Lovesweeping the Titles

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by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | February 16, 2012 | Thursday at 12:11 am | 64 Comments

Now that more of the old Loveswept romances are being re-released, I think it's time I spoke up with my one request for the Loveswept line.

If we're bringing back old Loveswept, we have to bring back the best Loveswept titles.

Angels on Zebras. Really, that's the title.

First, she's not actually ON the zebra.

Second, join me in having this stuck in your head: Angels on zebras and weasels on ponies...dude on the carousel's likely a brony.

A Prince for Jenny. She's wearing orange and he's behind her while she sits on a swing.

Oh, yeah. He's a swinger. And she's totally looking at him like, "I don't care if you are a prince, this flower is lame."

Ok, this title isn't SO bad, except for replacing the Angels on Zebras song with the Tina Turner Private Dancer, but dude. That illustration. That guy is creepy. I bet he throws her in a hole in the basement and turns the hose on her so she dances for him.

Well, one of them is horny.

But this, THIS one is my favorite:

Ivan Takes a wife! Ivan Takes a Wife! Hi ho the dairy-o, Ivan Takes a Wife!

Just wait for the sequel The Cheese Stands Alone.

Seriously, old Loveswept titles are awesome! How are they not being used in the re-releases?!

Do you remember any other excellent examples? (Never tell me the cheese actually did stand alone.)

Filed: Covers Gone Wild! (Non-Snoop Dogg Edition), General Bitching

Tagged: wtfery, romance, cover snark, awesomesauce

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bookstorecat said on 02.16.12 at 01:24 AM • [link]

I must read _Ivan Takes a Wife_. I could almost believe this title to be the beginning of a beaucoup book series because it IS Janet Evanovich. But I was thinking more along the lines of _Ivan Takes a Wife to Church_, _Ivan Takes a Wife to Work_, _Ivan Takes a Wife to the Dentist_, _Ivan Takes a Wife to Pick Up Her Car at the Shop_…
Inez Kelley said on 02.16.12 at 01:44 AM • [link]

The guy in Private Dancer is playing grab ass. And dresses like a white-washed street thug.
Charlotte St. Claire said on 02.16.12 at 01:49 AM • [link]

...is that Stockard Channing getting her ass grabbed on the Private Dancer cover? And why does she have that red wig on? Well, there are worse things she could do.
FairyKat said on 02.16.12 at 02:34 AM • [link]

Is the guy (or unicorn?) on the cover of The Lady and the Unicorn emerging out of a black mass, or is his bottom half a thundercloud? And what’s with the hook-shaped white swoosh of light?
It’s nearly as good as the cape that is clearly billowing out from Ivan’s collar.
Clbevill said on 02.16.12 at 05:40 AM • [link]

The woman on the cover of Private Dancer looks like she’s about to beeyotch slap the guy for touching her ass and she’s considering best how to hide the body. So many choices, you know. Behind the old abandoned church, in the ravine outside town, in granny’s backyard.

And as for the Lady and the Unicorn, well, is that the blob from outer space under them? (The blob with Steve McQueen or the crappy remake blob from the 90s?)

As for titles, you can’t beat the trend with Harlequin and some of their stupid ones. “The Billionaire’s Slutty, Pregnant, Virgin Mistress.” Who knew?
amythompson172 said on 02.16.12 at 07:28 AM • [link]

I started reading this book not knowing what to expect. What I got was a wonderful tear jerker and a great love story.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ…
Elise Logan said on 02.16.12 at 08:05 AM • [link]

the swishy thing is the Loveswept emblem - all the covers had this…. tsunami thing on the cover for the first couple of years of the line. Only later did some marketing genius look at that and say… WTF?!

