Cover Cliché: The Crimson Traveler

Sometimes, while browsing the virtual shelves on Amazon and Goodreads, I see jacket art that gives me a disconcerting sense of deja vu. I know I've not read the book, but I am equally certain I've seen its image somewhere before.

This phenomenon is what inspired Cover Clichés. Image recycling is fairly common as cover artists are often forced to work from a limited pool of stock images and copyright free material. The details vary cover to cover, but each boasts a certain similarity and I find comparing the finished designs quite interesting. 

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The Italian Chapel is a story of forbidden love, lifelong friendships torn apart, despair and hope, set against the backdrop of the creation of a symbol that is known around the world.

Amidst strikes, conflicts and untold hardships, the Italian prisoners of war sent to a tiny Orkney island during World War Two create a monument to the human spirit's ability to lift itself above great adversity. One artist falls in love with a local Orkney woman and leaves a token of his love in the chapel. It is still there today and, until now, no-one has ever known its true meaning . . .

A stirring novel of first love in a time of war and the unbearable choices that could tear sisters apart, from the celebrated author of The Kommandant's Girl.

Life is a constant struggle for the eighteen-year-old Nowak twins as they raise their three younger siblings in rural Poland under the shadow of the Nazi occupation. The constant threat of arrest has made everyone in their village a spy, and turned neighbor against neighbor. Though rugged, independent Helena and pretty, gentle Ruth couldn't be more different, they are staunch allies in protecting their family from the threats the war brings closer to their doorstep with each passing day.

Then Helena discovers an American paratrooper stranded outside their small mountain village, wounded, but alive. Risking the safety of herself and her family, she hides Sam—a Jew—but Helena's concern for the American grows into something much deeper. Defying the perils that render a future together all but impossible, Sam and Helena make plans for the family to flee. But Helena is forced to contend with the jealousy her choices have sparked in Ruth, culminating in a singular act of betrayal that endangers them all—and setting in motion a chain of events that will reverberate across continents and decades.

Set in small-town 1960s, The Country Doctor s contains four interweaving stories and portrays the scandals and tensions of a year in Everham. Follow Shelagh, a doctor with a desire to not only prove herself but to do what is right for her mother, Jenny & Tim, desperate for a child but unable to have their own, and Reverend Bolt and headteacher Jeremy North, who both become increasingly alienated by their spouses. In a town rife with gossip and rumors, just how far will others secrets and prejudices shape the daily lives of the townsfolk?

1941

Seventeen-year-old Kitty is determined to 'do her bit'. She dreams of singing to the soldiers like her heroine, Vera Lynn, and wangles her way into ENSA. Three weeks later she and the entertainment troupe are sweltering in an army camp in Cairo.

Under a desert sky Kitty steps out on to the make-shift stage for the first time, and is paralysed with fear. Help comes from the handsome Ruggero Andreotti - an Italian prisoner of war and ex-aide to Mussolini. But Italians are the enemy - and the worst thing a young woman can do is to fraternise with them.

However, the war has other plans for Kitty. She steps on to a very different stage when she is selected to undertake an unexpected and unwelcome mission and has no choice but to obey orders, knowing full well it could jeopardise her future happiness.

Will she and her love meet again some day?

It is Paris, 1949. 27-year-old American detective and heiress, Slim Moran, is hired by a British spymistress to find Marie-Claire, a spy long presumed dead. Slim soon realizes that scores from the last war have not been settled. She races to find out what happened to this deeply troubled lost spy because if Marie-Claire is not dead, she will be soon.

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Which cover strikes your fancy and why? What colors draw your eye? Do you think the image appropriate next to the jacket description? Leave your comments below!

Have you seen this image elsewhere? Shoot me an email or leave a comment and let me know.