For obvious reasons, all examples contain spoilers, so they will be unmarked.
The blurb for the Kyell Gold novel Isolation Play blatantly spoils Dev coming out of the closet on live television, which was the climax of the previous book, Out of Position.
The blurb for the third book, Divisions, spoils the exact thing in the first sentence of the blurb. You have to wonder if Kyell is doing this intentionally as a way to tell the fans that they should know this already.
Reading A Girl From Earth, one of the first books in Alice, Girl from the Future, isn't half as exciting if one has already read some of the later novels or seen Guest from the Future. Rat's notorious shapeshifting abilities are a key plot point in this book (the reason behind Dr. Verkhovtsev's apparently strange behavior), while further on they become a given and don't even particularly surprise anyone.
Multiple American Girl books spoil the books before them on the blurbs. The largest is if a reader picks up Nellie's Promise before reading any of Samantha's series (highly possible, given that it was the book that came packaged with Nellie dolls). It opens with Nellie reflecting on her adoption by Samantha's aunt and uncle only a month or so ago—and so spoils both her adoption and that Nellie's parents are dead.
The BIONICLE tie-in guide books and encyclopedias by Scholastic always avoided spoiling story details from the novels/movies that came out around the same time, even if this meant that their infos would be incomplete. The publishing company Ameet didn't have such qualms: Makuta's Guide to the Universe is built on the twist that Makuta successfully takes over the universe, as well as that the "universe" is actually a giant robot, the true manifestation of the Great Spirit Mata Nui. The followup Mata Nui's Guide to Bara Magna also reveals the identity of the traitor and Mata Nui's victory over Tuma on the very last pages.
In the Blue is for Nightmares series, Jacob dies at the end of Silver is for Secrets. This is helpfully revealed on the back of the sequel Red is for Remembrance. Of course, the back of Black is for Beginnings helpfully notes out that he actually was Not Dead Yet.
At the end of the fifth volume, Accelerator undergoes a Heel–Face Turn, but also suffers brain damage that leaves him dependent on external help to function. He then becomes the series' deuteragonist. The covers and blurbs of several later books don't hide this.
To an even greater extent, Othinus, the Big Bad for the first part of the second series. She succeeds in gaining her full power and destroys the entire world, then successfully breaks main character Touma by putting him through countless different hells. After he regains the will to fight, Touma talks her into a Heel–Face Turn and she restores the world to normal. Touma then fights the rest of the world to protect Othinus, who ends up losing all her power and turning into a tiny fairy who moves in with Touma as a second freeloader. The cover to the tenth book spoils everything except the last part, as it depicts Touma standing protectively in front of Othinus. There's also the twelfth book's cover, which depicts the shrunken Othinus on Touma's head.
Don't read the blurbs on the back of the later Codex Alera books if you want there to be any surprise when The Reveal rolls around about Tavi's parentage. It's much more entertaining when you piece it together over the course of 3 books, but it's very difficult to provide even a basic plot summary of the last two books without giving it away.
Hell the titles of later books give away previous plot developments. They follow the pattern of Tavi's position during that book, thus spoiling his career advancements.
The back of each Deltora Quest book spoils the previous one. The summaries on the back of any book in the second and third series will tell you who the heir is.
Certain editions of the Discworld book Guards! Guards! contains character summaries of the "Duke of Ankh, Commander" Vimes, and "Captain" Carrot. For those who don't know, this is the first book of the Watch series, and it ends with a still-drunken Captain Vimes, and a still-naive Lance-Constable Carrot.
By the way, the character summaries of these editions are found all the way back in the first book of Discworld, which doesn't even have the City Watch. In fact only four of the seventeen characters in the summaries are even in the book and only two of those played a major part.
The Harper Torch printings of the older Discworld books tend to assume you've read them already, so they tend to have fairly spoileriffic images on the cover. To their credit, the spoiler usually doesn't make sense until you have read the book, but it's still not cool to put the gonne on the cover of Men at Arms. (Not a huge spoiler though, as anybody in Roundworld rather than the Discworld will know what the weapon was as soon as the first death occurs. Any cover image or blurb that shows a plot element is equivalent, since you wouldn't otherwise know about the book until you started to read it.)
The "classy" Corgi reprints have black covers with something symbolic or significant (e.g. vampire teeth for Carpe Jugulum). The one for Feet of Clay is a bit of a giveaway◊ for a book that even calls itself a "howdunnit".
Not only does this happen with the endings of the Discworld books, but it will automatically happen if you read the first book of a series published after any earlier work. This is most glaring with the first Moist von Lipwig book, Going Postal, which includes spoilers to nearly all of the city watch books and The Truth. As this is one of the most popular novels in the series, and one of the more recently published, it is a real problem for new fans unsure of where to really start.
