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Amanda: Excuse me, what’s his name?
Rooter?
Oh okay, just making sure.
Elyse: Wow
Wowwwwww
Sarah: POOTER.
Now that I’ve stared at it, the Roto-Rooter song is in my head. Thanks, book cover.
Carrie: Obviously the title is the worst offender but I also give props to the ways he’s looking at her boobs like “Huh, what do you suppose those are?”
From Gloriamarie: He seems like he is willing to take care of himself. Why does he need a fake marriage?
Amanda: He looks sunburned and I’m not enjoying this weird eye contact.
Sarah: Yes, I agree. I believe his sunscreen was also fake.
Carrie: He waxes his armpits? Do guys do that? I had no idea.
Sarah: I am not on board with the new trend of “the hero is looking at me.” I find it rather unsettling.
Amanda: That gun looks like it’s one step away from falling straight down her pants. No one wants a bullet to the butthole.
Sarah: Is “hide my gun in your crack” a new game or form or foreplay? If so, pass.
RHG: I feel like she’s not being as observant as I would hope a protection detail to be.
Carrie: She’s whispering in his ear, “If you are going to cheat on me with the reader then get your damn hands off my ass.”
Amanda: Admittedly, this makes me smile.
RHG: Awwwwww
“But soft! What meow through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juli-cat is the sun!”
Sarah: “Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious cat toy, the laser pointer sick and pale with low batteries.”
Elyse: Would read immediately!
Carrie: CATS! Would not read as a romance novel. But would read for the cats. Because cats
I’m Australian and rooter has a very different meaning here than in the US. To root someone is a synonym for sex so ….
Rooter’s middle name is Turgid. His mom is a big fan of Old Skool Romance.
The CEO’s belly button is waaaaaaay off midline. Is it so important to the plot that it was inconceivable to let it be obscured by the title?
I’m not sure I’d trust a bodyguard who stuck their gun in their waistband. Holsters exist for a reason! (Insert gun safety rant here.)
@Vivienne, Too right. And it’s not one of the ‘warmer’ sex verbs, a lot of the time. Rooted = f-ed up.
‘Rooting for’ sports teams comes over hilarious in strike. …Only time we got asked to do anything like that was when a pollie told couples to have a third kid ‘for the country’, ie the economy. Purpose-producing kids to sacrifice on the altar of Mammon, uh, maybe not?
Autocorrect error. Strine not strike
@ Ren Benton: Omg, you’re right, re: that bellybutton, and now it’s all I can see. D:
(That, and how it makes the goofiest little face with his nipples as eyes. It’s as if the torso-face is piteously wondering why the billionaire CEO couldn’t afford sunblock, poor thing.)
When I saw the title Rooter” my mind went to roto-rooter and then to pigs “rooting” to find something. Neither of those images make me think sexytimes.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t like the hero looking at the reader. Especially creepy when he’s lifting her skirt to show her garters or something (seen that on many historical covers). I immediately picture him saying, “Check this out, bro!” Like shouldn’t his attention be on the woman in his arms???
It would be overkill, so plainly my taste has been warped, yet still I’m disappointed the “Romeo” writer’s pen name isn’t Kat.
I think Rooter is looking at his own boobs and thinking that his are bigger than hers.
That “prince” better watch where he puts his hands. For many many reasons.
My first thought was: Wonder how ‘Rooter’ is going to do with readers in Australia? /facepalm
The billionaire CEO definitely has that Photoshop filter that’s supposed to make your photo look like a painting. It’s… out of place.
@Zyva – here in the States we mostly get politicians telling us to get married for the economy. (Or stay married, however crappy our marriage or jerkish the spouse.) It’s kind of hilarious and kind of sad that politicians think this argument will sway people’s major life choices.
It’s the Catulets and the Montamews.
The prince also seems to have had a sunscreen mishap – but only on the right side of his torso.
A quick scurry to Amazon tells me Romeow and Juliet is “the first in a cozy mystery series”. We’ve come across those before, haven’t we? They’re the ones set in pleasant little towns where murder is the primary cause of death.
And they’re not kidding about the title characters:
wtf?
(a) Romeo should have been neutered the moment he got adopted,
and
(b) Juliet’s human needs to keep her locked up indoors
Once again, I am perhaps over-thinking this whole thing.
