This edition of Cover Awe is all about acceptable abs and man-titty! What covers get it right for us? Here are a handful of some A+ examples!
Sarah: I really like this because he’s big and strong but also has chest hair and no discernible ab pattern. He broadcasts a different kind of strength – which fit the character.
Amanda: YOU PROMISED CHEST HAIR AND I SEE NONE!
Sarah: Right here:
Sarah: I may be incorrect, but that looks like chest hair shadow to me, though I agree, the texture of the image makes it difficult to see.
Amanda: I see what you mean. There’s also the hair falling over his face, which I really like. Tres mysterious!
Elyse: Yessss to chest hair! I’m so sick of waxed chests. I love me a hirsute man.
RHG: I like all chests. And abs. I like abs a LOT.
Sarah: Another cover with hair that I liked a lot: the former cover from Rose Lerner’s True Pretenses:
Sarah: I generally dislike photographed covers, but I liked this one in part because he had hair. But otherwise, I’m a terrible commentator on this one because man chest, waxed or otherwise, generally does little for me in terms of attracting me to a book. Abs and pecs are a big “meh” for me, but I suspect I am in a minority with that opinion.
Amanda: I like how his body type seems pretty regular. No bulging abs or pecs. His stomach has some slight definition, but that’s it. And for once, the hero is the one in a state of undress rather than the heroine.
Amanda: love On Broken Wings by Chanel Cleeton. He’s got sweat on his chest, which to me makes sense as to why his flight suit is half off. And I’m a sucker for a bicep vein.
I also think it’s funny because that one is book three and it seems all the heroes progressively show more and more skin with each cover.
Sarah: Strip tease cover sequence! That’s rather clever.
Yeah, like I said. Eh? Ok. He’s there. With his rectus abdominis and external obliques.
Amanda: These abs are not for Sarah!
RHG: I LIKE ALL ABS.
Elyse: Jaci Burton’s Play-by-Play series
Amanda: Very true, I do have a cover from that series framed. I have Melting the Ice above my bed.
Redheadedgirl: There’s also the GIANT poster you and Joyfully Jay were posing with in Vegas.
Elyse: Yes!
Amanda: I think what I like most about these covers is that they’re just obnoxiously fun. They know what they’re about. Also props for Unexpected Rush for showing a hero with a sexy smattering of dirt.
Sarah: The Burton covers are really unparalleled, in part because they look like they’re athletes.
Amanda: Okay, I’m supplying this one because I bought the book because of the cover. Yes, there’s a shirtless dude with leopard spots, but I like that there’s more to the cover than just that. The black, white, and grey color palette really makes the red KING stand out and there’s something so…sad about the hero’s expression. I don’t know. I just think it’s a great, carefully thought out cover.
Elyse: It’s like what an Animorphs cover should be
RHG: I LIKE ALL ABS AND I CANNOT LIE.
Which hero-clad covers do you love?
This Leigh Michaels: https://www.amazon.com/Birthday-Scandal-Leigh-Michaels-ebook/dp/B007RRM3G8/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1504511305&sr=1-8&keywords=leigh+michaels
I’m a sucker for soft lighting, since I have a cognitive distortion that haloes everyone I love roughly like that in my mind’s eye.
Add in “ he’s less clothed”, roof to floor windows @ la Oz, and hold the chest hair (not a fan, because PCO, and it still echoes uncle-age blokes at the beach) = perfect recipe for me.
My male objectification leans toward backs and arms (I was once tempted to get out of the car at a red light and lick a perfectly formed shoulder sticking out the driver’s window in front of me…), but good ones are exceedingly rare in real life and practically nonexistent in book covers. Distended veins aren’t my jam (thank you, sixth grade biology teacher who played a video featuring subcutaneous worms and traumatized a generation), and models who might have my preferred level of definition at baseline always look like they’ve been told to flex until they’re just short of an aneurysm to make that sexy Dracunculus medinensis pop! *hurk* My daughter identified my back preference as “Dorito back,” which is too accurate to unsee. (Don’t waste your time googling it because every reference on the internet has been posted by people who’ve obviously never seen a Dorito and bestow the title on every squat, thick-waisted dude they fancy rather than the tall, lean guys with broad shoulders who deserve it.)
