Sometimes, you don't have to go too far to find excellent romance covers that make you confused, envious of the psychotropic drugs, or maybe a little unconfortable. We thought we'd share some of the most excellent specimens of covers from our own keeper shelves, and of course, we start with Red Headed Girl.
RedHeadedGirl: This is just…. so blatant.
Sarah: I was confused about what this cover art might be suggesting until I saw the droplets of moisture on the rim of the shell. Of course I need to clean my 70's bathroom accessory collection! Thank you, book cover, for reminding me!
Carrie: Nothing says sex like a dead mollusk.
Elyse: I don't get it. What's that supposed to be representing? I need it to be more obvious.
Amanda: I know hapless 8th grade me would totally not understand this reference, and then would be disappointed by the lack of legit pearl-diving. Though I'm sure it has plenty of “pearl-diving,” IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
RedHeadedGirl: I like the look on the dude's face: “But the problem with Incan matrimonial headmasks is that you can't move 'em.”
Sarah: “No, really, how did you unbutton my shirt with your toes? I need to know!”
Carrie: “Look, I TOLD you. Friday night is BROODING night. It's my SPECIAL TIME TO BROOD. We can heve sex tomorrow. Now go away.”
Elyse: I feel like this is going to a foot fetish place that I'm not comfortable with. I've never actual read a book with a foot-job in it, but this may be the one.
Amanda: That leg looks barely attached to anything. Get ready for a Shyamalan style twist where the heroine has been a mannequin this whole time! Someone call Kim Cattrall.
RedHeadedGirl: I don't know how the leg is attached here.
Sarah: I know I'm supposed to be looking at the his-and-hers-shoulder-collection here, but I'm with the swans: where ARE they? Is that Central Park? Is this book about cosplay? Ren Faire?
(Also: is “Her garter matches her dress” a euphemism for anything? Because… yeah.)
Carrie: The combintation of whatever batshit insanity we're looking at with the 1950's style insert box is…eyecatching.
Elyse: I am also confused. Is this a historical? A contemporary? The artist didn't know so he put them in historical dress and added some sky scrapers? Actually, if Enchanted was a romance novel, this could totally be the cover. The color of the dress even works.
Amanda: I thought the swans were fart clouds. There, I said it.
RedHeadedGirl: SCALLOPS.
Sarah: She detested the devil who showed her passion's paradise? Aw, man, I hate when they do that.
Carrie: Is she real? Are we sure she's not a manniquin with poseable bendy parts? She looks both vacant and uncomfortable. Also a word to the wise – sand is not your friend.
Elyse: She's totally pulling away like, “Um, Ben, did you have a Caesar salad for lunch cuz…um…” and he looks like he's licking her armpit.
Amanda: She's clearly grossed out by this dude and his “magic embrace.”
RedHeadedGirl: This one is for Sarah.
Sarah: I LOVE THIS COVER. I CANNOT SAY A WORD AGAINST IT.
(But I CAN tell you how much I love PittGirl's commentary from some years back: “He brought his steed to an unexpected halt at the mouth of the tunnel.” If you've ever driven near Pittsburgh, you know how funny that is. *wheeze*)
Carrie: OMG the woman in Allegheny is wrapped in tuantuan intestines!
Elyse: Why is there a bobcat? Or is that a lynx? Does she have a tame lynx? Is it watching them have sex? Creepy. You gotta lock the cat out of the room.
Amanda: Five bucks says the lynx set their tent on fire for doing it in front of him for the umpteenth time. He's like a feline Drew Barrymore a la Firestarter.
RedHeadedGirl: The One That Started It All (for me). Seriously. It has everything.
Sarah: From an epic HaBO to a truly epic review, this book really does have everything: there's a mullet, some moobs, fuchsia everything, and she's farting a swan.
Carrie: I can't top the swan farting comment. Did anyone else notice that she's suspended in the air? IT'S MAGIC.
Elyse: “At midnight she was his to ravish.” Any other time and she had a “headache.” Also, it's really pink at midnight. They gotta get that pollution under control. That's gonna fuck with her asthma. Maybe that's why she looks like she's going to pass out.
