Discovering Diamonds: BOOKS & COVERS of the MONTH 2021

BOOKS & COVERS of the MONTH 2021

designer Cathy Helms of www.avalongraphics.org

with fellow designer Tamian Wood of www.beyonddesigninternational.com

select their chosen Cover of the Month

with all winners going forward for

Cover of the Year in December 2021

(honourable mentions for the Runner-up)

* *
NOTE
this feature (cover and book of the month) will
finish in 2021

* *

SEPTEMBER

Runners Up

read our review
designed by Sara Argue Design

read our review
designed by JD Smith Design
SEPTEMBER WINNER

Read our review
designed by Ross Robinson

Read our Review

I thoroughly enjoyed this one!

AUGUST
Runner up cover #1
Read Our Review
Apollo Publishers - designer unknown

#2
Read Our Review
cover designed by Tim Barber
WINNER
Read Our Review
cover designer unknown at Quire Books

* * *
exempt as designed by Avalon Graphics

read our review

Book of the Month

I am at the point of regretting starting my 'book of the month' personal selections because the choices are getting so hard to decide! Anna Belfrage's Whirlpools Of Time and Deborah Swift's The Poison Keeper were super reads. The Hour Glass sounded a superb book, alas I don't do audible and I struggle to read paperbacks but at the time of writing this (July) it doesn't seem to be available on Kindle. Then there was Annie Whitehead's Sins Of The Father - continuing the story of Anglo-Saxon England which she began in her superb novel Cometh The Hour... I'd not hesitate to select Annie or Anna's books but as both are very close friends (and two of Discovering Diamonds' top reviewers!) it would be a little awkward to choose them - so just a special mention instead:

read our review

read our review

So my choice is something very different. This one might not be a read suitable for everyone - it is very adult with explicit language, and as it is about the whores in a Pompeii brothel - well, it obviously has adult content. Even the first-person present I found easy to read (most unusual for me!) It did get a little slow in a few places BUT... I've chosen it (and enjoyed it) because I think it takes a remarkable talent to write an entire novel about sex - with virtually no actual sex in it. 'The Act' was very firmly left at the bedroom door, or in this case the brothel's cubicle curtains. We hear what is going on, be it faked enjoyment or the terror of rape, but anything explicit is not mentioned. The writing was so good I felt as if I were truly walking through those Pompeii streets with the 'girls' - and there was no flowery nicety about the awfulness of being a slave forced into prostitution. The author brought home just how bad it was to be unfree, to be owned and to have no choice - in anything.

The horror of slavery of the past isn't just confined to the cotton and sugar plantations of Colonial America - slavery was a staple of the Roman Empire, and boy did this novel make me realise that fact!

Highly recommended, but probably not for all tastes.

Read Our Review

* *
Our JULY SELECTIONS
Runner Up Cover

Read Our Review
She Writes Press -designer unknown

WINNER

Read Our Review
designed by whittakerbookdesign.com

Book of the Month

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed both novels that were selected for our Cover of the Month, but I have gone for something different to read for my Book of the Month selection. More Vikings, yes, but this one was a page-turning adventure that really took you to early Russia and into the life of a teenage boy. Loved it!