Okay, as far as titles I want re-released….well. I have the originals, so I dunno about re-releases, but if I had to pick, I might go with Iris Johansen’s An Unexpected Song. I have a visual: Flashmob!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
SB Sarah said on 02.16.12 at 09:39 AM • [link]

I have also just noticed that the sash on the heroine’s nightgown on the cover of ‘Ivan Takes a Wife’ is in a Very Suggestive Place, but alas it does not Suggest Turgid Things.
Janice Maynard said on 02.16.12 at 09:47 AM • [link]

These would have made me spew my coffee if I had been drinking any!
cleo said on 02.16.12 at 09:52 AM • [link]

OMG. I read Ivan Takes a Wife - it was re-released a few years ago as Love Overboard. I don’t remember much about it, except that it was fun - and silly. The new cover and new title are not nearly as much fun as the original.
cleo said on 02.16.12 at 10:00 AM • [link]

Thanks Elise. Now I have MC Hammer singing in my head, instead of Tina Turner.
Jen said on 02.16.12 at 10:07 AM • [link]

Thought going through “Private Dancer’s” head. “If you do not remove your hand from my ass, I will remove it from your body.” Seriously, she looks murderous.

Thought going through Jenny’s head: “Really? You’re a prince? And all you brought me was this lousy flower? No nookie for you.”
Shilohwalker said on 02.16.12 at 10:13 AM • [link]

Throw her in the hole…great. Now I have… “it puts the lotion on its skin…” going through my head. Great image when I’m diving into writing. O.o

Er… what’s going on with that Lady and the Unicorn one? I can’t tell.
Brenda Gayle said on 02.16.12 at 10:19 AM • [link]

Don’t forget The Lightening that Lingers by Sharon and Tom Curtis. You can’t help but love a hero who strips to save the owls.
Nomie said on 02.16.12 at 10:22 AM • [link]

Angels on zebras and weasels on ponies
Dude on the carousel’s likely a brony
Ladies in prom dresses waiting for rings
These are a few of my Loveswepty things!
Jami JoAnne Russell said on 02.16.12 at 10:52 AM • [link]

Forget the angels and zebras, I want that dress - well, not exactly like it. I’d want it in a much darker purple and with sleeves to hide my ugly upper arms and that stupid tattoo I have, plus enough material on the shoulders so my bra straps won’t show. (They just don’t make strapless ones that can keep mine up.) But still, love the dress.

The cover of Private Dancer looks like a scene out of Criminal Minds or Law & Order: Special Victims unit. (Which lately should be renamed The Benson & Stabler Prime Time Whining Hour. Man, I miss the days when it was an ensemble cast and we’d get episodes that were strictly a lot of sexy Munch action.)

Jenny doesn’t need a prince. She either needs a plastic surgeon or a spanking because either she’s seriously deformed or she’s a whiny teenager. It’s kind of hard to tell which without seeing it in person.

Ivan looks just a little like Alan Rickman. *drools*
kzoet said on 02.16.12 at 11:06 AM • [link]

Oh, come on! The Private Dancer dude is clearly The Fonz. It’s like Happy Days After Dark. Aaaaaaaaaaay.
Joannef425 said on 02.16.12 at 11:08 AM • [link]

Don’t forget my favorite Loveswept, “Date with the Devil” by Olivia Rupprecht. A librarian and a commando shipwrecked on a deserted island. Full of rapey wtf-ery and a sanitary belt made of grass. Sigh! Good times!

Here’s the cover in all it’s lurid, purple glory. http://www.amazon.com/DATE-DEV…
Flo_over said on 02.16.12 at 11:08 AM • [link]

I just choked on my toast I was laughing so hard. And it was bad enough that I had the Caillou theme song in there now it has it’s new friend… Angels on zebras and weasels on ponies…dude on the carousel’s likely a brony. LALALALALA…
M Burton said on 02.16.12 at 11:09 AM • [link]

I, too, was baffled by this. At times it appears to be a cover for The Lady and the Centaur.
Ken Houghton said on 02.16.12 at 11:39 AM • [link]

Sadly, Amazon doesn’t list that title. But it’s definitely a book that someone needs to write.
riwally said on 02.16.12 at 11:43 AM • [link]

Private Dancer???? Seriously???? Should be called “Copping a Feel” Is this a prequel to the Monica Lewinsky/President Clinton debacle that should have been called “Can You Feel My Wood?” He’s close enough to be getting a cheap thrill and a stain.
kkw said on 02.16.12 at 11:44 AM • [link]

So it seems that Private Dancer book came out after the song, and I don’t think there was any way not to be aware of the existence of that song if you were around at the time. It also came out after Dirty Dancing - am I the only one who thinks they’re trying to evoke the movie? She looks more terrified than angry, alas, but at least she isn’t offering her neck in insipid surrender, like a puppy showing its belly. The angel is having difficulty staying away, unicorn lady and Ivan’s wife both look comatose, and Jenny…Jenny looks so passive she might wet herself rather than take the initiative to find a bathroom.