Present in various blurbs of later books for The Dresden Files: Thomas being Harry's half-brother and Molly becoming Harry's apprentice are some of the most-used ones. However, given the ending of Changes (Our Hero Is Dead), it is flat-out impossible to talk about the plot of the next book, Ghost Story, without giving away the last few pages of Changes.
One notable aversion: Jim Butcher's original proposed title for Ghost Story was simply Dead, but his publishers rejected it based on this principle.
In Due to a Death by Mary Kelly, one of the most significant characters is a mysterious and slightly sinister stranger by the name of Hedley; we don't learn who he is and why he's there until the final chapters. Unless the reader had previously encountered The Spoilt Kill by the same author, where he's the protagonist.
Given that every book in the Family Tree Series follows the very next generation growing up, spoilers about the husbands of each girl (and the fathers of the next generation) are present, especially because the epilogues often cover said marriage (and in one case, the birth of the next generation). Abby marries Zander (her rich neighbor), then her childhood friend Orrin after Zander dies; Dana marries Matthew, a friend she met in college and has Francie soon after; and Francie marries George, her childhood friend. It also spoils any events of previous books such as the death of Abby's mother Nell, the death of Dana's father Zander, and later passings of characters such as Luther, Helen, and even Adele and Peter. Even the first book spoils this partially as Abby opens the series by mentioning people from her hundred years alive—she describes Zander as coming into her life and disappearing suddenly, foreshadowing his sudden drowning death.
The Erast Fandorin series has a Time Travel spin-off A Children's Book, detailing the adventures of Fandorin's great-grandkids and hardly related to the main series otherwise. However, if one reads A Children's Book before the main series and Special Assignments in particular, one would realize a major plot point from the latter has been spoiled. In Special Assignments, one of the suspects in the case of Jack the Ripper is Fandorin's lover Angelina. But A Children's Book reveals that Fandorin's grandson, who is an expert on and a huge fan of the detective's life and work, named his daughter Angelina, which he would hardly have done if Angelina the first had turned out to be a serial killer.
The last of Ellis Peters' George Felse murder mysteries, Rainbow's End, is set in the same town as an earlier instalment, The Knocker on Death's Door, and a couple of major characters from that novel reappear in supporting roles — thereby giving away the outcome of the earlier novel's romantic subplot and significantly diminishing the pool of suspects for its murder mystery.
The last book of the Heartstrikers series, Last Dragon Standing, depends so heavily on twists and plot revelations from the previous books that the blurb basically throws up its hands and goes, "Look, we can't summarize the premise without spoiling all the other books, but stuff's going to go down, okay?"
Agatha Christie sometimes revealed the solutions of earlier novels in her Hercule Poirot books, apparently assuming that all her readers had already read them. The worst case is in Dumb Witness, when Poirot casually drops the names of the murderers in four earlier novels in a single sentence.
So you're reading the first book of the Honor Harrington series, you come to the very end, turn the page, and staring you right in the face is an excerpt the first chapter from the eleventh book in the series that goes and spoils just about every plot point related directly to the main character. Also, good luck avoiding the revelation that Tom Theisman and his compatriots succeed in their efforts to take down the Committee of Public Safety and restore Haven to its original form as a genuine democracy unless you pathologically avoid any book released after Ashes of Victory....
Catching Fire, the second book in The Hunger Games series, has "Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark." as the first sentence on the back of the book.
The second paragraph of the blurb for Inkdeath starts, "The fire-eater Dustfinger is dead." Okay, we know the movie and the book end differently, but come on!
In a simple case of Time Marches On, no contemporary reader of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe is going to be fooled as to the identity of the mysterious Forest Ranger who calls himself "Locksley." Indeed, most readers probably won't even realize that this was meant to hide the fact that "Locksley" is Robin Hood in the first place! However, for readers in Scott's time, it wasn't a dead giveaway - Scott was the first author to use that word in relation to Robin, and though it's now (without exception) understood to be the birthplace of the famous outlaw, Scott used it as a pseudonym to initially hide Robin's true identity.
The identity of the serial killer in the second book is mentioned repeatedly in later books. He essentially becomes Patrick Kenzie's boogeyman, with his memory constantly haunting his nightmares. It's easy to forget that in the second book, he was introduced as Gerry Glynn, the retired policeman who runs a bar in Patrick's neighborhood.
Also, the sixth book is a direct follow-up to Gone Baby Gone, the fourth book in the series. The conclusion to that one, where Kenzie rescues the girl from her loving kidnappers and returns her to her neglectful drug-addict mother, is spoiled on the back cover of the sixth book.
The Invisible Detective: Art and Arthur Drake being grandfather and grandson and the Cannoniers' elderly friend Charlie being the Earl of Fotherington are big twists in the first book but are well-established for the rest of the series.
