Don't judge a book by its cover is something we've always heard. This time though, we're going to as we're looking back at some of the biggest cover trends for romance books in 2024.
While we could dissect other genres, romance is my genre of choice so we're going to be focusing on those. Even looking at the image above, you can already notice some of the trends from the previous year but let's start with one of the biggest ones I've noticed.
If there's one thing all romance readers can agree on, the illustrated cover is going nowhere. While it seemed like a trend for a while, illustrated covers are so popular and are a great way to get a reader to pick up your book. If it has a cute cover, they're more likely to pick it up and want to read it even if the book isn't something they'd normally pick up.
Speaking of illustrated cover, this was the year of putting the two leads on the front of the book. While it might seem obvious, you couldn't look through one section of the bookstore without seeing books where the two leads were on the cover. Some big examples were Funny Story by Emily Henry, The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center, Fangirl Down by Tessa Bailey, Not Another Love Song by Julie Soto, and Daydream by Hannah Grace.
These were some of the biggest romance cover trends of 2024.
Another uptick I noticed in romance books was books with pink covers. Since pink is my favorite color, this was something I loved. Some of the titles with pink covers were The Kiss Countdown by Etta Easton, Wild Love by Elsie Silver, Love Unwritten by Lauren Asher, Say You'll Be Mine by Naina Kumar, The Next Best Fling by Gabriella Gamez, and Bad Reputation by Emma Barry.
Moving to the romantasy genre, one thing I noticed on a lot of covers was the abstract yet incredibly busy and sometimes beautiful covers. These usually don't feature people but instead feature a symbol related to the book. Some examples include Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli, Phantasma by Kaylie Smith, Reckless by Lauren Roberts, and Bloodguard by Cecy Robson.
Ultimately, the biggest cover trend I noticed this year was all of the bright covers we got in 2024. It might have been due to the uptick in romantasy stories, but loads of contemporary romances went in the opposite direction. There were so many bright and pastel colors which might seem overboard but it worked. Honestly, as someone who reads mostly contemporary romances, this is something I noticed every single time I went into the bookstore or browsed online.
For romance readers, it feels like things are always constantly changing and evolving especially when it comes to covers. Going into 2025, there are going to be even more trends to discuss and hopefully, even more covers for us to swoon over. Given that it's only January though, we still have plenty of 2025 left.