A little while ago, Bookslut ran a very entertaining feature on children’s book covers featuring wizards, complete with various makeovers. I figured we here at Smart Bitch Central could
shamelessly rip off this idea
pay homage to this idea and talk about some of the classics of our genre and how their covers have evolved. First up on the chopping block: that doyenne of hearts and savages and thunder and savagely thundering hearts, Johanna Lindsey. For extra bonus funtimes, swap around the titles and covers. Hell, swap around the individual words! They’re astonishingly interchangeable. Brave the Wild Rogue! A Heart so Savage! Gentle Thunder!
Savage Thunder
This cover, perhaps more than any other, is THE classic Lindsey cover. It has that red-haired chick in a mildly creepy supplicant pose, suggesting that Humjobs Are Imminent—or maybe that crotches will be bashed with fatal force against foreheads. Difficult to tell sometimes. It has some kind of random animal freaking the fuck out in the background. And it has Fabio. Wearing Uggs. With hair dyed black—presumably because that makes him look Indian—and flowing in the wind, except in this case, the wind seems to be coming from below and directly behind him. A thundering savage, indeed. I read this book when I was seventeen years old, and to be honest, I can’t remember a goddamn thing about it other than the sex-on-a-horse scene (she wakes up! On horseback! And she’s coming like a rocket! And then they have crazy screaming balls-out sex on a galloping horsie!) and the cover. Hey, I was a horny teenager. What the hell do you expect me to find most memorable about a Johanna Lindsey novel?
And the re-make? Let’s take a look, shall we?
What the hell? From Little Blowjob on the Prairie to Little House on the Prairie. Surreal. Also, deeply deceptive of its contents. Much as the previous cover makes me cringe, it at least accurately conveyed what you found within. That cover smacks you on the face and proudly proclaims “Feisty redhead heroine alert! You’ll probably want to smack the shit out of her before the book is over! Lots of sweaty, dirty, OMGHOT sex! Indian dude with massive chip on his shoulder! There will be lots of yelling, both when they argue and when they screw like horny, horny weasels!”
The new cover says, rather sedately, “I am a family saga. There are two sisters. And lots of descriptions of the brutal winters. One of them marries a preacher who turns out to be an alcoholic. The other one—the plain one—injures her leg, loses her faith in God, and finds her faith again when she adopts a starving urchin.”
This cover’s much less embarrassing to cart around, but I gotta say, I kinda prefer the old one.
A Heart So Wild
Ahhh, the When Vampire Cowboys Go Gay cover. So much love. So much gauntness. So much inexplicable posturing—I mean, tango is sexy and all, but why in the fuck are they practicing right by a roaring campfire? One of the classic conundrums of our time.
We go from that bit of pulp camp to:
Ah, yes. I remember this phase of Johanna Lindsey covers. For a while, all her reissues had these huge, lurid flowers on them, and then they were plain with the occasional paint splatter in the background—I like to think of them as the half-assed Jackson Pollock phase of Lindsey covers. They were by and large inoffensive, but also boring as hell, though if I remember correctly, these often had mantitty-licious stepbacks. If I had to choose, I’d say this one makes me less embarrassed to cart around in public, but this isn’t by any means a good cover.
Brave the Wild Wind
If there’s one thing you can learn from this cover, it’s that you can stick two hot, mostly-naked people in a raging torrent of radioactive goo, and it STILL won’t make it sexy. Years from now, the woman’s going to be popping out two-headed kittens and children with their organs on the outside of their bodies, and she’ll be sobbing with regret into her oatmeal. Why did she take that modelling job in college? Why? Whyyyyy?
We go from that piece of strangeness to:
Holy bloated pink horsies, Batman! That horse is straight from a “Where Are They Now” special on My Little Pony. After the Saturday Morning cartoon series, after the insane merchandising, after the mobs of adoring girls, obscurity hit Chocolate Stallion hard. He developed a nasty coke habit, was forced to get a bleach job, and started posing on romance novel covers. How the mighty have fallen.
This re-issue manages to be both more discreet AND more hilarious than the old one. That takes talent.
