Coverlicious: Beautiful Cover Dresses #3 Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen

Coverlicious is a feature that I post here spontaneously where I feature anything to do with covers from covers I love and cover trends to look-a-like covers and cover reveals.

Beautiful Cover Dresses is a small series that I have been doing for my Coverlicious posts featuring wonderful dresses that I love on book covers!

Anna Godbersen always gets such stunning covers with (of course!) beautiful dresses and her latest book Bright Young Things is no exception, despite the different feel from her Luxe series covers. The silvery tight dress is a very gorgeous flapper style that fits with the setting of the book and the model is looking straight at you in a very confident and defiant way that shows Astrid Donal's character very well. The 'twenties style font just tops it off! I have it on my bookshelf and it looks as striking as it does on the computer screen.

Here's the publisher's synopsis for the book:

The year is 1929. New York is ruled by the Bright Young Things: flappers and socialites seeking thrills and chasing dreams in the anything-goes era of the roaring twenties. Letty Larkspur and Cordelia Grey have escaped their small Midwestern town to chase their big city dreams. In New York, they meet Astrid Donal, a flapper who seems to have everything she could ever want.Across the vast lawns of Long Island, in the illicit speakeasies of Manhattan, and on the blindingly lit stages of Broadway, the three girls’ fortunes will rise and fall—together and apart.

I enjoyed watching this video of the cover shoot that I found on You Tube that shows the model being prepared and the different shots that were taken. If you love the cover, you might want to take a look:

Coverlicious: Beautiful Cover Dresses #2 Envy and Splendour by Anna Godbersen

Coverlicious is a feature that I post here spontaneously where I feature anything to do with covers from covers I love and cover trends to look-a-like covers and cover reveals.

In my last Coverlicious post I featured the covers of The Luxe and Rumours, the first two books in the Luxe series by Anna Godbersen. If you missed the first post, here's what I had to say about the cover design of all the series and a summary of the plot (if you read the previous post then just skip down to the purple title!):

I adore these covers- they are just simply gorgeous! Anna Godbersen is so lucky to have such amazing cover art as I have known many fans of the series to have originally picked them up because the covers are so eye catching. I would just love to try on one of these dresses and go to a ball in it for one night. Wouldn't you just feel like a princess in one of them? I have to admit that they would be pretty hard to walk in though let alone dance in but a girl can have her dreams!I have since found out that the dresses are actually inaccurate to the time but even though I think it historical detail is important, especially inside the book, their beauty gives it a good excuse.

Summary of the Luxe series (from the publisher's (Penguin) blog:

Glittering with jewels, brimming with secrets and loaded with eligible young men, The Luxe is the most delicious, tantalising and completely addictive read. Think The O.C. meets 19th century New York. High society, beautiful debutantes, buckets of scandal – in short, it’s just completely irresistible!

I read the series very quickly around Easter time and the divine covers didn't disappoint me. The summary above describes it very well, it really is addictive with characters that I grew to care about. It might not be historically accurate but it's a fun romp in the past and I really enjoyed it.


Envy and Splendour by Anna Godbersen

At first I thought my favourite of the cover was the pink Luxe dress but since my last post, this one has really begun to grow on me. It's really elegant and pretty without being too 'girly.' It does look a little bit like a wedding dress though. However the orange swirls on the cover to the left make it look less so like that.

I also like the position that the model is in as it looks like she is running away from something and glancing back. It gives a really good view of the dress as it sweeps behind too.

This is my least favourite of the cover/dresses. It's not that I don't like purple, it's just that lilac colour and the layers of silk don't go as well for me as the others do. I still like the dress though and in the last post, some people commented it was their favourite one. The model looks so much how I imagine the character of Lina who it is depicting to look like and the dress fits her personality too.  I MUCH prefer it with the swirls on the cover, it gives it a softer and prettier look. That is the only one out of the series that I actually own.

I found a really good video on You Tube featuring the Splendour cover shoot- I loved having a look behind the scenes to see how they reach the final product. It features two dresses: the purple one that you see on the final cover, which is dubbed 'Lovely in Lavendar' and an alternative 'All That Glitters is Gold Dress.'  I would prefer to wear the gold one myself and it fits with the time period better but I think the lilac works better for Lina's character. It's really worth watching it!

Which one do you prefer?

Coverlicious: Beautiful Cover Dresses #1 - The Luxe and Rumours by Anna Godbersen

Coverlicious is a feature that I post here spontaneously where I feature anything to do with covers from covers I love and cover trends to look-a-like covers and cover reveals. I haven't done a Coverlicious post for a while but now Christmas is over and it is the start of 2011, I wan

Over the past few months I have noticed some beautiful dresses on the covers of books, so I thought would feature some over a couple of weeks in several different posts here.

Today's spotlight:

                 The Luxe and Rumours by Anna Godbersen

I adore these covers- they are just simply gorgeous! Anna Godbersen is so lucky to have such amazing cover art as I have known many fans of the series to have originally picked them up because the covers are so eye catching. I would just love to try on one of these dresses and go to a ball in it for one night. Wouldn't you just feel like a princess in one of them? I have to admit that they would be pretty hard to walk in though let alone dance in but a girl can have her dreams!

I have since found out that the dresses are actually inaccurate to the time but even though I think it historical detail is important, especially inside the book, their beauty gives it a good excuse.

Summary of the Luxe series (from the publisher's (Penguin) blog: 

 Glittering with jewels, brimming with secrets and loaded with eligible young men, The Luxe is the most delicious, tantalising and completely addictive read. Think The O.C. meets 19th century New York. High society, beautiful debutantes, buckets of scandal – in short, it’s just completely irresistible!

I read the series very quickly around Easter time and the divine covers didn't disappoint me. The summary above describes it very well, it really is addictive with characters that I grew to care about. It might not be historically accurate but it's a fun romp in the past and I really enjoyed it.



The Luxe-  To the left is a full picture of the cover without the back blurb and you can really see how large the dress really is. This dress is my favourite because I'm quite a big girly girl and I love the soft pink colour. The way the lace ruffles over each layer and the dainty rosebuds sewn subtly between give it a very feminine and pretty look but the massive size of the dress makes it more of a statement. The dress also tells you a lot about the character of Elizabeth in the book who it is supposed to be depicting as that is the type of character she is. If you look at the top picture, you can see that there are a lot of swirls and some writing at the top. Whilst I usually love these on covers, I think that they are a bit much on this cover and detract from the impact of the dress. I love the shiny gold writing though.

Whilst searching for cover photos I discovered some photos that the publisher used to promote it of seventeen year old Faye Edwards, who won a competition in a similar replica  dress reading the book around London. The dress she is wearing looks much easier to walk in than the one on the cover!  She is a very lucky girl! I also found out that the dress was on display at the Foyle's Department of Selfridges in London.

Rumours- This dress is distinctly different to the one on the cover of Luxe. It's deep, rich ruby red colour made of plain satin silk is simple but that is what makes it so bold and eye catching.  Again, it suits the character of Penelope Hayes as she is a very bold, stylish but backstabbing social queen. I prefer the swirls on the top cover picture on this one because the dress is simpler and so it makes it look less busy than it did on the Luxe.

Look out for my next Coverlicious post about the other cover dresses of of Envy and Splendour coming soon:)

I'd love to hear what you think in the comments!

 If you've read the books, did you like them as much as the cover or was the story disappointing? If not, would you pick them up because of the covers?