The Romance Cover Contest of the Year is another tradition from East Side Books we would not dream of leaving behind.  For the past six years, you all have helped pick some sensational, steamy, colorful, humorous, sweet, and occasionally romantic, covers to win this coveted title.  Customer’s ask all the time what  exactly we mean by the “best” cover, and those qualities can all play a role,  plus a heavy dose of that intangible “Oh my goodness” factor.    Your vote can reflect whatever cover, from our little pile of choices for the year, just makes you shake your head and smile.  Blushing is optional.

Contest Fine Print – You may vote every time you come in the store or once per day on-line by leaving a comment below.   Winners of a $25 gift certificate will be randomly drawn from all entries at the end of February and notified by phone or email.  You are only “judging” the cover, you do NOT have to have read the book, and we won’t make you read the book, but of course you may after the contest ends and the book goes back on sale!  All votes are tallied to determine the winning cover – which is not necessarily the one chosen by the Gift Certificate winner.  The winning book gets nothing but the notoriety.  The rest of us get plenty of smiles.

Your choices for 2015 reflect a captivity theme.  Apparently, based on the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey and the number of related romance novels, captivity is romantic.  Pirates are romantic, despite a little reality check that says pirates would undoubtedly smell awful.   Well how would I know?  In any case, these choices will surely make you shake your head, and you will also appreciate the decade spanning appeal of a good pirate story, and um, oh yes, a Viking.

Here are the 2015 contenders:

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