While looking for covers for the Chesty-Back challenge, I found a new designed cover for Joanna Bourne’s The Spymaster’s Lady.
Now, I loved this book, but the cover was patently ridiculous:
Knock that oiled chest-baring ab-master off the cover, and substitute something more professional and perhaps boring, and I promise you, linguistics students could study this narrative as a representative work on how to accurately portray the differences in languages…
Oh, that cover made me sad. More than once I’d recommended the book to people who were curious about romance and had to say, “Ignore the oiled abs. Ignore the cover. Hell, spray paint it green. Just don’t look at it and look at the words inside instead. I promise they are SO much better than the cover.”
Here’s the old cover:
And this is the new one, coming out 4 May:
Which do you like better? I confess, I’m not sure that the second one says “romance” either. It’s almost a literary fiction/historical fiction look to it. What do you think?
I LOVED the Spymaster’s Lady. It’s one of the best books I’ve read, ever. I think there’s something to be said about the “shorthand” cover—we know it’s going to be historical, and we know it’s going to be romance. I just feel like this book was too good for either of these covers.
My choice for the better cover is the second with the lovely lady in the foreground and I’ll take some time to tell you why. I am a reader of romance novels as no doubt you all are as well. I am also surrounded by close loved ones who have come to simply “understand” my adoration of romance novels. They do not, however, approve of this adoration. My close girlfriends, who are kinder than most, think of it as a silly infatuation for less-than-optimal writing akin to a Frenchman claiming a love for American cheese. I find that even perfect strangers on the train or bus who glance at my read on the ride to work scoff when they see the tell-tale “Romance” sticker on the spine, or buxom-heavy-chesty-lassie-grappled-by-slickly-muscly-hottie-mcmullet cover. This revulsion or tolerance from them causes a shame reaction in me. I am ashamed to carry around books with covers of partially clothed and sensually poised people. To avoid shame where I should rightfully feel none, I absolutely only ever purchase a romance novel whose cover is nondescript enough to carry around in plain sight. I aim for the same when browsing at the library. Should it be this way? No. I’ve come across more excellent romance authors than those from any other genre. But I’m also not going to try to convince everyone I meet or pass or who sees me carrying one around of the merits of Romances. My apologies to the industry.
Okay, the first cover is distracting me and I have now figured out why and I hope I don’t get made fun of for this. He looks like Val Kilmer. Seriously, he looks like him back in his Island of Dr. Monroe days. It ‘s something about the jawline.