Favorite Covers of 2025

Every year I'm awed by some of the beautiful covers created for books. I am not a visually creative person, so seeing the creativity is marvelous. I like to think I don't judge a book by its cover, but sometimes I might! This year there were a lot of covers I really loved among the books that I read (not all published in 2025). Did you have a favorite cover this year? 

To me the best covers are visually arresting while also conveying something about the content of the book--although you may not get the connection right away. These three are, I think, representative of that idea:

Color has a lot to do with why I like particular covers. Sometimes it's bright primary colors, other times it's a more muted palette. Either can be beautiful and inviting. 

Bright examples:

 

Muted examples:

    

Simplicity and/or high contrast can also be really appealing, as evidenced in these covers:

 

 

From all the above  examples, it seems that being blue is also attractive to me!

I've commented before how challenging I think it must be to design covers for a series. This is a Tess Gerritsen series I discovered this year--I like the fact that there's some coherence across the covers with the horizontal lines, while each represents the title's particular setting. 

I have also commented before on the cover photos selected for biographies or memoirs. This year I only saved one such cover, and I think the photo chosen is pretty much perfect. Do you agree?  This is one example where the author's name being larger than the title makes sense--generally, I like the title to be the most prominent text on a cover, but when the author's name sells on its own . . .

Yet a third topic I have commented on before is how interesting it is to compare covers of different editions of the same book. Here are two I noticed this year that are quite different although both are striking (and both include the promo for the Will Trent TV series--not so keen on that). . 

And here's an interesting article about that topic, focusing on YA books, both different contemporaneous editions and re-issues: https://bookriot.com/cover-makeovers-what-ya-book-wore-it-best