Date with the Devil looks hilarious (although the devil dater is also about to pass out [I’m assuming the devil is a man]. Why does the prospect of sex make heroines so sleepy?).
Ruthie Knox said on 02.16.12 at 12:02 PM • [link]

The first romance I ever read was a Loveswept—Joan Elliott Pickart’s WARM FUZZIES. Heroine owns a stuffed animal shop of that name. Hero is named Patrick “Acer” Mullaney, and heroine (Lux Sherwood) thinks of him as “Patrick ‘Acer’ Mullaney” even in her own head. She meets him by delivering a six-foot-tall blue teddy bear to his house, which he eventually starts talking to. It is made of awesome.
Kallypso Masters said on 02.16.12 at 12:07 PM • [link]

I loved Loveswepts when I was tired of the same-old/same-old Harlequins back in the 1980s. The voices were so different and fresh. I discovered Iris Johansen, Janet Evanovich, Judy Gill, Peggy Webb, and so many others. Haven’t read them for a couple decades, though. Hope they hold up with time!

Kally
Lily said on 02.16.12 at 12:14 PM • [link]

The Lady and the Unicorn? Is that what he named it?
Lily said on 02.16.12 at 12:15 PM • [link]

Also, The Lady and the Unicorn man looks like he’s checking her hair for nits.
Kate4queen said on 02.16.12 at 12:25 PM • [link]

I love these, they all sound like lame nursery rhymes or song titles and the covers are just awesome…
ECSpurlock said on 02.16.12 at 12:54 PM • [link]

It looks like the guy has the woman trapped between his huge honking black velvet thighs and she’s comatose from lack of circulation.
Darlynne said on 02.16.12 at 01:12 PM • [link]

... [a]nd a sanitary belt made of grass.

Because, what? She had the sanitary pads, but needed something to hold them up? Sweet baby Jesus. I have no words.

I can’t decide what rattles me the most: the image of a grass belt (Seriously? What did she use for clips?), that the heroine felt the need to make one, or my own memories of them, lo, these many years ago. We’ve come a long way, bitchery, but look how easily the Wayback Machine can snap us back to the bad old days.

Sarah, I’m guessing that when books like this are re-released, they are not updated for content, so we get them in all their original, blinding WTF glory, right? I may have to buy this one.
Donna said on 02.16.12 at 02:07 PM • [link]

So showing my age here. Except for “Angels on Zebras”, I read ALL of these when they were originally published. Even money says if I dig out the keeper boxes from under the bed I will find “The Lady and the Unicorn”.
Another point about changing the titles: for estrogen deprived persons like me, how am I supposed to know if it’s a book I read 30 years ago or just a case of I’ve read too many of these deja vu?
Sofia Harper said on 02.16.12 at 02:14 PM • [link]

With Private Dancer I can’t help but keeping thinking he loves her lady lumps. Fergie brainworm.
SaraO @ TheLibrarianReads said on 02.16.12 at 02:31 PM • [link]

The Lady and The Unicorn is my favorite…because that cover is sooo phalic! I wonder if she ends up falling for a unicorn man? Wouldn’t he be a centuar then? Why do I know off the top of my head what a centuar is?...See it’s a cover that encourages thought and questioning ;)
Natalie said on 02.16.12 at 03:25 PM • [link]

I just died laughing at work….now I can’t get that out of my head nor can I stop laughing.
EliG said on 02.16.12 at 03:44 PM • [link]

