Cover Snark: Covers That Do it Right

We spend a lot cover snarks complaining about bad covers out there - and all of the many terrible tropes we see over and over again. Well with all the drama around, let’s take a break and grab some of the shiny covers out there that we love. Let’s look at some covers we have no problems with, covers that are a joy to look at.

Well, the first, and easiest way to avoid all of the problems on the covers is to go for something abstract, with no humans at all to have their spines twisted, in ridiculous shoes with lots of skin. Of course, it’s hard to create a compelling cover without a person - but these do a remarkable job

Review: Rapture by Lauren Kate, Book 4 of the Fallen Series

In 9 days, Lucifer’s co-opted Fall will reach Earth. And when it does, the last 6,000 years of history will be erased, time can be re-written according to his whims and his image. It is down to Daniel, Luce and their friends to find the location of the Fall and get there before Lucifer to stop the entirety of history being re-written.

The problem is, none of the Angels remember where the Fall was. It takes a quest to find ancient relics where the Angels recorded their memories and bringing them together to actually find the location of the Fall – and all within 9 days. It’s a journey that takes them to Italy, to France, to Austria and to Egypt to ultimately find the location.

Though they have new, surprising friends, they also have both old enemies and misguided fools ready to fight them to a stand still – with friends having to sacrifice themselves to ultimately make it to the end – where we finally learn the true nature of Luce’s curse and her full history.

Luce is, again, kept in the dark throughout the majority of this book. Yes, there’s a very good story reason why she can’t be told anything (and that story reason is finally explained) but even casual questions “where are we going? Why? What are we doing?”, questions which would have taken a second to answer, are routinely ignored. I mean that, literally ignored. Half the time she’s barely even given a “I’m sorry Luce, I can’t tell you.” They just pretend she hasn’t even spoken – and Luce? Accepts this. They also make a lot of plans while she’s asleep, or unconscious or otherwise unable to contribute – which just makes her more worthless and more as a poseable tool in their hands – and emphasises just how little she adds to the story (as well as keeping us – and her – in the dark).

When she does actually achieve anything (like swimming. Or remembering something) everyone flocks around her like she’s just won every gold medal in the Olympics while simultaneously winning all the Nobel Prizes at once. The fawning is so over the top I actually re-read it, wondering if it might be sarcastic – but no, apparently they are sincerely this impressed at even the most mediocre achievement on her part. They also comfort her immensely when there is any kind of grief – even when she probably has the least reason to be grieving. When immortal beings the Angels have known for centuries – millennia even, die it is Luce who they all comfort as she grieves, Luce who needs the angels to all be ready with a shoulder for her to cry on.

Review: Passion by Lauren Kate, Book 3 of the Fallen Series

After leaping through the Announcer in Torment, Luce meets up with Bill, the totally-not-evil-honest gargoyle and goes for a guided tour of her past lives seeing how she falls in love with Daniel over and over and over and over again, only to be immolated horribly when she does. Then she gets to see Daniel be utter mega sad by said immolation, before finding the next Luce fire-lighter for twu-lub. During her travels she discovers how much Daniel loves her, how very sad the curse is… and not much else.

But there’s some plot tacked on the end of the book just to stop you losing all faith in literature. I’m certainly losing faith in recapping.

My main frustration with this book is that it wasn’t until 80-90% in that it actually became relevant. Before that we just get a rehashing of what we already knew.

The premise of this entire series is that the angel Daniel fell in love with a mortal girl (Luce) many many thousands of years ago (falling because he loved her) and was so cursed that when she reached her late teens (usually 17) and fell in love with Daniel she would promptly burst into flames. Then she would be reincarnated and 17 years later the cycle would be repeated. So every 17 years, she doesn’t remember him, falls in love then dies leaving him all sad and tortured. This is the entire concept of the books and something we’ve been introduced to in book one and held during book 2 – they’re in love but that love has always ended tragically over the millennia because of the immolation death thing. Very tragically romantic, I guess.

And this book? Is all about Luce going back in time and showing many many past incarnations falling in love with Daniel and dying. Yes, showing what has already been told and established. She goes back to 1940s Moscow, falls in love with Daniel, dies. She goes back to the palace of Versaille, falls in love with Daniel, dies. She goes back to ancient Egypt, to the ancient Mayans, to Tahiti, to Tibet, to ancient China, to Victorian England – to places I’ve forgotten about because they added so little. Falls in love with Daniel, dies.

Review: Torment by Lauren Kate, Book 2 of the Fallen Series

Luce has just escaped a battle between the forces of Demons and Angels and has now been moved into hiding – even from her parents and friends. She is now at Shoreditch, an exclusive school in California, but also one with a secret – this is where Nephilim are sent to train, the children of Angels and Demons.

