Top 5 books with creatures on the cover

Hello bookworms!! Welcome to Top 5 Tuesday!! This week’s topic is top 5 books with creatures on the cover.

Yes, In August we are doing a ‘scavenger hunt’ type of month, where each week there is a different theme for you to pick covers by. I wanted to pick some topics that everyone can participate in this month, as I’ve noticed that people come and go depending on the topic. Which is totally fine!! You do you!! But hopefully this one appeals to everyone!! ?

As a fantasy reader (occasionally), I really loved this one!! I deliberately picked the word “creatures” in case there was any deliberation over real vs fictional. Or animals vs reptiles or insects, etc. for any one who wanted to be more specific about things!! ?

If you missed the July-September topics post (yes, we’re doing them in bulk now!!), please click here. Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm, and is now being hosted here @ Meeghan reads.

top 5 books with creatures on the cover

Hollowpox – Jessica Townsend

While I do prefer the Aus covers of the Nevermoor series, the US covers have definitely come in handy today!!

The cover of Hollowpox features Morrigan Crow, our protagonist. But behind her is one of my other favourite characters of this series: Fenestra. Fen is a Magnificat, which is basically a giant, talking cat. Fen is the head of housekeeping at the Hotel Deucalion, but she does more napping and being unhelpfully sarcastic than anything else. She’s a creature of my own heart.

This blurb is for Hollowpox, which is book THREE in the series. So don’t spoil yourself!!

Blurb:

Morrigan Crow and her friends have survived their first year as proud scholars of the elite Wundrous Society, helped bring down the nefarious Ghastly Market, and proven themselves loyal to Unit 919. Now Morrigan faces a new, exciting challenge: to master the mysterious Wretched Arts, and control the power that threatens to consume her.

But a strange and frightening illness has taken hold of Nevermoor, turning infected Wunimals into mindless, vicious Unnimals on the hunt. As victims of the Hollowpox multiply, panic spreads. And with the city she loves in a state of fear, Morrigan quickly realizes it’s up to her to find a cure for the Hollowpox, even if it will put her – and everyone in Nevermoor – in more danger than she ever imagined.

The Seafarer’s Kiss – Julie Ember

I know I could have used this cover for the people one as well… But I couldn’t resist this week, because I am in love with how the artist has made it look like layered paper art to create the dimensions in this. I especially love how it makes the mermaid standout, even though she’s blue and her background is blue. (I also love the seals? Porpoises? I thought they were whales in the book…)

The Seafarer’s Kiss is a gorgeous, queer, Norse-mythology inspired, retelling of The Little Mermaid, and it’s so good!! And also really short!!

Blurb:

Having long-wondered what lives beyond the ice shelf, nineteen-year-old mermaid Ersel learns of the life she wants when she rescues and befriends Ragna, a shield-maiden stranded on the mermen’s glacier. But when Ersel’s childhood friend and suitor catches them together, he gives Ersel a choice: say goodbye to Ragna or face justice at the hands of the glacier’s brutal king.

Determined to forge a different fate, Ersel seeks help from Loki. But such deals are never as one expects, and the outcome sees her exiled from the only home and protection she’s known. To save herself from perishing in the barren, underwater wasteland and be reunited with the human she’s come to love, Ersel must try to outsmart the God of Lies.

The Wee Free Men – Terry Pratchett

OMG. I LOVE the Nac Mac Feegles so much, there was no way I was missing them this week!! These little blue creatures are Pictsies (not to be confused with Pixies) from the Discworld. But more importantly, they think they’re dead, and they spend their time in this life fighting, drinking and generally behaving like teeny tiny thugs. My favourite description of them comes from Pratchett himself: [They are] like tiny little Scottish Smurfs who have seen Braveheart altogether too many times.

The Feegles are featured in all of the Tiffany Aching books in the Discworld series.

Blurb:

Armed only with a frying pan and her common sense, Tiffany Aching, a young witch-to-be, is all that stands between the monsters of Fairyland and the warm, green Chalk country that is her home.

Forced into Fairyland to seek her kidnapped brother, Tiffany allies herself with the Chalk’s local Nac Mac Feegle – aka the Wee Free Men – a clan of sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men who are as fierce as they are funny.

Together they battle through an eerie and ever-shifting landscape, fighting brutal flying fairies, dream-spinning dromes, and grimhounds – black dogs with eyes of fire and teeth of razors – before ultimately confronting the Queen of the Elves, absolute ruler of a world in which reality intertwines with nightmare. And in the final showdown, Tiffany must face her cruel power alone…

The Raven Boys – Maggie Stiefvater

I am in love with ALL of the ravens in The Raven Cycle. The boys – Gansey, Ronan, Adam and Noah – and Chainsaw. Ok, mostly Chainsaw. Chainsaw is my secret favourite.

Ok, but in all seriousness, I just love this series. The characters are amazing, and I love the world-building. The way that the magic and the animals are mixed into the story – ravens or otherwise – isn’t whimsical, like the Nevermoor series. It’s more of a darker magic.

Blurb:

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

Darkdawn – Jay Kristoff

NOTE: Synopsis below is for Darkdawn, the third and final book in the Nevernight Chronicle. Read the blurb at your own discretion.

Look, I might not love this book, but I do love Mister Kindly. For those not aware, Mister Kindly is a cat, but also a not-cat. In fact, he’s one of my favourite not-cats in existence. Although, I do actually have a top 5 of not-cats, so feel free to visit that if you want an order.

Although, MK isn’t really any sort of creature as he’s made of shadows. But he’s got sass and sarcasm in abundance, so I’m keeping him in my list. (Also, JUST LOOK at that cover!! Kerby Rosanes’ covers are my fave.)

Blurb:

The greatest games in Godsgrave’s history have ended with the most audacious murders in the history of the Itreyan Republic.

Mia Corvere, gladiatii, escaped slave and infamous assassin, is on the run. Pursued by Blades of the Red Church and soldiers of the Luminatii legion, she may never escape the City of Bridges and Bones alive. Her mentor Mercurio is now in the clutches of her enemies. Her own family wishes her dead. And her nemesis, Consul Julius Scaeva, stands but a breath from total dominance over the Republic.

But beneath the city, a dark secret awaits. Together with her lover Ashlinn, brother Jonnen and a mysterious benefactor returned from beyond the veil of death, she must undertake a perilous journey across the Republic, seeking the final answer to the riddle of her life. Truedark approaches. Night is falling on the Republic for perhaps the final time.

Can Mia survive in a world where even daylight must die?

Please don’t forget to link to one of my posts (not my homepage or a category, as I won’t get the pingback), or comment your link below, and I will link back to all of your posts as soon as I can!!

PARTICIPANTS

Reading At Teatime
Mikaela Reads
Camillea Reads
The Punk Theory
Evelyn Reads
A Fictional Bookworm
Zezee with Books
Hanna Reads
Little Corner Reads
Reading Buffs

What are your top 5 books with creatures on the cover?