Amanda: I'm more of a Surrender to the Brunch sort of girl. That's my peak surrendering time.
When I first saw the cover of Lessons from a Courtesan, I thought that was a giant dick. He even looks like he’s saying, “Look at what I’ve got!”
I find the McNaught cover oddly appealing, a contemporary take on Georgia O’Keeffe.
It’s almost like a hide-it-in-plain-sight code that telegraphs sensuality in a way that wouldn’t be embarrassing to have on the cover of a book you read on the train.
@Mzcue:
I know what you mean! At first glance it’s like, “Ok, that’s a shell. Moving on.” But the more you look, the more it telegraphs, as you put it. And suddenly it’s the most illicit shell in the world.
Allegheny Ecstacy reminds me of the first Conan movie, so I’m guessing the bobcat is her familiar, and she’s thrown some magical drugs on the fire so she can have her witchy way with him, and afterwards roast his flesh.
I love the old clinch covers. Love them.
I think the Old Skool clinch overs are the best. I really do.
LOVE the shell cover. And I hope the couple outside the tent have a fire extinguisher handy. Thank you for making my morning!!
There aren’t many covers where I’ve hoped the heroine was alive, but “Lessons from a Courtesan” is one. It’s also the weird, intent look on the hero’s face, like he’s calculating how much cement this one might need.
I hope some day you’ll do the first romance novel I ever read. It was called “The Pirate’s Lady”.
Hey, the uninterested heroine from Magic Embrace has an equally uncomfortable twin posing on the cover of Wild Virginia Nights. She’s obviously been caught hanging out in a coal mine in inappropriate mining gear by a shirtless regulator, I guess. One of the first friends I made her in Virginia gave me this book and it is signed by the author to someone named Betty.
Love cover snark days! I remember discussing the cover of Until You with a bookseller back in the day.
Here’s the link again.
OMG pearl-diving! Until now, I never knew I needed that euphemism in my life!
Proposed, but never published, sequels to Allegheny Ecstasy:
Susquehanna Seduction
Colorado Caress
Rio Grande Untamed
Des Moines Dreaming
Missouri and Mississippi Menage
Little Miami Lovenest
Gila Hearthrob (and no, don’t ask me how to pronounce it)
And of course, the perfect and yet oddly never used, gratuitous water reference title:
A Man, a Plan, a Canal, Panama
(in which a curmudgeonly civil engineer discovers unexpected passion with a lockmaster’s daughter, but can love survive the ups and down of life on the Canal? At 234,000 words, definitely a PanaMax-sized saga for the ages.)
Apparently loves magic spell causes embracing lovers to automatically launch into one of those really energetic old west polkas, and the lady gets to lead!
@LauraL
She looks like she’s saying, “Ooooh! Cold hands! Cold hands!”
OMG I laughed so hard at Wild Virginia Nights. She looks like she should be in that scene in Bridesmaids. “OMG It’s happening…”
“Magic Embrace” looks like it could have been a Windflower fanfic in which Rand Morgan kept Merry for himself.
Thanks so much for these! I have never spent much time looking at covers but I will be from now on. These made me laugh and loud til I cried!
YOU. ARE. KILLING. ME. HERE.
I am pretty new to the bitchery so forgive my historical question. When given a link, I click so I read the HABO and review of RedHeadedGirl. My question is: was her review the first use of “plot moppets”? That is such a terrific phrase.
Magic Embrace? Dislocated shoulder.
Am I the only person who thinks the Love’s Magic Spell cover looks like a tickle fight? I can practically hear the “Stop that!” followed by a giggle snort.
Regarding the JM Until You cover….that cover was designed for a different story. JM revised the story after the cover had already gone to print. It was originally supposed to be a shipwreck story with an island hence the sea shell on the cover. But then it got revised to the story that got published which had nothing to do with islands or sea shells. JM posted about this once on the Judith McNaught Bulletin Board that used to be on the Simon & Schuster site.
Ah, thank you! I was having a bad morning (no chocolate in the house – what was I thinking!) and this post made me laugh.
Cover snark should be available on prescription.