only one I’ve read! A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder is neither the prettiest nor most exciting cover I’ve got on this list, but it works for what it needs to do and the idea of having the cover be Pip’s “murder board” is pretty cool.

8. Death Bringer-Derek Landy

I really miss the old style Skulduggery Pleasant covers, the style for the most recent instalments in the series is similar, but it’s not quite the same, it’s hard to put my finger on exactly what has changed about them, but I don’t like them as much! I could have used Bedlam, a later book in the series for this prompt too, but I liked this book better so I went with it. This is one of my favourite covers of the whole series actually, the colours really pop and I love the design of Skulduggery and Val in the graveyard.

9. Heartless-Marissa Meyer

This is another of those books that I really wish I’d read as a physical copy rather than as an e-ARC because the cover is so pretty. I love the way the hearts are incorporated so much into the design, from the leaves to Cath’s face, to the A in the title, it’s very fitting for a Queen of Hearts origin story.

10. The Night Circus-Erin Morgenstern

This just barely qualifies but the red of the scarf, and the little hints in the title mean it just scrapes in there. I actually wasn’t a big fan of The Night Circus (I know, shock horror) but I do really love this cover, I think it’s a great example of where minimalism on a book cover can actually be more outstanding than books with super splashy colours all over them.

11. Not Even Bones-Rebecca Schaeffer

Another example where minimalism really works for the book. The design of this with the blood and the scalpel is such a good idea for a book where the main character’s job is dissecting supernatural creatures and it also gets across the creepy aspect of the book really well.

12. A Conjuring of Light-VE Schwab

Yes we made it to the author that inspired this whole list (this is what I get for doing it in alphabetical order!). I honestly could have chosen any number of VE Schwab’s books for this list as she’s had the red, white, black colour combination on many of her books but I chose A Conjuring of Light for the simple reason that I think the colours pop the most on the black background (as compared to the white background of ADSOM and the red of AGOS). I’m so curious to see whether the red, white, black theme continues with Threads of Power or if the covers go in a whole new direction. We’ve not had a grey background for Grey London yet…..though grey is really not the best colour for a book cover!

13. Unwind-Neal Shusterman

The covers of this series get the creep factor so right, that eye staring out of the DNA helix will always haunt me! Red, white and black are a great combination for spooky covers and the combination of the colour and the design here has you instantly knowing, before you even open the book or look at the blurb…..this is going to be a creepy book.

14. The Scorpio Races-Maggie Stiefvater

I don’t know what cover gods Maggie Stiefvater has working for her….but she’s never had a bad cover (okay, that’s a slight lie, the Mister Impossible cover was not great). You get the point though, her covers are generally always on the money. I actually picked up The Scorpio Races based on this cover alone, and though I didn’t completely love it, it did lead me to The Raven Boys, so I will be forever grateful for that.

15. Enchantee-Gita Trelease

This is another one where I really wish I’d got the physical copy rather than the e-arc because it’s so pretty. I love the little details like the two different Camilles in the gates, one from her Paris life and one from her Versailles life, I love how ornate and beautiful the gates are, the little card suit symbols embedded in the cover (as gambling is a big part of the book) and of course the balloon at the top is so gorgeous.

So there we have it, those are some covers with Red, White and Black covers for your viewing pleasure this week. And those are just the ones I’ve read, this list would probably have been way longer if I’d included my TBR books too! Have you read any of these books? Do you like red, white and black as a colour combination on covers? Or do you prefer brighter covers? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back next week for another Top Ten Tuesday, this time we’re doing One Word Reviews For The Last Ten Books I Read. I am probably going to find this difficult, as an incredibly wordy person, but hey, at least you know you’ll be getting a short post from me next week!