What’s in a Cover – Shadow of the Fox

Title Shadow of the Fox

Author Julie Kagawa

Description from Amazon

One thousand years ago, the great Kami Dragon was summoned to grant a single terrible wish—and the land of Iwagoto was plunged into an age of darkness and chaos.

Now, for whoever holds the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers, a new wish will be granted. A new age is about to dawn.

Raised by monks in the isolated Silent Winds temple, Yumeko has trained all her life to hide her yokai nature. Half kitsune, half human, her skill with illusion is matched only by her penchant for mischief. Until the day her home is burned to the ground, her adoptive family is brutally slain and she is forced to flee for her life with the temple’s greatest treasure—one part of the ancient scroll.

There are many who would claim the dragon’s wish for their own. Kage Tatsumi, a mysterious samurai of the Shadow Clan, is one such hunter, under orders to retrieve the scroll…at any cost. Fate brings Kage and Yumeko together. With a promise to lead him to the scroll, an uneasy alliance is formed, offering Yumeko her best hope for survival. But he seeks what she has hidden away, and her deception could ultimately tear them both apart.

With an army of demons at her heels and the unlikeliest of allies at her side, Yumeko’s secrets are more than a matter of life or death. They are the key to the fate of the world itself.

Cover Art (left to right)

• OwlCrate Exclusive Cover
• Original Cover
• UK Paperback Cover

Original Cover

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, black is one of my favorite colors.  It matches my soul.  So, needless to say, I really like this cover.  It’s very dramatic and I love the dragon/fox image on the cover.  It conveys tons of different meanings and alludes to so many aspects of this book.

OwlCrate Cover

While the OwlCrate cover is quite similar to the original, I love that the colors are inverted.  It’s different and dramatic in a different way than the original, darker, cover is.  I like that the imagery is consistent and the dragon/fox is in a vibrant gun-metal color on this edition.  I think the OwlCrate Cover is definitely superior to the original.

UK Cover

Lastly, we have the UK cover.  This one is totally different from the other two.  With a vibrant aqua background and cherry blossoms and swords instead of the animal image, I think this cover is much prettier.  Do I think this cover best represents the book out of all three?  No.  But, I think it’s the most esthetically pleasing to the eye.

Final Thoughts

My personal favorite is the UK cover.  The blue is rich and pretty and I love cherry blossoms.

Blue > Red

However, I think the cover most fitting of the story is actually the original.  There is a darkness and ominous that this story conveys and the original dark colors really capture that.

Check out my full review here.