Separated from Daniel who is pursuing his own agenda he won’t tell her about (including a truce with their one time enemy, Cam), Luce is left to try and assimilate into this new setting with her supernatural classmates, all the while pursued and harried by enemies she knows nothing about (because no-one bothers to tell her) with unknown motives (to her anyway).

But she also seeks a connection with the past lives Daniel remembers but she has lost – through the use of the shadowy Announcers, she fumbles her way to try and find some knowledge of who she was and who she and Daniel were. And through that, she hopes to find exactly what their relationship is now.

This book is called Torment and I am sorely tempted to say it is named appropriately. I am so utterly frustrated by the way the book progressed, the general lack of story and the behaviour of the characters

The last book was very long and very slow. We had an awful lot of foreshadowing with Luce’s life in a reform school – it was mundane, there were clues but it was primarily an introduction. As I said in my last review, the book didn’t seem to start until the very closing pages – that’s when we had angels, demons and grand epic plot line actually started.

So I opened this book with a vague hope that we were now in the world of angels and demons and the plot would follow along those lines. Instead I find that Luce has been moved somewhere for her own safety. Another school. Yes, it’s a school with a special class for Nephilim (people with Angelic/Demonic blood) run by Angels and Demons but, ultimately, she’s in a school and we’re largely back to square 1. I think Daniel and Cam are out there doing interesting things – but Luce is at school, involved in a lot of school drama (making new friends, making new enemies and meeting a cute boy) but not doing much more than playing with the Announcers. All the desperate high school drama, a climax, then back to school again. And in this school she has plenty of time to think – and think she does. About Daniel and their “relationship” (sure, he remembers their past lives of love, she doesn’t. She’s known him for a few weeks – and most of that he was shunning her), about her relationship with her family and about her past lives. Endless reams of thinking – but none of it going anywhere, just circling monologues of angst.

Which brings me to the next element of this book I found immensely frustrating – everyone is mushrooming Luce. No, that’s wrong – “mushrooming” means keeping someone in the dark and feeding them shit. Luce doesn’t even get shit. She is ordered by her oh-so-loving boyfriend to remain on campus like a good girl. He doesn’t tell her why beyond “keep her safe” he refuses to fill her in on the enemies, he refuses to explain why they have enemies and what they want, he refuses to explain his truce with Cam, he refuses to explain what the difference between angels and demons actually is, he refuses to explain why he is the linchpin in the battle between Heaven and Hell, he refuses to explain why he’s having trouble choosing, he refuses to explain why she matters, her past lives, the beginning of their relationship – ANYTHING. She is given orders and dropped, ignorant, into this new place and just expected to obey.

The thing is, 80% of Luce’s angst (and, therefore, 80% of this book – because seriously, that’s all this book is, Luce endlessly angsting about her relationship with Daniel and related issues) cold be addressed if someone would talk to her. Or at very least if she could ask some questions and make them stick. She asks a few, but she accepts the brush off. She has been moved by near strangers to the other side of the country with zero contact with her friends and family for reasons no-one will explain, with consequences no-one will explain and she has to learn things no-one will explain. There is no reason presented why Luce needs to be kept so ignorant and all it does it cause further angst and misunderstanding on her part.

And this leads to the next thing that irritated me. Luce doesn’t object to all this! Even when her new teachers put her under house arrest she doesn’t start throwing things and demanding an explanation as to why she is there and who these people are and what the hell gives them the right to effectively hold her prisoner when no-one has explained a damn thing?! She asks questions and gets irritated with Daniel when he orders her to obey but she never pushes their refusal to answer.

But the truly irritating part of this is that she DOES disobey (yay!) but in the Spunkiest of ways. While someone is actively hunting her – she knows this because she’s seen it, let alone being told and the other girl at school who looks like her has been victimised TWICE – she STILL decides to wander off campus without telling anyone!

Fallen by Lauren Kate. Book 1 of the Fallen series

Lucinda Price is a troubled teenager. In her last boarding school there was a fire and the boy she liked died – in very mysterious circumstances. Circumstances for which she was blamed, the shadow of which has hung over her since. Almost as literally as the shadows that follow her wherever she goes, shapes only she can see and hear.

Her past has lead her to Swords and reformatory school where she has to navigate a new place, a new system and friends who aren't what they seem. Right until the moment she finds herself ground zero in a heavenly war and at the heart of a tragic love story that has been repeated every 17 years for centuries on end

Aaand, that's it. I'm good at spin, but I can't really summarise much more. Y'know, usually to summarise plot there actually has to be some plot there.