You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
Normally on HaBO Tuesdays, we’re trying to hunt down books based on specific plots, but this week is a little different. Instead, Lynn is trying to find romances with covers that her father painted. Lynn’s father is Robert A Maguire, “a renowned paperback illustrator and subject of the book Dame, Dolls and Gun Molls.” Maybe we can help her:
I have been trying to compile an accurate list of my father’s work. Silhouette & Harlequin have been especially difficult. My dad did quite a few of Nora. Robert’s titles and I have already found quite a few.
The particular title I need is Risky Business. All I see is a rather poor illustration definitely NOT done by Maguire. I have the painting and this title (Risky Business) is on the back. It is a beautiful piece with a couple on a beach with a boat. I am confused about Risky Business; it has a boat & Nora Roberts’ Risky Business WAS about a boat builder. But I don’t think it’s one of Nora’s covers — though I’d swear I’ve seen it on an older Silhouette Special Edition.
I also have other paintings titled What Price is Glory and In His Arms that I’m looking for the corresponding cover for as well.
Lynn mentioned that she’s looking for about thirty covers. Hopefully we can help track some down for her tribute to her father.
I can offer no help at all on this question, but I looked at the Maguire cover art gallery online and found one of my favorite covers (and titles) of all time: DORMITORY WOMEN!!!!! I’ve had this book for 30 years. It was one of the first pulps I ever bought (for a dime on a spinner rack in a thrift store). Your father’s artwork was fantastic. What a great legacy you have.
If only you could hear the gnashing of my teeth right now. I had an almost complete run of original Nora covers, including Risky Business, but had to break up the collection due to storage reasons back at the end of August. If she wants to get in touch with the Half Price Books in Orland Park, IL, that’s where I took them.
I have an entire library of book covers that I’ve scanned, and I can’t find the darn external hard drive! ARGH! LOL.
As soon as I can dig it out of whatever “safe place” I put it, I’ll check for these covers. Though I’m almost 99% positive this isn’t Nora’s Risky Business.
Okay, I just checked my storage photos. When I boxed all my books up and put them in storage a few years ago, I took pictures of all the books packed in each box so I would be able to find specific books when I needed them. Most of the books are just pictures of the spines, but the books on the top are face up, and one of them happened to be my original copy of Nora’s Risky Business, and I was right. It’s not Nora’s Risky Business. This is the cover for it.
http://noraroberts.com/wp-content/uploads/1986/09/n65645-180×300.jpg
Hey,
I tried using Google Images: Search by Image. The first one “Risky Business” came up on several Russian chat rooms about romance book covers/authors but I couldn’t find a book title. But that’s something to consider, could they have possibly been used for foreign publications of books?
Also do any of them have years?
None of the others yielded any decent results on Google Image Search by Image, because I believe one of the search perimeters is by Image Size. If they images were scaled down to book cover thumbnail size, it might yield more book cover matches.
And, maybe you have already, but possibly contact Harlequin. Your dad presumably got paid, and there would be a record of that, and possibly with what books the art went on.
*parameters, oops
So I used fictiondb.com as a source, searching Silhouette Special Editions in late 1980s, since Maguire seems to have done a few for that era. (if you have an account, you have the option to show the list as covers.)
What Price Glory: Joan Mary Hart’s More than a Mistress (
March 1988).
Are the others from the same era?
I also tried TinEye and it yielded a Silhouette Desire #113 cover for “In His Arms”: Mixed Doubles by Jasmine Cresswell (1984).
And “Risky Business” was actually titled “Strictly Business” by Kate Meriwether (Silhouette Special Edition #179, 1984)
TinEye seems to have pretty good success rate, so you might try putting the other covers into that and see what you get?
OK! I found my external hard drive. LOL I have scans of the fronts and backs of nearly 1,100 books. The old school Harlequins used to have a cover image, and then on the back a small image of a scene from the book, or a collage of images. Included in those 1,100 are scans of the front and back of all of Nora’s Harlequin & Silhouette books. Well, pretty much everything she published pre-2003 (even including the infamous Promise me Tomorrow. LOL).
The bad news is none of these three images are Nora Roberts covers. Nor are they on any of the other old harlequin/silhouettes I have scanned. I do see a bunch that look like these, in the same style, but I can’t tell if it’s because of her dad’s style or that was just what Harlequin wanted.
Lynn, Sarah says you’re trying to find about 30 covers. Do you have a list of book covers you’re looking for? Or are the images you’re trying to match up posted somewhere?
This. This is why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. If the books are half as good as the art I will be amazed, and yet I have a nigh uncontrollable urge to track them down and find out.
how cool to have the family history!
have you tried contacting her store in Boonsboro, MD? http://www.ttpbooks.com/
http://ttpbooks.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=TTPB&Category_Code=NR
While I don’t recognize any of these covers, I do want to say that Robert A Maguire did beautiful work and I am glad that his daughter treasures it so much. My best wishes and prayers for a happy conclusion to your search.
