Caption That Cover: Subdivision Edition

At last week's Sizzling Book Club Chat, Elyssa gave us the link to a cover that was incredibly dull.  I called The Most Boring Cover Ever. She called it “Real estate pron, I guess?”  Have a look: 

Book Cover

 

WHAT happened in Comfort Cove? Were all the people sucked up by alien spaceships? Holy crap, are Mulder and Scully or the Doctor going to show up any minute and fix this cover? Or is the basketball the protagonist, much like that beaver in that misguided Mel Gibson movie

This is a mystery, and a perfect candidate for Caption That Cover. Your job: Caption It! The basketball? The houses? The trees? The clouds? Who knows? It's totally up to you – get crazy with the Cheez Whiz. Best caption wins a $25 gift card to the bookstore of the winner's choosing – and you're free to like and promote and congratulate effusively the captions you like best to try to sway my selection. Sway me, sway me like those frightening still trees on that cover. 

You've got 48 hours: ready, set, caption… in Comfort Cove! 

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  1. Manda61882 says:

    Everything was going great at the fifth annual neighborhood BBQ, till weird ole Smitty brought out the hooch…

  2. Des Livres says:

    Not a caption – but that looks like the exterior of that house in that episode of Angel where someone has to go down to the cellar at regular intervals to be horribly tortured for all eternity.

  3. Des Livres says:

    Actually

    It happened in comfort cove.

    is pretty good.

  4. Flo_over says:

    Cleverly done facades: $4 million
    Perfect Subdivision Format: $5 million
    Hidden “Incest is Best” Club: Priceless.

    I’m so sorry.  I couldn’t help it.  THE TITLE!  THE BASKETBALL!  ARGH!

  5. cupcake says:

    Realizing he was about to miss this week’s episode of Toddlers & Tiaras, Bob abandoned his one-man game of HORSE to join his neighbors during their weekly viewing ritual.

  6. Smelly Pugsley says:

    It’s actually a typo.

    S*$t happened in Comfort Cove.  That’s why the son left, the sister, the kids, Grandma and Grandpa, the whole darned lot of ‘em!

  7. Muddler53 says:

    It happened in Comfort Cove: available from the low $250s.
    Man, that is a bad cover!  Who would want to live in a mass of identical houses with hardly any landscaping.  My apartment has a better yard!  Not much better, but still…Romances should be about a little fantasy, not settling.

  8. Andrea Mullarkey says:

    The bored SAHMs of Comfort Cove had been dreaming of rapture but what they got instead was The Rapture.

  9. Gemma says:

    A Son’s Tale, or Why I Installed A Basketball Hoop Directly In Front of my Mom’s Garage Door

  10. Daisy says:

    Something allegedly happened in Comfort Cove. Insiders express their doubts.

  11. Mom_on_the_Run2001 says:

    Okay, I’m not good at this, so I won’t offer a caption but I just have to comment that Harlequin needed to fire whoever is in charge of their SuperRomance covers years ago. They are hideous and rarely convey the quality of the book inside. Usually the H/h on front aren’t even particularly attractive. If I didn’t know that Sarah Mayberry’s books were so good, I’d have passed by all her SR’s with the exception of the last 2 which had good looking covers. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest, even in a most inappropriate spot.

  12. LG says:

    Lol, “It happened in Comfort Cove” is so wrong on a cover like this. All I can think is “What does ‘it’ mean? Zombie apocalypse? Mass alien abduction? The revival of The 4400?”

  13. Anna says:

    I don’t have a caption, but now I really want someone to turn that cover into a .gif image with the tardis flickering in and out on the corner there.

  14. Graniagrace says:

    OMG, it’s like an illustration of a scene form Madeleine L’Engles “A Wrinkle in Time”, when Charles Wallace and Meg end up on that Stepford like planet

  15. Natalie says:

    A town wrapped in scandal. With a hunger for the “Most Perfect Town” Award, the City Council turns to ritual child sacrifice and black magic. When the sun sets in Comfort Cove the terror begins.

  16. snarkhunter says:

    Camazotz.

    After the kids go inside.

    It is coming for them.

  17. Arloa says:

    Sure it looks idyllic in Comfort Cove, but that sun never sets. It always hovers just over the horizon, like a searchlight. Vampires aren’t the only ones longing for darkness.

  18. Peggy O'Kane says:

    The lonely ball or what happens when un-descended testicles linger in the suburban wilderness

  19. snarkhunter says:

    In Comfort Cove, the last day was dawning.

    Their only hope was missing; the only trace was his abandoned basketball.

    Can these unhappy neighbors band together in time, or is it truly lights out in Comfort Cove?

    (Alternate title: Rise of the Homeowners’ Association.)

  20. Graniagrace says:

    A chill ran down Ted’s spine, as he realized everything looked exactly as it did that terrible day he left, 10 years ago.

  21. Beckyroo says:

    Sexually unfulfilled Cynthia thought that the name of the town sounded promising, so she moved there straight out of college.  However, she was shocked and horrified to discover that all of the men in this suburb had plastic non-junk, a la Ken dolls, and that, alas, there would be no “comforting” of her “cove.”

  22. Anna Piranha says:

    Little did Ted Davis know that the vaporizing ray his little Jayden was making in the basement would work.  One by one, the bullies and the parents who said “Stop, stop, stop or I’ll say ‘Stop’ again!”  are vanishing from the cul de sacs of of Pine Wood Creek Estates.  Can FBI agent Allison Merkley stop Jayden or will she too go up in a puff of green smoke. 