Gentle Rogue
The cover change for this book is perhaps one of the most whiplash-inducing re-work of all time. But as with all things, you can basically categorize it using a LOLCat dichotomy.
That up there? Visible Buttsecks.
The new cover?
Invisible Buttsecks.
That’s all for now. Stay tuned for next week, when we take on Catherine Coulter. Try not to pee yourself with anticipation.
That last one actually made me talk out loud. (“Oh… my god. What the fuck?”)
I love it. It looks like an Aubrey and Maturin book.
Let me see, I read Karen Marie Moning…
The reissued covers have different parts of a very hot man on each cover. Mucho Excellente!
Don’t think it’s the actor dude. I’d be able to tell.
Sex on a galloping horsie?? Sounds like a puberty dream to me.
How come Heart So Wild is reading A Hearr So Wild?
I wouldn’t mind the switch from Fabio-ishness and the Sophia Loren look-alike if the new covers were BETTER.
But the glowing horsie? The cabin in the meadow? The weird poopdeck scene?
K. Whatever.
That font on the original “Brave the Wild Wind” is making my head hurt. And yet it is so awesomely, 80’s-ly cheesy. Where did the fonts like that go?
Oh, and it’s the exact same pink as the webpage!
I didn’t pee myself with anticipation for the next group, but I almost did laughing at this one!!! They are all hilarious, but my favourite is the Little Pony comments.
I read every Johanna Lindsey book they had at the university book store during my teenage summer holidays (sitting in the aisles for hours at a time). I can’t believe I’d never come across the horse scene.
But Susan Johnson had a coit-a-cheval in one of her books. So I guess I got my horse quota somewhere.
Count me as one remembering the sex on horseback scene! OMG, that was *so* hot at the time, even though now all I can think is “absolutely no freakin’ way is that remotely possible”.
And that last book? What the hell is up with that cover? OMG, that’s a million times worse than the original. Gah!
I still have a fondness for JL…
OK, all this sexonahorse stuff is squickin me out. I read Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird in college. The supposedly true account of his youngPolishboy wanderings through WWII Germany features the bottle rape of a retarded woman, all-in-the-family sex with goats, and a lust-crazed Nazi attack on a village, complete with sodomy, castration, death, and sexonahorse. SexWITHahorse too! Daaaayum…way at the other end of the turn-on continuum.
But in high school I would have been totally fascinated by sexonahorse—you know, BEFORE reading the stuff therapists build careers diagnosing.
I love me some Johanna Lindsey. I think a re-read is coming on.
I have the Gentle Rogue with Fabio, but I also have a re-release that’s this minty green color and just has the title in this swoopy writing (I think – I’m trying to find that damn book, which is missing off my shelf)
Actually, a lot of the earlier Lindsey’s have Fabio – in some he’s blond, in some he’d dark, I think he’s got reddish hair on an early version of Hearts Aflame. I always got a kick out of the fact that all the heroes looked like they were related to each other – no matter time period or nationality.
I have to confess, I prefer the clinch covers – altho I would like to see someone other than Fabio on the damn thing…
That ‘Gentle Rogue’ cover makes me think of ‘Horatio Hornblower’, it’s completely devoid of any ‘romance’ vibes. For a -romance- cover, that’s quite a failure.
Oh, and I agree that ‘Prince of Midnights’ sex-on-horseback scene rawks! That entire book is my favorite Kinsale romance. =)
Monimala,
It’s most definitely a very different Nathan Lane. The book cover model is much better looking. 😉
Hello beautiful ladies. I was told this was a good place to meet horny women.
Zander has arrived and today is your lucky day! Form a single file line and get ready for pleasure like you’ve never known. http://www.myspace.com/AdmitYouWantToBeMe
I think we’re going to be very good friends.
From an insider’s point of view…
As a guy who has graced the cover of 1,436 novels (current stats as of today), it’s not easy work.
It’s demeaning, and I’m constantly left feeling like a piece of meat.
Any single chicks here? Zander has arrived.
Sorry I made a mistake. Apparently the name of the model is Nathan KAMP. Surname used to be Lane though, I am sure of it. Wonder if he kept getting mistaken with the actor and he changed his name?
http://ravensanctuary.blogspot.com/
Heh-heh. Heh-heh. She said “poop”.
