Aesthetic Books Covers Novels & Stories

she murmured, tilting her head. Drawn by fascination, she found the rolling ladder attached to the bookshelf and climbed carefully. Her fingers trailed over several thick volumes—Blood Oaths and Moonlight, Fangs of Fire, The Treaty of Shadows. The illustrations on the covers were beautiful yet chilling, with fanged creatures, glowing eyes, and moons stained crimson. With great care, she pulled down four books and descended, arms full. She found the oversized reading chair near the window and curled into it, flipping open the first book.

It was the type of day that inspired optimism and gave you hope for fresh beginnings. During my study, I came upon an odd book that was sandwiched between two intimidating eras. Its black leather cover was embellished with beautiful silver designs that appeared to sparkle in the dappled light, making it unlike any other book in the library. The title caught my attention, but what really caught my attention were the strange symbols underlying the beautiful, flowing writing. I reached for the book out of curiosity. With caution, I removed it off the shelf, feeling a rush of excitement as my fingertips found its worn pages. Though my gut told me this was no typical book, I paused for a second b

Each of the books looked like they are all older than her judging by the smell and the worn pages inside, one page even literally crumbled to ashes in her hands, much to her horror, when she browsed through rather impatiently (she immediately stuffed it in the back of the shelf, half-praying to Hades that Athena will not notice the little blunder) but despite the books’ obvious age, they were all still well-preserved; free from dust and seemingly handled with care and love that only a lover of books could provide. However, whatever admiration Proserpina had for Athena’s personal book collection immediately went up in flames when she discovered that none of the books in Athena’s office even h

As I continued through the book, the daylight faded behind me. The images of the bloodied war shift to the image of a woman wrapped in silk like clothes, adorned in jewels, with a crown sitting atop her head. I flipped back to the cover, it was the same image just in more detail on the page. Her beauty seemed transcendent, the artist must have been bewitched by her beauty to be able to make the reader fall into such a state of awe that I’ve found myself in.

The box opened. The book was inside. Twelve copies, arranged in two stacks of six, separated by the cardboard dividers that had been placed by the packer at the publisher's warehouse. The covers faced up. The dark cover—the color of the accumulation, Don had said when they had discussed the design with the publisher's designer in September. The designer had brought samples. Don had rejected the first three. The first had been too black, the second too brown, the third too blue. The fourth was the color of the accumulation: the dark that was not the absence of light but the presence of all the colors together, the way soil was dark because it contained everything that had fallen into it over

After that he stood and left me in the room. Now barely an hour later he sends me a trunk full of books. Ella moved to stand behind me and I could hear her sharp intake of breath when her eyes landed on the books. "They're beautiful, right?" Ella only nodded her head and leaned down to touch the spines of one of the books. They weren't really books to be precise, well they were books but not really big ones, almost like journals, just bigger and fresher. The covers were embossed in a beautiful flower pattern, each color having a flower of its corresponding color on it.

When I flip through, I find many of the passages are highlighted, and here and there he's scribbled little notes in the margins. I slide the book back on the shelf and keep going. One volume catches my eye - it stands out simply because it's almost too beautiful, too perfect. It has a dark blue hardbound cover with gold stamping on the edges. Unlike most of the other books, it doesn't look like it's been used much at all - there's not a single crack in the spine, not a hint of a frayed edge along the cover, even though it looks like an antique. I tilt my head, reading the title. The History of Literary Criticism.

I stretch up on my toes and pull it out, and seconds later I succeeded like I always do when I put my mind on things. Sending a cloud of dust motes swirling into the air while allowing it for a moment to escape from the shelf, I blew the dust from the cover. There were no words printed on the front or spine, just a simple black leather binding cracking with age, and strange symbol I do not recognize.

That is what the book is. The cover was designed in April, and the designer sent three options. Aria looked at them at the kitchen table on a Saturday morning and knew immediately which one was right, which was the one that showed a garden in an unspecified season, neither fully in bloom nor fully bare, in a light that could have been any hour of any day, with the sense of someone having just left or about to arrive, the garden existing in the between-state that gardens existed in most of the time, which was the most honest representation of what the book was about. She sent the designer a note saying the third option.

Nyra’s POV I sat on the bed and placed Elaine’s book in front of me. For a moment I did nothing else. I just looked at it properly. In the library it had felt old and important. Here, on my bed, in this room, it felt stranger than that. More private. More dangerous. Like it did not want to be mistaken for a random old text preserved for curiosity’s sake. It was thick and heavy, yes, but now that I was alone with it I noticed more. The cover was not ordinary leather at all. Up close, the texture was wrong in a way that raised the hair on my arms. It had a faint pattern under the dark surface, not visible at first glance but there when the light caught it sideways. Not wolf hide. Not cow leath