  23. R.Savage says:

    Filbert, the third house on the block, was soon lamenting the fact that he had not thought to install anything to entice people to come closer. Harvey next door had that ball game thing-a-majig and was never hungry. Filbert hadn’t had anything since that lone repairman the month before, and his basement was starting to rumble.

    Next time he would have to listen to his father’s advice on attracting people to eat.

  24. Notmygnome says:

    “Are you my player?” is the classic story of a little lost hoop searching for its court. The player, thinking the hoop will stay put on the court where she left it, runs off to invite friends for a game. The hoop doesn’t understand so it goes to look for a court with players. In its search, it asks a grocery store, a suburban driveway, a swimming pool, and a kitten if they’ll sponsor a game.

  25. Vicki says:

    They roam at night. By day, Comfort Cove is a ghost town, a huddle of tract homes lying silent and apparently abandoned. By night, they rise and Comfort Cove becomes….uncomfortable.

  26. VandyJ says:

    It happened in Comfort Cove. But only before 7:00pm, after that they rolled up the streets and no one did anything.

  27. Jennifer says:

    “That lone wild bush is throwing off the aesthetic of the neighborhood….
    I swear it hasn’t been trimmed since Roger left”

    “I know, I saw Margery at the pool last night”

  28. Lauren says:

    Herb liked to dress up as a tree.  When he met Laurel, known affectionately as the “bush lady” by her neighbors, it was a match made in Comfort Cove Acres Subdivision #12.  Then their son Leaf eschewed shrubbery costumes in favor of basketball.  Will their beloved sapling find his own happily ever after?  Or will Leaf be perennially alone?

  29. DreadPirateRachel says:

    This is not a contest entry, but that picture reminded me of the eeriest experience of my life, which I will now share with you all. You’re welcome.

    I was driving up the coast one evening, and it was getting foggy and pretty dark, so I decided to stop at the next hotel I could find. I was just south of the bridge at Waldport, OR, and I could see a giant, red “HOTEL” sign across the bay, so I drove over to where I thought it would be. I got lost in this suburban hell, but that is not the weirdest part.

    YOU GUYS. The sand dunes have started to reclaim this neighborhood in Waldport. It’s just your average, everyday subdivision, with houses that look just like the one on that cover. However. Streets, garages, whole houses were being swallowed by Mother Nature. And all the damn street names were Bridgeview, Bayview, Riverview, and I couldn’t remember which one I had turned on, so I kept getting more and more lost and creeped out by the encroaching dunes. Finally, I found the hotel, but as I pulled up, I noticed that the sign said it was some sort of “retreat” featuring a “guru.” Or something.

    Anyway, my psyche was already scarred from my journey through hell, and I became convinced that if I went into that hotel, I would be sacrificed like some lost hitchhiker in a Syfy channel special.

    So, I pulled up my big-girl pants, took a minute to get an idea of where the hell I was, and spent the next half hour trying to get out of the scary sand-dune neighborhood.

    I swear to gods, I have never been so relieved to see Highway 101 in my life.

  30. ani gonzalez says:

    Proposed caption: “It really was a cookbook.” Cue Rod Sterling voice and Twilight Zone theme music.

     

  31. KarenF says:

    Feminine appliance night goes horribly awry, when the Real Housewives of Comfort Cove discover what’s different about a Dyson.

    Dyson Root Cyclone Technology.

    It really sucks.

  32. Suz_Glo says:

    “A Son’s Tale”—His Dad is on a murderous rampage after coming home and discovering that his dumb ass teenage son installed the basketball hoop in the center of the driveway, blocking the garage. No one is safe now . . . . you don’t mess with a man’s garage.

  33. Lisa J says:

    It happened in Comfort Cove…

    The streets all over town were empty.  Discarded toys lined driveways and yards.  The epidemic had taken over.  Franklin looked at Jewel and said, “Don’t worry, my darling.  Soon I’ll be in your ass and saving your life.”

  34. RebeccaJ says:

    A Son’s Tale: The Rapture

  35. ChristineR says:

    50 Shades of Beige

  36. Violet says:

    They convinced the Browns to replace the flamingos in the front yard with a redbud and a couple of spirea, just like every other yard. They talked the Browns into ecru sheers like the ones hanging in every other house instead of black burnout velvet swags. But they couldn’t prevent the Browns from cementing a basketball hoop right in the middle of the driveway. Embarrassed and outraged by this flagrant display of individualism, all of the neighbors on Comfort Cove Court packed up and moved to Utah. No one is sure how Tommy Brown ended up in the back of one of the minivans speeding toward the sunset, or why he left the basketball behind. This is his story.

  37. Smelly Pugsley says:

    OMG.  I just spewed coffee everywhere…

  38. Jason says:

    Split-Level…of the DAMNED!

  39. ECSpurlock says:

    The hope of reconciling with his estranged parents warmed Greg’s heart like the California sunset. But as he pulled into town, it became clear that the longed-for reunion would be a long time coming. Only a lone basketball in the driveway gave any indication that the Bradys – or anyone – had ever lived in Comfort Cove… Now Greg found himself in a race against time to keep his family from being permanently canceled!

    Seriously, this is the creepiest cover I’ve ever seen for a romance novel. You sure it’s not a romantic suspense?

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