We have Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame; Baseball Hall of Fame… There should be a Romance Hall of Fame where works like these could be preserved and on display for all time.
Lynda the Guppy, why is “Promise Her Tomorrow” infamous, please? I am going to have to look into this.
@Gloriamarie:
Promise Me Tomorrow was Nora’s first “single title” book (in other words, not a category book like Silhouette or Harlequin). It didn’t have a big print run, and Nora really hates it. There were editing issues and story issues and she just thinks it is a poor representation of her work. She also owns the rights to it, and she has said on more than one occasion that she will never ever republish it.
As a result, there’s a decent demand for it, and I know people who have paid $300 for a copy, though about $50 is usually what most have paid. Though some *side eyes Katie* have bought their copies for just a few dollars.
As Nora’s personal publicist, Lynn reached out to me a while back. While I recognized the covers, I definitely knew they weren’t Nora’s.
So I put her in touch with Sarah and thereby the brain trust that is HABO.
Laura
Thank you, Lynda the Guppy. I did look it up on Amazon and was surprised to see the hardcover selling for close to $1500.
I’d suggest to Nora that she re-write it but I betcha she has way too many ideas for new stories.
I am so impressed with the people here, their kindness and willingness to help out others. Not to mention their knowledge of all things computer. It is an honor and privilege to be a part of your company.
@julia aka mizzelle – wow, that’s some awesome searching.
It sure looks like the right cover to me –
http://www.fictiondb.com/author/kate-meriwether~strictly-business~26712~b.htm
Here’s the link to What Price Glory – http://www.fictiondb.com/author/joan-mary-hart~more-than-a-mistress~14155~b.htm
And here’s In His Arms – http://www.fictiondb.com/author/jasmine-cresswell~mixed-doubles~9237~b.htm
I’m struck by how much I prefer the original artwork over the orginal covers.
WTG @Julia aka mizzelle, I knew that second cover looked familiar I got that book from my grandmothers house in the 80’s.
I just want to let Lynn know how much her fathers covers mean to us readers, covers are truly an important part of the reading experience. They were and sometimes still are often our first introduction to a book.
That ‘Risky Business’/’Strictly Business’ cover is gorgeous, but the summary of the book… Ew. Shudder.
@Lynda
Hey, right place, right time. Both times 😉 *AND* that second one went into a charity auction!!
I have to agree, the original artwork is amazing and definitely prefer it over the covers…but at the same time, does anyone know where to get legit romance book cover posters? I would love some for my office.
These paintings are beautiful, and I would love to know how many covers RM did, and how many of the originals his family still has – a gallery would be wonderful!
I am, however, struck by the man wearing orange socks and dress shoes to the beach – different era! The women are all barefoot, the men shod … is this a symbolic of their power/hierarchy?
@cleo: agreed, but it probably has to do with just the design aesthetic for covers changing. Like if they were redone now, there probably wouldn’t be borders and just bold typeset font.
And I won it! Hi Katie D.!
I have about 10 covers that I know are Robert Maguire, generally because I can see his signature. I don’t know if it’s good or not, but one is the very famous Castles in the Air cover for Christina Dodd. If it would be helpful, I can provide the titles and a small image of them.
I collect romance novels for the cover artwork because I don’t re-read (it’ll take me about forever to get through my TBR pile and it’s even worse now that I have Kindle books). But my 5-1/2 very full bookcases are my own personal art gallery.
Something I’ve been thinking about as a result of this discussion is how very much more I appreciate, enjoy, and just plain like these sorts of covers than the modern ones with the photographs. I have never liked the photographs although one writer of my acquaintance said the photographed covers are cheaper and the paintings were more expensive.
Well, I am certain that’s true. I prefer evocative covers to explicit ones. The Fifty Shades covers work so well, and have been incredibly imitated, because they were evocative. The tie is positively iconic now.
I wonder if a university library anywhere has a historical collection of romance novels. Someone SHOULD collect these. Researchers in popular culture, womens study, etc. should have a resource to trace trends in cover art, novelists, themes, professions of women, attitudes toward working women….I can think of at least 30-40 topics for research papers alone. Way back a few decades ago I did a extensive bibliography and presentations at library conferences on the “Image of Women in Genre Fiction: Mysteries, Westerns, Science Fiction”. There are so many possibilities in this research but so much of “pulp fiction” is vanishing that will be hard for researchers in the future to capture it.
@ Julia aka mizzelle: Way to go! I so impressed.
@ Cleo: Thanks for the links.
This was a really fun HABO.
What gorgeous artwork. The anatomy and relaxed, normal body mechanics surely shame hundreds and thousands of other book art. THAT was passion for your craft, unlike a lot of today’s artists. I would frame the bottom one on my wall ♡_♡
This is one of my biggest regrets of ebook reading (especially on my old Kindle Keyboard, which doesn’t show a shelf view with covers). I miss cover art.
Lynn, your dad was a very talented artist. I also note that these covers don’t contain any of those embarrassing faux pax we so often see.