I’m honestly not sure if I’m channelling Bevis or Peter Griffen.
Oh, let me count the reasons why I shall not. And I must stop the snickering before my boss comes in.
I think of clinch covers much the same way I think of vintage paperbacks with GGA (Good Girl Art—semi nude (or at least losing some bits of clothing) and provocative poses, in a camp sort of way. (I don’t know what the gay equivalent is called—Good Guy Art?)
Looking at those covers makes me feel nostalgic and amused but it does not make me want to read the book. (OK, it would probably take an Act of Congress to make me read another Johanna Lindsey but I did read a few back in the day. )
I think I need to start a collection before older romance covers become as hard to find as Lesbian PBO’s in good shape.
Zander has arrived and today is your lucky day! Form a single file line and get ready for pleasure like you’ve never known.
What, he’s going to paint my house?
Extra cookies for those who get the reference. 🙂
Ah, Gentle Rogue is still one of my favorite Lindsey’s, but that cover looks like a 3rd grade history primer. What’s a pirate romance without a few buckling swashes on the cover? Puhleeze. Those old covers might have been horrid, but at least they were fun.
Oh, oh…do Catherine Coulter covers next! Please?
That was great. Especially the first one. I loved your synopsis of the new cover.
Timepeace – that wasn’t the worst of the incestuous Lindsey covers. Fabio posed for Lindsey’s Warrior’s Woman and also posed for the sequel Keeper Of The Heart which was the story of the daughter of the first couple.
Talk about ick.
The cover art obviously had to be toned down to make room for HER NOW LEGENDARY AND THEREFORE BIGASS NAME.
Catherine Coulter was my introduction to the world of romance. I used to steal them from my mother’s book shelves. I can’t wait to see what you do with that. I still vividly remember the cover to Calypso Magic.
I love this new weekly feature! I can’t wait to see who you take on next.
I find the bland covers unappealing. I like to see people on the cover…or at least on the inside cover. Even if the picture is bad (okay, if it’s REALLY bad I won’t buy the book), I prefer to see a picture of people.
I also will NEVER buy a book that only has “reviews” but not a real synopsis of what the story is about. Danielle Steel lost me years ago when her books stopped telling me what the story was about.
I know this is an older post, but oh jeez. The sex on the horse.
Savage Thunder was my first romance novel ever, but my mom’s copy had the cover ripped off, so I didn’t notice it that way. I was 8 or 9, so I don’t remember why I thought it would be fun to hide the book under my pillow and read the sex scenes at that age, or how I even knew what was in the book or anything, but I did. My mom caught me and took it away.
I got a copy from the library sale when I was a teenager just because I remembered that. Man, who woulda thought that a scene like that would be a memory for so many people, apparently…
Nathan Kamp, not Nathan Lane. And Yeehaw for the trashy covers! I don’t care if they’re degrading or embarassing, they’re shmexy and at least I know what to expect. and they’re more artsy (reead: aesthetically pleasing).
That was hysterically funny. He IS wearing Uggs! The new covers are HORRIBLE—sure the old ones were embarrassing but the new ones look like—well, I think there are some readers who are going to get throughly shocked when they pick those books up. I, too, read them all when I was a teenage, I was a HUGE fan 🙂
First of all, I would like to say, I love your website! I read your book reviews and I enjoy you Covers Gone Wild feature.
Anyway, I waited a long while until I could find the Fabio cover edition of Johanna Lindsay’s Gentle Rogue before buying it. There’s nothing like seeing Fabio on the cover during his prime.
I buy books based on the cover. If they’re too cheesy, I just can’t do it. When I was a teenager I loved the Fabio covers. Who notices the woman on these covers, anyways?!?! But now, I have a hard time taking the same covers seriously. And the house covers are just..WRONG. Please…Gentle Rouge did not have “Old man from the Sea” overtones. Why the heck not just redo them for the time we’re in? I’m really liking the move to the completely nekkid guy with the towel/blanket/shirt covering his privvies. 🙂