Wow, GoodReads turns up not one but TWO books with the title Romeow and Juliet – both part of serieseses (HOW do you pluralize a plural?!) – as well as the fabulously star-crossed feline/canine romance Romeow and Drooliet. Which I now see is ALSO the title of two separate, unrelated books.
In a world gone generally mad, it’s good to know these things exist.
… AND how much do I wish I had read this thread before commenting on the Kate Spade giveaway? Clearly all four above-mentioned volumes deserve a place in that beautiful accessory.
@Althea Claire Duffy
Whoa, #polliesareoncrack.
Extra lols considering this: Australia is Demographic Shift-ed to small families. World-beating vasectomy rates. And has a minor political party called the Sex Party. Seriously.
As for ‘marriage will save the economy’… the Queensland government floated that, with the usual pathetically small bribe.
Which is why I woke up one day to find one of my cousins making a gag marriage proposal to a friend on Facebook:
– Hey mate, wanna marry me for money?
– Sure, I’m a starving student, too!
…Now, there’d be an unromantic marriage of convenience!
This is hardly the short-sighted policy aim, which I reckon is more to create the kind of love match a comedian (Denise Scott, from memory) recounts, as a joke on them, back when she and her partner were starving artists, ie they knew getting married would cut their welfare payments in half and did it anyway.
Re the vermillion billionaire:
I hope you’re right, that it’s photo-editing. Actually, I hope the image is red-shifted (?), and the guy is fake-tanned and oiled. Otherwise, yeah, skin cancer alert.
(+A PSA from the skin cancer capital of the world: Wear hats and CLOTHES. With a SPF higher than 50 = not white, not transparent.)
Well, Australia DID have a Sex party, it is being deregistered and reforming as the “Reason Party”. Founder “Ms Patten said the new party would have a broader set of policies to appeal to “reasonable” voters at a time when politics is lurching to the far right and left.”
I am trying to put aside the alternate meaning for “root” but I still can’t see it as a good name for a book, particularly a romance.
Cover one is missing an apostrophe: it should be exhorting the hero to “Root ‘er”. It demonstrates the sentiment of “go forth and multiply” but with all the class of “show us ya tits!”
Yeah – this title doesn’t fly if you speak ‘strine.
Thanks, @Elspeth. I stand updated. And unnerved. Cf John Ralston Saul and Trepalium to be equally unnerved.
@Rom. That’s a bit…Puberty Blues vibes.
There is a passage in Anna Krien’s “Night Games” where she relates her preliminary findings, as it were, to a normal boy, now adult, who went to school with future footballers, – and he EXPLODES. Because the athletes set the tone at school. Policed the gender code, homophobic slurs at the ready. And then many grew up (barely) to be into nude horseplay, and some ended up at the centre of collective sex (deception/violence/coercion) scandals.
Halls of residence chants etc seem to be on the same level of reality, the loud people setting a low tone. Blaring.
Btw It’s not like it’s a surgical counterstrike, like I wouldn’t mind seeing when I read about Americans getting ‘sexiled’.
You get locked out of your sleeping quarters, that you’re getting the bill for? Sure, go for broke. Say, sing all the bawdy ballads, or dirges, you learnt in your subjects. I hope friends and acquaintances join in.
Rooter: I hate his hairstyle. I hate it whenever I see it on anyone. Either grow it or get a buzz cut. Commit already.
Fake Marriage: Upon another look, this cover is even creepier than I originally thought.
Protecting the Prince: beard burn hurts
Seriosly getting some Sam Heughan vibes from eyes behind the hair on the guy on Protecting the Prince cover–if Jamie is time traveling to 2017, Claire better not see him getting handsy with some other girl’s denim-clad tush! Can’t be Claire with her back to the reader, since she is far too smart to allow a gun to be holstered in that location.
Seriously getting some Sam Heughan vibes from eyes behind the hair on the guy on Protecting the Prince cover–if Jamie is time traveling to 2017, Claire better not see him getting handsy with some other girl’s denim-clad tush! Can’t be Claire with her back to the reader, since she is far too smart to allow a gun to be holstered in that location.
@Ellyn says “Can’t be Claire with her back to the reader, since she is far too smart to allow a gun to be holstered in that location.”
If the safety is engaged, isn’t the gun safe there? After all, on various TV shows we see them doing this all the time.
Bullet To The Butthole. Somebody needs to write that book