The only shoulder fetish satisfaction cover that comes to mind (and probably the one that started me on the path to almost licking strangers) is Tender Rebel by Johanna Lindsey, circa 1988.
https://www.google.com/search?q=johanna+lindsey+book+covers+tender+rebel&oq=johanna+lindsey+book+covers+tender+rebel&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=silk&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=caYK-Jjw16U1CM:
It snuck in before FABIO EVERYWHERE EVERY TIME, which cemented in my mind that Anthony really does look different from the rest of the family. 😀 I bought my mother one of the flower-wallpaper reissues in exchange for the original because I like to look at that shoulder before the book falls open to the juicy bits.
The cover that ruined me for all other headless torsos
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00466ILPA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
I think Colin Firth’s white shirt is preserved in amber for me. The hint of what’s lying underneath rather than full-on view of ropy muscles….it’s like a Christmas present and I want to rip off the packaging. Also I find the really contoured ones a little skeery — I don’t recognize all of those lumps and bumps. Is there an alien pod gonna pop out of there?
Yes, bulging veins scare me and scream “steroids!” Also muscle and definition is great and all, but he better not have bigger boobs than me, that’s not fair and also a bit alarming.
I’m also more a back and shoulder girl than a chest and abs girl. I actually love a guy in a suit that’s a little bit rumpled, sleeved rolled up and tie untied. Yum! I also like a nice jawline.
No strong opinions on chest hair, as long as we’re not talking orangutan levels, we’re cool.
I’m liking the cover for the new Eloisa James that’s coming out, Wilde In Love. Although he’s not completely shirtless, but the shirt is open at the neck and the weight of the water is dragging it down and hello hello hello. I know full well that they were going for the whole “Colin Firth coming out of the water” thing and I applaud them.
I also recently downloaded out of Overdrive and YOW. That man’s chest is super purty, if a little bit overly waxed for me (I too am here for some hair, my husband has hair, and I just don’t mind it at all). But the musculature (he’s not overly buffed and vein-y) is on point. As I said, the luscious head of hair indicates that he should have had some chest hair and happy trail happening, but it’s a minor nitpick.
I like the cover for Sarina Bowen’s Hard Hitter, too. It’s a LITTLE vein-y, but the abs are, ahem, aesthetically appealing.
The Overdrive book was Destiny’s Captive by Beverly Jenkins. Sorry about that.
Also, to add, a lot of the Jenkins covers are awesome. Forbidden and Breathless? Yowza. Cover model game is A+++.
@Crystal: Loving that new Eloisa James cover!
I’m with Sarah, not a pecs and abs girl, and all those bulges just scream “steroids! unhealthy side effects!” to me. But I did buy Sweet Revenge solely for the cover.
Where’s our awesome man backs post?
You guys make my Monday every week
CatG posted the Jaci Burton cover I thought y’all were going to reference. It is the sole reason I read the book. I don’t know how to insert the image, but hopefully someone more tech-savvy than I can do so.
Does anybody else feel guilty about all this objectification? Or is it just me?
🙂
I have issues with overbulked, every-muscle-clearly-defined men due to being a classically trained artist. They remind me of the ecorche’ (flayed man) we had to draw over and over to learn where all the muscles were and what they did and how they moved before we could go on to life drawing. A well-built man who is not overly muscular and with the definition softened a bit, as in the first two covers, is more comfortably realistic to me and not anatomy-lesson squicky.
@Hazel – I’m glad you mentioned it. I’m not sure that it bothers me because, for me at least, it feels like the discussion is mostly on the side of appreciation instead of objectification, and I’m ok with appreciation. But I can see how it could make one uncomfortable.
It’s really interesting to read about everyone’s tastes – because it’s so quirky and personal.
In general, although I am attracted to men and women, I prefer female eye-candy over male eye-candy. (In junior high, I just smiled and nodded when my straight, boy-crazy friends kept pointing out how cute so and so’s butt was in his tight designer jeans). I can tell you about my favorite covers with women on them but I’m having trouble coming up with any covers featuring men.
Hah – came up with one. Warrior by Zoe Archer. And you really can barely see his body but he looks big and competent and I dig that.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003IYI7KK/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Do you realize that you are sexually objectifying these men, right? I have never ascribed to the theory that because men sexually objectify us it’s ok to do the same. I am of the opinion that is wrong to sexually objectify anyone.
