On this lovely sunday it’s mother’s day in the UK so happy mum’s day to everyone who is either biological or emotional mum- no matter if you have a child or an animal 🙂 Hope everyone is spending good time either with loved ones or good memories.

So I am going to continue similar book covers theme!

Our Endless Numbered Days vs The Winter’s Child

The same style of design is used in both covers, although they do not immediately remind me of each other. Probably because colours are different!

Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller

Peggy Hillcoat is eight years old when her survivalist father, James, takes her from their home in London to a remote hut in the woods and tells her that the rest of the world has been destroyed. Deep in the wilderness, Peggy and James make a life for themselves. They repair the hut, bathe in water from the river, hunt and gather food in the summers and almost starve in the harsh winters. They mark their days only by the sun and the seasons. When Peggy finds a pair of boots in the forest and begins a search for their owner, she unwittingly begins to unravel the series of events that brought her to the woods and, in doing so, discovers the strength she needs to go back to the home and mother she thought she’d lost. After Peggy’s return to civilization, her mother learns the truth of her escape, of what happened to James on the last night out in the woods, and of the secret that Peggy has carried with her ever since. 

The Winter’s Child by Cassandra Parkin

Five years ago, Susannah Harper’s son Joel went missing without a trace. Bereft of her son and then of her husband, Susannah tries to accept that she may never know for certain what has happened to her lost loved ones. But then, on the last night of Hull Fair, a fortune-teller makes an eerie prediction—on Christmas Eve, Joel will finally come back to her. As her carefully-constructed life begins to unravel, Susannah is drawn into a world of psychics and charlatans, half-truths and hauntings, friendships and betrayals, forcing her to confront the buried truths of her family’s past where nothing and no one are quite as they seem.

Winning blurb: I am never keen on reading about missing children, and Our Endless Numbered Days was already on my TBR with the interesting blurb so OEND wins!

Winning cover: I love the blue background and white branches better, although both designs are great I think The Winter’s Child wins!

Sing Unburied Sing vs Swansong

Peeking this year’s woman prize long list Sing Unburied Sing immediately caught my eye with the beautifully haunting cover, and it resembled me of Swansong. Another feathery cover I stumbled upon in bookshops last year

Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward 

Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. His mother, Leonie, is in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is black and her children’s father is white. Embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances, she wants to be a better mother, but can’t put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. When the children’s father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love. 

Swansong by Kerry Andrew

Polly Vaughan is trying to escape the ravaging guilt of a disturbing incident in London by heading north to the Scottish Highlands. As soon as she arrives, this spirited, funny, alert young woman goes looking for drink, drugs and sex – finding them all quickly, and unsatisfactorily, with the barman in the only pub. She also finds a fresh kind of fear, alone in this eerie, myth-drenched landscape. Increasingly prone to visions or visitations – floating white shapes in the waters of the loch or in the woods – she is terrified and fascinated by a man she came across in the forest on her first evening, apparently tearing apart a bird. Who is this strange loner? And what is his sinister secret?

Winning blurb: What a coincidence both blurbs mention drug use. I think they both sound promising but if I picked one at this moment, I’d pick Swansong. (I have a soft spot for troubled female heroines)

Winning cover:  Sing Unburied Sing is definitely the winner. The cover art is stunning!

Big Little Lies vs Baby Teeth

Big Little Lies was an awesome book. It was the first I have read from Moriarty and I devoured her other books after that one, finding that it was the best one! Go grab it if you haven’t read it yet. When I was browsing GoodReads I came across Baby teeth and is it possible to not to think about Big Little Lies when you look at that cover?

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Her ex-husband and his yogi new wife have moved into her beloved beachside community, and their daughter is in the same kindergarten class as Madeline’s youngest (how is this possible?). And to top it all off, Madeline’s teenage daughter seems to be choosing Madeline’s ex-husband over her. (How. Is. This. Possible?).Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn’t be, with those rambunctious twin boys? Now that the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grappling with how much more she is willing to pay.
New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbors secret doubts about her son. But why? While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realizes how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all.

Baby Teeth  by Zoje Stage 

Strange the Dreamer vs The Children’s Book

Probably one of the saddest books I have ever read, The Children’s Book was a literary delight -Byatt is a great author. I have been seeing Strange the Dreamer a lot and thinking about the resemblance between two covers!

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever. What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving? The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

The Children’s book by A.S. Byatt

When Olive Wellwood’s oldest son discovers a runaway named Philip sketching in the basement of the new Victoria and Albert Museum—a talented working-class boy who could be a character out of one of Olive’s magical tales—she takes him into the storybook world of her family and friends.But the joyful bacchanals Olive hosts at her rambling country house—and the separate, private books she writes for each of her seven children—conceal more treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined. As these lives—of adults and children alike—unfold, lies are revealed, hearts are broken, and the damaging truth about the Wellwoods slowly emerges. But their personal struggles, their hidden desires, will soon be eclipsed by far greater forces, as the tides turn across Europe and a golden era comes to an end.

Winning cover: By far The Children’s book- the execution seems elegant. I love the Dragonfly on both though!

Winning blurb: The children’s book again. It’s an incredibly sad book and I cried whilst reading it but still the blurb sounds really interesting.

What do you think? Have you read any of them?