In previous discussions of Brandewyne covers, mention was made by several that some of Ms. Brandewyne’s older issues feature her on the back in a pose to mimic the heroine.
I didn’t quite believe it, but a trip to the used book store yielded this fine specimen: And Gold Was Ours. Please pardon the quality of the scan.
Check out the heroine. Note the dress, the pose, the flowers.
And now, check out the back.
Now I’m trying to envision today’s authors mimicking the poses on their covers, especially the ones bursting with man titty. Hmmm.
It’s a damn shame she didn’t get a hot hunka burnin’ lurve to pose with her!
Told you! I discovered Rebecca in college (yes, in the eighties) and my roommates and I would sit around and read the juicier passages aloud. We’d pick a phrase for the night- “white hot heat” or somesuch- and everytime it was said we had to take a drink. We’d be smashed out of our minds, barely able to read, by the end of the book.
Damn, I’m glad that didn’t catch on. My covers have nekkid chicks on them.
Aren’t there other authors who have the vaguely herione publicity photo on the back cover? I seem to remember that some of J.D. Robb’s books have Ms. Robb in leather coat and sassy hair looking very a’la Eve.
Now I feel protective of her, as if she were a child showing up on my foorstep in a poorly conceived Halloween costume. (I want to give her an extra Snickers bar or something.) I think it’s because the orange silk flowers scattered at her feet look sort of pathetic.
Do male authors have to pose like this on the backs of their books as well? I don’t think so.
It’s true, more often than not, that authors have little to no say on what kind of covers their books are wrapped in, so I can’t help but admire a woman who attempts to defend the people who’ve helped her book reach publication by showing that, “Yes! This is a realistic – ouch! – position that is totally – ah! ah! neck cramp! – comfortable!”
As someone who loved to play dress-up as a kid and is always dragging her poor husband to the costume gallery at the Met Museum, I have to say, aside from the bone-crunching corset, I would LOVE to dress up in some of the cover art costumes. I’m not sure how I’d do with panniers (I’d probably fall down) but I’d love to try some on.
That said, with ample curves and a definite bosom, I’d look terrible awful no good very bad in a tight-bodice, empire waist dress like that one.
That was very brave of R.B., although she doesn’t look any happier about the costume or pose than the chick on the cover does. She has very good heroine-hair, though, doesn’t she! 🙂
I’m curious about the backstory here. I wonder if this was her idea? Strange publisher request? It’s pretty hilarious if she was going for irony. Pretty hilarious if she was dead serious as well. Super fab hair though yes!
Yes, but did they make the dress -first- and paint the cover-art to match it? Or did they paint the cover-art and throw together a knock-off of the dress?
Eeew, scary. Agree with Raina, who’s idea was this? BTW, her seamstress desperately needs help.
The Brandewyne cover photo I remember (don’t remember if it matched the front cover or not), Rebecca is reclining on a seatee with her long long long hair flowing behind her.
Damn, she’s braver than me. Waaaaaay braver than me. I didn’t even want to have publicity photos taken but then I saw Charlaine Harris on the book jacket of Grave Sight. I’d gotten all paranoid: authors need to look like supermodels and such. Charlaine looks like a very nice, normal lady comfortably in middle age. Probably bakes a mean brownie. And so do I. I felt much better. I think (hope) that’s more a publisher thing. I kind of doubt readers care about the size of my ass.
Danielle Steel does it as well to a certain extent. I discovered this the other day when we got a whole dump of her backlist in; each book had a different author photo and often that photo tied in with the book. For example, The Ranch had her dressed in cowgirl attire in on the back and standing next to an old trailer…of course, those vineyards or berries in the background didn’t really support the theme, but whatever. There are only three or four of her covers (for contemporaries) where she’s just there looking haughty (and those are all shots from different angles), but all the rest tie in somehow.
Not to the extent of Brandewyne though.
I kid you not, someone donated a copy of that exact same book to my library this weekend! And I looked at the cover and thought of you guys. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a scanner or I would have sent it to you. What kind of serendipity is that?!
Does anyone remember the covers where Heather Graham and her husband at the time actually posed for the inside cover art?
The immensely best-selling (nationally, that is, probably a joke compared to American sales figures) Swedish crime author Liza Marklund poses on the front cover of all (ok, almost) of her books. She’s not even pretty, but she has long blond hair and red lips and really trashy clothes. She has a cop heroine but I’m not sure if she’s supposed to be her (very trashy cop if so, perhaps she’s constantly undercover?) or if she’s just supposed to be a pretty, selling face on the cover. Probably the latter.
Liza Marklund: She apparently likes to see herself … a lot!
Robert Parker is all butch & burly on his Spenser mystery covers – usually with his German Shorthair Pointer, who probably got a role in the books on sheer charm. And I think some of Joan Hess’ Maggody mysteries show her in a sheriff’s car. Elizabeth Peters, on the Peabody books, too, in the Costume of a Lady Egyptologist. It’s not the same, somehow… Peters is obviously laughing at herself, but Brandewyne… haven’t read her books, but I sure hope she’s going for humor. That, or she owns some shares in Maybelline.