Barb’s Burblings

A few years ago, I heard about these books that were out in England that were set in an alternate universe where people could interact with fictional characters and there were police units dedicated to literature. I searched, but they hadn’t been released in the United States yet. So when I found myself in Edinburgh for New Year’s 2003, I snagged copies of The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book. Then, when I went back in 2004, I got the next in the series (The Well of Lost Plots). Since then, two more books have come out–Something Rotten and First Among Sequels. I had put off buying them, because I want all my books to match. The first three are cute, like this:

But the American versions are like this:

Sadly, it turns out that the British versions look different now. Why would a publisher do this? They’re screwing over the British book collectors, too? Man, it’s just like the Outlander series, where they changed the cover style somewhere around book four. Do people have contracts to design book covers in threes?