The Friday Face-Off is a new meme created by Books by Proxy, where the idea is to compare the UK and US covers of a book with each week being a certain theme, this week’s theme is related to Cities.
For the theme I have chosen Burned: An Alex Verus novel by Benedict Jacka.
The UK Cover:
The US Cover:
The covers are quite similar colour wise in my opinion, black and red for the UK cover with black and orange for the US however in style the UK comes across as quite contemporary looking while the US is more traditional. I really feel that the UK cover stands out far more with red flames on black background on the top half and red mapping on the black background on the bottom half with the title of the book in the middle being incorporated into the picture, whilst on the US cover you just have the title written in a generic font at the top of the cover with a plain black background behind the writing and while the bottom picture is nice enough overall I just find it rather boring!
The Winner:
No contest for this one, it’s the UK cover hands down, I’ve already wrote that I find the US cover boring so I shall stick with that as my bookish reason for choosing the UK cover as the winner but on a personal standpoint the UK cover won as it’s black and red and they are are my two favourite colours as I have black and red tattoos, I know shocker right TheTattooedBookGeek has tattoos! 🙂
The Tattooed Book Geek 
You’re so right. The US cover is hideous. The graphics in the background do not work and look cheap and tacky.
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Yeah, I don’t find the US cover appealing at all. The color of the flames (if they really are flames, just looks like red waves in orange water; maybe if food coloring mixing around) is too off putting.
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Agree with you one hundred percent. US cover is boring. UK cover is much cooler.
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Definitely UK for me with this one. I love the stylised flames and the black City outline in contrast.
Lynn 😀
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The UK cover 100%! I absolutely love this one. It’s gorgeous! All that red and black and the stylish illustrative style. Wonderful! The US one seems a joke by comparison. It really is no contest!
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Haha, apparently we chose the same author but where you picked his latest release, I went for the first 😛
I must admit that I have a weak spot for his US covers. On screen, I’m not too keen on the US-Burned though and slightly prefer UK, but I have yet to see it in the flesh.
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I really struggled to even find a book with a city on the front! 😂
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I agree that I absolutely love the UK version – it doesn’t hurt that the book absolutely rocks, also – what a very good choice:)). BUT I have to differ with everyone else – I also happen to like the US version – the stylised version of flames in shades of yellow and orange with the Thames in the foreground is beautiful and eye-catching. For me, the big problem is the font used for the title which somehow simply doesn’t work with the rest of the cover – or the fact it is squashed up in the top cover.
My Friday Face-off this week is https://sjhigbee.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/friday-faceoff-metropolis/
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Looks like I’m going against the grain here too, but I love the US cover. Awesome color scheme and effects! I’m with sjhigbee on that the stylized version of the flames and the mix of colors really draws the eye.
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