diff --git a/booklore-api/src/main/java/com/adityachandel/booklore/service/metadata/extractor/EpubMetadataExtractor.java b/booklore-api/src/main/java/com/adityachandel/booklore/service/metadata/extractor/EpubMetadataExtractor.java
index 1c51ff3d2..d83502866 100644
--- a/booklore-api/src/main/java/com/adityachandel/booklore/service/metadata/extractor/EpubMetadataExtractor.java
+++ b/booklore-api/src/main/java/com/adityachandel/booklore/service/metadata/extractor/EpubMetadataExtractor.java
@@ -2,6 +2,9 @@ package com.adityachandel.booklore.service.metadata.extractor;
 
 import com.adityachandel.booklore.model.dto.BookMetadata;
 import io.documentnode.epub4j.domain.Book;
+import io.documentnode.epub4j.domain.MediaType;
+import io.documentnode.epub4j.domain.MediaTypes;
+import io.documentnode.epub4j.domain.Resource;
 import io.documentnode.epub4j.epub.EpubReader;
 import lombok.extern.slf4j.Slf4j;
 import net.lingala.zip4j.ZipFile;
@@ -20,13 +23,16 @@ import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
 import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.FileInputStream;
+import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
 import java.net.URLDecoder;
 import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
 import java.time.LocalDate;
 import java.time.OffsetDateTime;
+import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.HashSet;
+import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.Set;
 import java.util.regex.Pattern;
@@ -38,39 +44,54 @@ public class EpubMetadataExtractor implements FileMetadataExtractor {
     private static final Pattern YEAR_ONLY_PATTERN = Pattern.compile("^\\d{4}$");
     private static final String OPF_NS = "http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf";
 
+    // List of all media types that epub4j has so we can lazy load them.
+    // Note that we have to add in null to handle files without extentions like mimetype.
+    private static List<MediaType> MEDIA_TYPES = new ArrayList<>();
+    static {
+        for (int i = 0; i < MediaTypes.mediaTypes.length; i++) {
+            MEDIA_TYPES.add(MediaTypes.mediaTypes[i]);
+        }
+        MEDIA_TYPES.add(null);
+    }
+
     @Override
     public byte[] extractCover(File epubFile) {
-        try (FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(epubFile)) {
-            Book epub = new EpubReader().readEpub(fis);
-            io.documentnode.epub4j.domain.Resource coverImage = epub.getCoverImage();
+        try (ZipFile zip = new ZipFile(epubFile)) {
+            Book epub = new EpubReader().readEpubLazy(zip, "UTF-8", MEDIA_TYPES);
 
-            if (coverImage == null) {
-                String coverHref = findCoverImageHrefInOpf(epubFile);
-                if (coverHref != null) {
-                    byte[] data = extractFileFromZip(epubFile, coverHref);
-                    if (data != null) return data;
+            // First we read the cover image from the epub4j reader.
+            // We filter to only images since it will default to the first page.
+            byte[] image = getImageFromEpubResource(epub.getCoverImage());
+            if (image != null) {
+                return image;
+            }
+
+            // We fall back to reading the image based on the cover-image property.
+            String coverHref = findCoverImageHrefInOpf(epubFile);
+            if (coverHref != null) {
+                image = extractFileFromZip(epubFile, coverHref);
+                if (image != null) {
+                    return image;
                 }
             }
 
-            if (coverImage == null) {
-                for (io.documentnode.epub4j.domain.Resource res : epub.getResources().getAll()) {
-                    String id = res.getId();
-                    String href = res.getHref();
-                    if ((id != null && id.toLowerCase().contains("cover")) ||
-                            (href != null && href.toLowerCase().contains("cover"))) {
-                        if (res.getMediaType() != null && res.getMediaType().getName().startsWith("image")) {
-                            coverImage = res;
-                            break;
-                        }
+            // As a last resort we look at all of the files in the epub for something cover related.
+            for (Resource res : epub.getResources().getAll()) {
+                String id = res.getId();
+                String href = res.getHref();
+                if ((id != null && id.toLowerCase().contains("cover")) ||
+                        (href != null && href.toLowerCase().contains("cover"))) {
+                    image = getImageFromEpubResource(res);
+                    if (image != null) {
+                        return image;
                     }
                 }
             }
-
-            return (coverImage != null) ? coverImage.getData() : null;
         } catch (Exception e) {
             log.warn("Failed to extract cover from EPUB: {}", epubFile.getName(), e);
-            return null;
         }
+
+        return null;
     }
 
     @Override
@@ -332,6 +353,24 @@ public class EpubMetadataExtractor implements FileMetadataExtractor {
         return null;
     }
 
+    private byte[] getImageFromEpubResource(Resource res) {
+        if (res == null) {
+            return null;
+        }
+
+        MediaType mt = res.getMediaType();
+        if (mt == null || !mt.getName().startsWith("image")) {
+            return null;
+        }
+
+        try {
+            return res.getData();
+        } catch (IOException e) {
+            log.warn("Failed to read data for resource", e);
+            return null;
+        }
+    }
+
     private String findCoverImageHrefInOpf(File epubFile) {
         try (ZipFile zip = new ZipFile(epubFile)) {
             DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();