I suppose I can safely admit here that I have pretty much every Loveswept published up to about 1990 and then spotty until they pulled the plug. And the covers are so dated, but at the time Loveswept seemed to be a line that took some chances you didn’t see in the Harlequin and Silhouette Lines. And I may be remembering incorrectly but they also pulled off some of the Multi-Author themed miniseries that you see more frequently now in other category romances but I recall as pretty rare at the time. Lots of borderline stalker heroes, and the occasional heroine, toss in a few twins with the magic “the one who can tell them apart”, some paranormal before paranormal was “cool” and they were just a lot of fun to read. There was a Iris Johansen book in her Sedikhan series that involved a heroine wedging into a room service cart to sneak into a hotel room that is just classic. I sense a Loveswept reading orgy coming on.
Heather said on 02.16.12 at 03:47 PM • [link]

I bought a TON of these for 25 cents each at the library book sale. As I live in San Antonio, I think the first title I’ll read will be “San Antonio Rose” by Fran Baker. What are the best books in the LS series?
harthad said on 02.16.12 at 03:50 PM • [link]

Oh man, could somebody quote the passage about the sanitary belt made of grass, just so I can get straight in my head how that would work? The mind boggles…
Carly m. said on 02.16.12 at 04:22 PM • [link]

Interesting—released in ebook form by Avon.
Carly m. said on 02.16.12 at 04:31 PM • [link]

Sounds uh-mazing. I want to read it.
Chrisbookarama said on 02.16.12 at 05:36 PM • [link]

I picked up a used Signet Regency last year, still haven’t read it, but it’s called Cruel Lord Cranham. I had Bad, Bad Leroy Brown (Baddest man in the whole damn town) in my head for days after I bought it. I wonder if Leroy and the Lord are related…

http://www.goodreads.com/book/...
Laura said on 02.16.12 at 06:28 PM • [link]

True confessions: I had to google “brony.”

Guess I’ve been living under a rock. But now I kinda want to watch the show. Goodness knows I’m nerdy too.
Trish5170 said on 02.16.12 at 07:04 PM • [link]

As I recall it was more like a sanitary panty, the grass acting as an absorbant. The hero made it for her. Sort of unexpected realism in a romance novel.
cleo said on 02.16.12 at 07:10 PM • [link]

I just learned something. I didn’t realize that Avon is an imprint of HarperCollins - I was all set to tell you no, it’s not Avon, it’s HarperCollins, and then I did a little more googling. (Amazing how little attention I paid to publishers before I got my nook). It looks like they re-leased it as a mass market in 2005 and as an e-book in 2009.
Lucy Woodhull said on 02.16.12 at 07:45 PM • [link]

I would read the shit ouuta “The Cheese Stands Alone,” the story of sad loner Brie Cheddar, trying to save his family’s gouda farm and goat-petting attraction. Can his arranged marriage to the town’s wealthiest vixen, Ritzy Crackers, save Hardcheese Lane?
The Other Susan said on 02.16.12 at 09:07 PM • [link]

Thanks everybody, including SB Sarah. I really needed a laugh, and there’s just nothing like some cover snark when you really need it.
Susan said on 02.17.12 at 01:10 AM • [link]

I’d never heard of this line, or any of the titles, but now I’m finding them strangely mesmerizing.

Notice that the guys on the old timey covers were more likely to sport facial hair (a la Ivan and the Devil dude)? I can’t offhand think of a single recent one where the H had a beard/mustache. Of course, even their chests are shaved nowadays.
Deb Stover said on 02.17.12 at 10:28 AM • [link]

Loveswepts were my favorite breed of “category” romance. I was brokenhearted when Bantam stopped publishing them. Otherwise, I was a diehard historical romance reader from 6th grade. These novels pulled me into another world, for which I am eternally grateful. I saved all of Janet Evanovich’s 1st edition Loveswept releases. I have only loaned them out once with a stern threat that they be returned or else! They were, and I seriously doubt I’ll ever loan them out again. I’m glad to see so many of these wonderful, unique books being reincarnated. Brava!
Deb Stover said on 02.17.12 at 10:30 AM • [link]

Oh…dear…
harthad said on 02.17.12 at 11:01 AM • [link]

Wait, wait, there’s a book with a hero—a shipwrecked commando, no less—who willingly makes a feminine hygiene product for the heroine??? Holy Toledo, this just keeps getting better.