The Kingdom Hearts II novel almost seems to be written to some degree as if for those who have already played Kingdom Hearts II, as well as some of the latter installments as well. It is much more open about certain things that in the game are not revealed until much later on or are obscured at best, such as that Riku is the hooded figure working DiZ and Naminé at the beginning of the game, that the Organization is using Sora/Roxas to collect hearts and contrary to what they think Nobodies actually can have hearts, something that is only made clear in Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance]. Saïx ponders over the fact that Axel has managed to gain a heart, and Naminé tells him point blank that he too has one, though he doesn't realize it.
Haven't read the first three books in Chris D'Lacy's The Last Dragon Chronicles series? The blurb on the fourth book doesn't seem to care, since it reveals right on the inside that David, the protagonist of the first three books, dies at the end of the third book.
In Life of Pi, Richard Parker is a tiger. Though the fact that Pi will wind up on a boat with a tiger is never hidden, in reading Part One of the book, every reference to Richard Parker is phrased ambiguously enough that he could conceivably be human, and the reveal of his true nature as Pi is helping him onto the lifeboat is an Oh, Crap! moment. However, most descriptions of the story don't try and hide his identity as the tiger.
The Looking Glass War mentions a couple of names from author John le Carré's previous spy novels as a Continuity Nod, reinforcing the fact that they share the same setting. One of the named agents is Alec Leamas, protagonist of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. As soon as he's mentioned, someone else points out that Leamas is dead, spoiling the ending of the earlier book.
Because the whole plot takes off from it, the inside dust jacket (and subsequent paperback covers) for Sidney Sheldon's Memories of Midnight had to spoil the Twist Ending of The Other Side of Midnight: Catherine didn't die, but Constantin had her rescued and hidden so Larry and Noelle would be tried and executed for her murder. It's worth noting that the book was intended to work as a standalone novel as well as a sequel, via extended flashbacks to what happened in its predecessor.
In The Midnight Folk, it's a big plot twist when Sylvia Daisy is revealed to be a member of Abner Brown's gang. In the sequel, The Box Of Delights, the same character is openly working with the gang.
The cover of City of Lost Souls spoils the romantic plot arc of the first three books of The Mortal Instruments, revealing that Clary and Jace are not brother and sister and, indeed, are in a romantic relationship.
The New York Times' obituary of Umberto Eco gleefully spoils just about every late-stage plot twist for The Name of the Rose imaginable with no forewarning, and to make it even more insufferable, describes the plot as if the reader hasn't read it yet.
Old Kingdom: In Sabriel, the revelation that Touchstone is the last survivor of the royal family comes as a surprise (with excellent foreshadowing). It's not really possible to talk about the books set after it without revealing this.
Minor example in Old Man's War by John Scalzi. It's obviously supposed to be a surprise to the reader what the Ghost Brigades really are. The first time the protagonist hears the expression, he thinks it's a joke. Later, he learns that they exist, but thinks the name is just a nickname. However, since that very term is the title of a later book, if the reader is already aware of Scalzi's other works when reading Old Man's War, it is glaringly obvious that this will be important later. And the context of its first appearance gives away what it is.
In The Parasol Protectorate, the back cover blurb for book 2 gives away the plot twist at the end of book 1, and the back cover blurb of book 3 gives away the plot twists for books 1 and 2. Tough luck for those who want to read the entire series at once.
In The Peace War, the true nature of the bobbles is a big twist that takes all the characters by surprise halfway through. The entire plot of the sequel novel Marooned in Realtime depends on the nature of the bobbles to the point that it's pretty much impossible to talk about it without.
The two big twists at the end of the first Percy Jackson and the Olympians novel, The Lightning Thief, are that Kronos is the Big Bad of the series, with Luke, Percy's Big Brother Mentor as his Dragon. Reading the blurb of any of the subsequent books spoils at least one of these twists, if not both.
Pigs Don't Fly, the first book of a trilogy by Mary Brown, gives away the climactic surprise of the novel in the blurb on the front cover of the paperback original! Pigs don't fly... "But dragons do", spoiling the secret that the winged piglet adopted by the heroine is actually a baby dragon.
There is a pulp horror novel published in 1978 and written by David Anne called Rabid, about the rabies virus spreading to the previously (and actually) rabies-free British Isles. The back-cover copy on the paperback edition ended with: "And when the virus mutated, became airborne, all mankind would know what it meant to be RABID!" The element of the virus mutating into an airborne form was a twist ending on the last page of the book and it had nothing to do with the book's primary plot.
In Rivers of London, the climax of book one results in Lesley getting her face ripped off. In books to follow, she has to wear a face mask to cover the wounds, and they are a major impetus for her later actions. Since she is originally introduced as the World's Most Beautiful Woman, this has necessitated putting nearly everything she does in later books in spoiler tags.
