Shelf Candy Saturday #39: Flesh and Blood, by Kristen Painter

Welcome to

Shelf Candy Saturday!!

This weekly meme/blog hop, hosted here,

features beautiful book covers!

It was originally hosted by

Stephanie @

Five Alarm Book Reviews,

a blog I really miss...

If you'd like to participate, just grab my button (or create your own), write your own post, and link up in the Linky widget at the bottom of this post. Just be sure to click on "Read more" so that the entire post will open up.

As a bonus, you can include information on the artist, designer, and/or photographer in your post, but it's not required. You can simply feature a cover and explain why you love it!

Here's my choice for this week!

Flesh and Blood

(House of Comarré #2)

Kristen Painter

Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages

Orbit

November 1, 2011

Genres: Paranormal Romance,

Urban Fantasy

Why do I love this cover?

The first thing that caught my eye was all the intricate detail.  I love that!  It's the sign of a very skilled artist.  And there's plenty of it all over this cover, too -- the sword hilt, the scabbard, the woman's dress...and, remarkably, it's mostly done in a dark gray tone, with black shadows that make everything stand out in bold relief.  The designs on the sword, which stand out against a red background, echo the lacy decorations of the woman's dress, as well as the ones on the frame surrounding this dynamic image.  The frame actually looks as if it were made of pewter.  The red ribbons streaming from the sword not only create movement, but a beautiful contrast to all the dark gray, as well.

As for the woman herself, she's beautiful, but it's very apparent that she's also very determined and courageous.  She stares defiantly at the viewer, ready for action if necessary.  Her attire and meticulous makeup belie her strength and determination -- although she looks quite glamorous, with that strange pin in her carefully-coiffed hair, she can indeed be deadly.  Her gold-colored tattoos are another strange addition to her attire, but fit right in with all the detail.

The title of the novel is done in a classical, red-colored font, which picks up the color of the ribbons.  The author's name is done in what looks like an Art Deco font, if I can call it that.  Both lines of lettering perfectly offset all the detail in this cover.
Although I don't yet own this book (it's on the way, thanks to Amazon), I do own the first one, Blood Rights, which I'm currently reading.

This particular cover is my favorite one in the series.  Not to say that the others aren't stunning, as well, because they are.  This one, however, has that extra 'something' that makes it really stand out for me!  I think it's the perfect fusion of everything I've mentioned so far, as well as the very dynamic composition, which is full of angles.  This creates visual tension, giving an effect that's anything but boring.

Who created this amazing cover?

Well, the illustration itself

is by an artist using the name

NekroXIII. 

Although some of the images

you will see when you

click on this link are a bit

disturbing,

there's no denying this artist's skill!

Artist's Bio

 (from his website)

Nekro ( O Grove, Spain. 1983 ) Illustrator & Digital Artist.

With a unique and personal style, marked by a desaturated color range with small touches of color, works especially with photocomposition.

Author of "13 inches", published by Norma editorial. He usually works as a cover artist of the best publishers of the world and his illustrations can be found in the most important compilation books.

 At this moment he combines his work as cover artist with a new personal project called "Skeleton Key" which will be published by Norma editorial in 2013.

The cover design is by

Lauren Panepinto,

who is obviously highly-talented

as well,

judging from her awesome website!

What do you think of this

fascinating cover?

What beautiful covers are you

featuring this week?