Every year, She Reads reaches out to readers to discover the books that they thought were the best of the year! This year we had over 10,000 votes casted and the results are in. We love what’s on the inside, but we know it’s true that we do in fact judge books by their cover.

This year, the winner of the She Reads Best Book Cover of 2025 Award is: 

Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine

A glowing dusk palette hints at beauty and danger in this haunting historical. Sixteen-year-old Junie has known only Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, where she works, grieves her sister Minnie, and cares for the master’s daughter. When wealthy visitors arrive from New Orleans and threaten her fragile world, one desperate act wakes Minnie’s spirit and forces Junie into a reckoning. Secrets fester on the land, and a tender bond with coachman Caleb offers light. The art feels serene at first glance, then charged—just like a tale about love, liberation and what a girl will risk to save herself.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

And don’t miss out on the rest of our favorite reads with the best covers from 2025!

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight

A lush, secret-garden jacket sets the mood for a coming-of-age set in Edinburgh. First-year student Pen senses her divorced parents are hiding something and follows the thread to Lord Lennox, her father’s famous writer friend, and his magnetic household. A weekend at his centuries-old estate opens the door to first love, found family and the truth she’s been circling since childhood. Knight blends campus novel, sexual awakening and questions of how women become mothers. The cover’s folkloric florals and deep blues echo a story that moves like tidewater—curious, bold inevitable.

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The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson

A gallery-ready cover frames a sinister landscape and telegraphs the book’s high-art menace. Struggling painter Lewis Dixon learns his fugue state is magic—he can step inside nine paintings created by his great-grandfather, each with dangerous power coveted by collectors and criminals. However, the British Museum wants the paintings destroyed. With charming agent Noah Rao at his side, Lewis races through Tokyo, Lagos, the Outback and the past, dodging black markets and eldritch curses while figuring out what kind of artist—and partner—he wants to be.

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The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig

This moody, gothic jacket promises romance and peril—and the story delivers. Sybil Delling is a Diviner who dreams prophecies from six Omens and has almost earned her freedom from the cathedral that owns her years. When fellow Diviners start vanishing, she needs help from Rodrick—a heretical knight whose future she can’t see and whose company she’d rather avoid. Their hunt crosses mist-blown moors and ancient sanctuaries toward a god who doesn’t play fair. Armor meets silk, faith meets doubt, and enemies-to-lovers heat simmers under every scene. This is a romantasy that feels candlelit and high stakes at once.

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Lore of the Tides by Analeigh Sbrana

Lore wakes chained on a ship in open water, her magic suspect and every gaze against her. A trusted Fae has betrayed her. The crew wants her contained. And somewhere beyond the waves hides the Sun Book, a relic that could hand the ruthless Alytherian Fae unstoppable power. To stop it, Lore must survive mutiny-level tension on deck, dive into enchanted depths, and decide whether to trust the dangerously compelling Fae who keeps saving her life. The finale blends sea-swept adventure, courtly intrigue, and slow-burn heat as Lore fights for her people—and her own heart. This lush cover design talks to the grandeur and rich imagery.

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The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

A luminous jacket—lush florals layered over a sinuous gold “river”—perfectly frames this Faerie-brushed tale of sisterhood and song. In Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, the Hawthorn family tends enchanted willows; daughters Esther and Ysabel keep the ancient compact by singing to the trees each morning. When Esther spurns a forceful suitor for a lover from the other realm, their bond—and the town’s uneasy peace—are tested, in a story part murder ballad, part love story. The hardcover comes with interior illustrations and a foil case stamp, making the package as collectible as the prose is spellbinding.

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Immortal by Sue Lynn Tan

A riot of celestial color—lotus blooms, comet trails, gold shimmer—sets the tone for Tan’s sweeping romantasy. When Liyen ascends a precarious mortal throne, she vows to sever her kingdom’s bond to the immortals. Summoned to their realm, she forges a fragile alliance with the magnetic God of War even as enemies gather and attraction threatens her resolve. The U.S. hardcover showcases Kuri Huang’s lavish artwork, and the first-printing deluxe adds magenta sprayed edges and illustrated endpapers—a true showpiece for a story about power, duty and a love that could cost everything.

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They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran

That bioluminescent, half-submerged portrait—veined with red tendrils—telegraphs exactly what’s coming: a swampy, sea-witch vibe and a warning you’ll hear again and again—never answer the knocks at night. In hurricane-gutted Mercy, Louisiana, Noon and her mother scrape by, trawling mutated catch for a corrupt harbormaster while a toxic algae bloom creeps in and neighbors vanish. When she’s ordered to hunt the thing drowning residents, Noon teams up with the harbormaster’s fierce daughter, Covey, and wades into waters where climate horror, town secrets and her own body’s monsters converge. This read is lush, feral, and hypnotic.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon