Cover Crazy: The Far West

Cover Crazy is a weekly meme hosted by The Book Worms on Mondays. The idea is to showcase a beautiful book cover each week.

This week, I'm crazy about...
The Far West, by Patricia C. Wrede

I'm very excited to finally see the cover for the final book in Patricia C. Wrede's Frontier Magic trilogy. There's a lot I really like about it, but there are also a few aspects I'm not quite as crazy about.

I really like how the cover designer decided to keep the cover for The Far West in the same style as the cover for Across the Great Barrier. I wish the publisher would create a new cover for Thirteenth Child to match. The covers for the second two books in the trilogy capture the feel of the trilogy more than the cover for first book (although the  cover for Thirteenth Child does show a different aspect of the story's style). I love the cover for Across the Great Barrier and I think it works really well together with the cover for The Far West.

The one issue I have with the cover for The Far West is the girl on the cover. I can't tell whether the publisher used the same model for the Far West cover and for the Across the Great Barrier cover. If the covers were meant to show different people of course they'd be different models, but I'm fairly certain both covers show Eff. And even if the same person was on both covers, I don't really like the expression of the girl on the cover for The Far West.

On the other hand, there are a lot of elements on this cover that make me very happy. I'm particularly intrigued by the dragon-like creatures in the upper right. I'm pretty sure Wrede's alternate America doesn't have dragons, but it does have quite a variety of other creatures. I really like the placement of the bare trees in the foreground and the mountain range in the back. I love that Eff is holding what looks like a book (is it a magic book??), and my eyes keep going back to the excellently chosen title font and design.


Want to know more about The Far West?

Summary (from Goodreads):
Eff is an unlucky thirteenth child...but also the seventh daughter in her family. Her twin brother, Lan, is a powerful double seventh son. Her life at the edge of the Great Barrier Spell is different from anyone else's that she knows. When the government forms an expedition to map the Far West, Eff has the opportunity to travel farther than anyone in the world. With Lan, William, Professor Torgeson, Wash, and Professor Ochiba, Eff finds that nothing on the wild frontier is as they expected. There are strange findings in their research, a long prarie winter spent in too-close quarters, and more new species, magical and otherwise, dangerous and benign, than they ever expected to find. And then spring comes, and the explorers realize how tenuous life near the Great Barrier Spell may be if they don't find a way to stop a magical flood in a hurry. Eff's unique way of viewing magic has saved the settlers time and again, but this time all of Columbia is at stake if she should fail.

Also, click here to read my reviews of Thirteenth Child and Across the Great Barrier

What do you think of the cover for The Far West?
Leave your thoughts in the comments!

What are you crazy about this week?