I swoon over the cover of Kindle Alexander’s Secret because of the whole “Clark Kent transforming into Superman, oops where’s my suit” pose. If only the book had been about gay superheroes.
I, for one, have no interest in going back to the golden age when women were obliged to pretend to be dead from the neck down. It has nothing to do with doing unto men as they do unto women, or we’d be sending the models photos of our genitals, sexual propositions, and rape and death threats when they reject us. There is a vast difference between one person, man or woman, looking at another person & thinking “That’s attractive” and reducing that person to an object that exists only to provide sex.
I’ve seen a lot of inappropriate behavior at RT over the years by “fans” toward models, so women are by no means above dehumanizing men, but that is not at all what’s going on in this discussion about what we’d like to see more of on book covers.
Re: objectification. I have felt for years (since we left the Fabio covers behind) that romance novel covers are far less about objectification of males and far more about fetishization–the fetishization of the male torso. The power imbalance between men and women is so vast in our world (whether we’re talking socially, culturally, politically, financially, legally, etc.), that I really don’t think women have the same ability to objectify because objectification requires a sense of entitlement, of ownership, that we as women simply are not granted. I agree, a lot of the cover discussions we have are about appreciating male bodies and covers themselves do make a fetish of six-pack abs, massive pecs, swollen biceps…but I think objectification takes an entire social/cultural apparatus that women just don’t have access to.
The question of where the line is between objectification and admiration/appreciation is a good one. The male and female forms have been represented in classical art for centuries, because we find these images beautiful. That’s appreciation. Cover art is just a modern rendition thereof, and I presume these models have been compensated and are aware and consenting to their likeness being made public.
Objectification disregards important considerations like consent, choice, and privacy. It presumes a right by the viewer to be pleased by another’s appearance without any regard for them as an individual.
May I present to you: The Duke and the Pirate Queen. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8409244-the-duke-the-pirate-queen
Bare chest, lush textiles, suggestively sliced fruit impaled by a dagger. I posted this on my Instagram because I would love to have a poster size to frame.
The book itself is bad in a Jupiter Ascending kind of way: i.e. the best way.
Back and shoulders are my weakness. Nice wide shoulders, nicely not overly muscular back and tapered waist gets my vote over ripped abs any day. I also have a weird thing for necks, right were slight over long hair brushes a well formed neck *swoon*. Sarina Bowen’ s The Year We Fell Down is the only one I can think of that has some serious neck candy.
I like the True Pretenses and Sweet Revenge covers above, not a fan of super-high-definition musculature in historicals (it’s inaccurate!) and also like men showing less skin than women. But then I also like the guy in the flight suit because that looks very … appropriate. LOL
IRL I am a neck, shoulder, and arm woman. Give me a bare manly throat with a well-defined shoulder (not too much hair please) and I swoon. My hubs also has great legs, but you hardly ever see bare man legs on book covers. #FreeYourThighs
Athletes make sense having defined musculature, but to get tons smaller body fat takes a strict diet and hours at the gym–and I am not interested in that guy.
The original cover of Carolyn Jewel’s “Indiscreet”
had a breathtaking (and I mean that literally) man’s back, but when I looked just now to copy or link to it, saw that there’s a new cover. Nothing offensive but a bit boring.
This one. I’ve never read this author, but the cover makes me want to read this one.
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0731CCRGJ/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=IFFPJ0QILLV41&colid=HLAJCXO37R1Y
There’s nothing like man-hair or waxed chests to show the difference between men and boys…
More man hair please (!!), and less teenage boys before pubes on steroids.
Oh, CelineB, thank you. So pretty.
Re: objectification
I just picture a bunch of guys in a locker room discussing their favorite feminine muscle groups. . . . Yeah. No. Talking about the aesthetics of covers or what you find attractive in a man doesn’t seem so dehumanizing. I don’t think this is objectification. Although swooning over Colin Firth’s wet shirt or David Bowie’s tights? Kinda is.
@Dietz123 – Yes, I consider it art appreciation.
This is one of my favs.
https://www.amazon.com/Suspect-Lover-Silhouette-Romantic-Suspense-ebook/dp/B001UFP52M/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
OOOh Ren – I love the impulse to lick the perfect shoulder! I really like MaryK’s suggestion, with the great back. As others have pointed out excessive abs seem not historical as well as weird as the only cover aesthetic