My Thoughts on Strange Chemistry

I rarely review self-published books, hence, the publishers I work with are pretty much limited to the Big Six-- Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Random House, Hachette, Macmillan and Penguin-- as well as Harlequin. They have amazing books under them and I've realized that almost every single one of my favourite novels before I came into book blogging were from one of these seven publishers. 

Sometimes, when the occasional unfamiliar name pops up under the publisher's label, they are most often imprints of the already established publishing houses (that caused some confusion on my part initially). For instance, Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins. And I think that's why I almost never encounter new publishing houses in my search of new books to read. 

Here's when Strange Chemistry comes in.

It appeared out of nowhere in September last year and its books just kept on popping up in my radar. They had some really good titles of more than decent quality and I started unknowingly requesting them on Netgalley, only discovering afterwards that they were not from one of the Big "Sevens".

A few titles that I can recite off the top of my head would be:

Blackwood by Gwenda Bond

Shift by Kim Curran

The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Broken by A.E. Rought

Pantomime by Laura Lam (which I'm reading now!)

The Holders by Julianna Scott (I'm planning on reading this soon)

Do any of these sound familiar to you? :)

Apart from the interesting premises, one of the reasons why their books catch my eye is the cover. And I'm a total sucker for good covers! They are the first thing that draws my attention to a book and more often than not, my favourite books have gorgeous covers to match their brilliant plot-lines.

Strange Chemistry has covers that are quite different in style and tone from most of the covers under traditional publishing houses, and they are refreshingly simple!

And what brought on this post was one of the latest covers which really took me by surprise! 

It's beautiful :)

I'm a reader who believes that the efforts that go into a cover often reflects the standards of publishing and the value of the work that is churned out by the publishing house. In the case of Strange Chemistry, their covers just keep getting better each time round!

Here's to a Young Adult imprint that is slowly gaining ground! *Cheers* For me, it's really exciting to see a publishing house slowly grow into something big and established right before our eyes :)

One thing for sure, this is one publishing house that has inched itself onto my look-out list and I'm pleasantly surprised. I bet they will have a lot more good stuff coming along!

Are there any new imprints that caught your eye? Have you read any books by Strange Chemistry? 

xoxo,
Sel