The penny dreadful-esque paperback re-releases of A Series of Unfortunate Events were clearly aimed at long-term fans rather than newer readers as the one-word subtitles were rather spoilery (e.g. The Reptile Room, or Murder!) The editions only got as far as the first three installments, but had the fourth been released it would have been under the title The Miserable Mill, or Hypnotism!, thereby giving away chapters' worth of intrigue in which Violet struggles to figure out why her brother Klaus is acting so weird. (To be fair, the back cover of the original did as much.)
So, you decide that you are interested in reading the Skulduggery Pleasant books. You glance at the fifth book and decide to look at the blurb. Congratulations, the blurb has spoilered for you the huge twist at the end of the fourth book, which reveals that Valkyrie is Darquesse.
Seawalkers: In the first book Jack Clearwater mentions the plan of the Big Bad from the prequel which was originally a big surprise in said series.
The first book of the A Song of Ice and Fire series ends with the execution of Ned Stark and the fallout from this event fuels the plot of the next book; this, along with the fact that Daenerys managed to hatch the fossilised dragon eggs, is spoiled in some versions of the blurbs of later books. The fact that the fifth novel is called A Dance with Dragons probably also gave this away. Other major events throughout the series are also spoiled in this way, including Jaime and Cersei's incest, Robert's death, Stannis' defeat, Joffrey's death, and many more.
First words on the back of the second Tawny Man book by Robin Hobb? Nighteyes is dead. Thanks a lot.
The Twilight Saga: Edward is a vampire. You can glean that from the back of the book. This despite the fact that it tries to keep the reader guessing what Edward's deal is for about the first half of the book.
It's really more of Dramatic Irony than "keeping the reader guessing"; the reader knows, but Bella still needs to figure it out.
And then book two does it again with Jacob being a werewolf. Possibly the reason that "Eclipse" has a slightly better reputation is that it's a big relief to not spend the whole first half waiting for a twist that everyone already knows.
Barely averted with Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell. This book was announced long before Twilight Sparkle was confirmed as becoming an alicorn, so the blurb was intentionally vague about what this 'Royal Event' actually was.
Under Suspicion (Series): The fact that every book in the series revolves around the making of an episode of Under Suspicion and stars Laurie Moran spoils the end of the first book, as it confirms that the pilot she made was enough of a hit to warrant multiple seasons, as well as confirming Laurie survived her stalker's attempt to kill her. The sequels do, however, make a point not to explicitly mention who the perpetrator of the Graduation Gala murder was, just that the case was solved.
The first book of The Ultra Violets builds up to Opal pulling a Face–Heel Turn and becoming a primary antagonist, as well as her finding out what her powers are. Both of these plot points are immediately spoiled by looking at the second book’s cover.
It's revealed halfway through the first volume of The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign that the White Queen is the Big Bad and in love with Kyousuke. Since this is the main premise of the series, later volumes don't bother hiding it at all. Notable offenders are the covers of the fourth and fifth volumes, which depict the White Queen and Kyousuke together.
The French translation of the title of the first book in the series, Shards of Honor, was Cordelia Vorkosigan, calling the heroine by her married name, said marriage occurring at the very end of the book and being quite hard-won by that time.
And in Cordelia's Honor, Barrayar and Shards of Honor packaged together, the blurb on the back spoils the first half of the book for anyone who was new in coming to the Vorkosigan Saga.
In some parts of the Warrior Cats fandom, something only counts as a spoiler if it happened in a book that came out less than a month ago. If the book is more than a month old, well... too bad. There's a good reason for that, though: even names can be spoilers; for instance, most fans call Bramblestar by his leader name since it is the character's name now, even though it took the series 24 books (not counting all the side books) to reach that point, and it means that the one main character Firestar has died, so it's a pretty major spoiler. The phenomenon also appears in the books themselves:
There are several spoiler titles, such as the Tigerstar and Sasha manga (ignoring the name thing, it's a spoiler for Moonrise).
And, of course, the character lists in the front of the books, which are so riddled with spoilers it's a wonder they still put them in the front of the books. If a character dies sometime in the book, they are treated as dead.
The Reveal at the ending of The Wheel of Time's first book? Rand is the Dragon Reborn. The cover of the third book? A triumphant Rand, with the words "The Dragon Reborn" written in big, bold letters.
The 25th anniversary edition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance includes an introduction that quickly and without warning spoils many major plot points, including the ending.
Inspector Rebus was intended as a One-Shot Character for Knots and Crosses and the story was written to suggest that Rebus himself could be the killer. The fact that he has since returned for another 18 novels (and counting) is a bit of a giveaway that he wasn't.
The first book of The Zodiac Series sees Rho trying to convince the houses that Ophiuchus is real and they need to unite against him. The second book's blurb opens with "Orphaned, disgraced, and stripped of her title..." giving away how successful this endeavor was.
◊ for a book that even calls itself a "howdunnit".