I don’t care if it’s only grass; my man won’t even open that drawer in the bathroom.
Joannef425 said on 02.17.12 at 12:19 PM • [link]

Actually, he made the sanitary belt for her, cuz he’s just so thoughtful and he-manly. They were stranded on the deserted island, and he was her chest-thumping protector and provider. He knew she’d be getting her period soon, so he made it for her and showed her how to use it (fill with grass in lieu of kotex). She thought it was a dandy gift and wore it with pride. As soon as the belt came off, he went all rapey on her and literally chased her all over the island until she realized that, being a mere weak woman, he was just too powerful to exist.
Joannef425 said on 02.17.12 at 12:23 PM • [link]

LOL! I meant he was “too powerful to resist!”
Anna Richland said on 02.17.12 at 03:09 PM • [link]

So clicking on the link to Date with the Devil, I couldn’t get past THIS old LS cover (and have the ear worm to prove it): Hurts so Good, also by Olivia R. “His mouth made beautiful music, whether on a sax or women’s bodies.” It’s like a combination of Harrison Ford in Witness and John Cougar Mellencamp at the same time.

http://www.amazon.com/HURTS-GO…
Shana Montgomery said on 02.17.12 at 03:52 PM • [link]

OMG!!!! I used to subscribe to Loveswept romances when you could get them mailed to you!! Four books each month! I cried when they quit printing them.
Laura said on 02.17.12 at 04:52 PM • [link]

Best. Typo. Ever.

Many of these alpha jackasses ARE too powerful to exist, because any right-thinking woman would murder them while they slept (once they’d finished raping).
SB Sarah said on 02.17.12 at 04:55 PM • [link]

I can’t tell you how much I want to read this. You had me at 6 foot blue teddy.
Alysette said on 02.17.12 at 08:44 PM • [link]

There actually IS a book titled “The Cheese Stands Alone” by a Marjorie M. Prince. No reviews, no clue what it’s about. I was trying to remember the title of Robert Cormier’s book “I Am the Cheese” which uses the Farmer in the Dell rhyme as a basis. It’s been years since I read “I Am the Cheese” though: all I remember is that the narrator was unreliable (as you might suspect anyone of being who compares himself to a dairy product).
Joannef425 said on 02.17.12 at 11:07 PM • [link]

Looks more like Kenny G meets Urkel.
PamG said on 02.17.12 at 11:46 PM • [link]

Love that cover, I didn’t even know jazz dudes wore suspenders. And the sax is such a nice change from the unsheathed swords and other weaponry. Gotta love a man with sax appeal.
Wendy Barron said on 02.18.12 at 02:24 PM • [link]

“Ivan Takes a Wife” was recently released (along with many other of Evanovich’s novellas) as an ebook. It’s been retitled to “Love Overboard”. I gave it three stars.
Beggar1015 said on 02.19.12 at 04:47 PM • [link]

Not enough romance heroes wear suspenders on their book covers. Really, suspenders need to make a come-back.
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7nina said on 02.24.12 at 11:00 PM • [link]

Don’t forget The Sorceror’s Keeper By Kathleen Creighton.
Dominoed Daredoll said on 03.06.12 at 12:04 AM • [link]

re: “A Prince for Jenny”
I had to Google that one to make certain it was the one I remember reading from my childhood.

Jenny is a “special needs” person - which made several of the scenes incredibly awkward if not creepy to me. But memory is a strange thing. Maybe my youthful perception of it was “creepy” because of how into her childlike innocence the Hero was. Maybe I’d read it now and find it inspiring that a special needs woman found love and commend the author for handling it in a way that gave the characters dignity.

But, personally… Her beauty and innocence are made a lot of. I recall a lot of stress being placed on how child-like she was in spite of her intelligence and artistic talent. I remember finding it extremely upsetting at the time. I’m sure there’s a way to handle special needs romances in a way that isn’t upsettingly like… well… Need I harken back to her “childlike innocence”? - but I’m not rereading that one to see if it passes my adult mind’s judgment.