Some old-school cover gems from the woman who perfected the “If she can tell the difference between the identical twins, it must be twu wuv!” schtick in Romancelandia.
Sarah: Ah, yes, the historical version of “Before He Cheats.” Instead of digging a car key into the door of a pretty souped-up four-wheel drive, she’s going to put his head through his own lute because he got way, WAY too merry with his band of merry men.
Candy:: He thinks she’s paralyzed with desire; she’s just hoping that this George Hamilton wannabe’s sunless bronzer doesn’t rub off on her skin or her clothing.
Sarah: Nothing says ‘Historical romance’ like a poly-cotton nightgown from JC Penneys, circa 1982.
Candy: He looks mildly brain-damaged. She looks like a Real Doll. It’s a match made in heaven!
Sarah: There had so better be a disclaimer at the back of that book stating that no horses were harmed in the creation of the cover art, because it looks like they’re dropping to the earth from about 30,000 feet up and the horse is the only one who has recognized their imminent landing.
Candy: I’ve talked before about the bizarre physics at work in romance novels and how it affects hair. This one just straight-up confounds me. Unless the guy is a humanoid Van de Graaf generator, I’m at a loss to explain the heroine’s hair. (The hero’s hair—and appearance in general—can pretty much be explained by an inordinate love of man-sauce, I think.)
I feel that I must admit that, until recently, I owned the Raider Barbie dolls. Jude was my first romance novelist, and I still find that book bloody HILARIOUS!!! My mother bought them for me as a gag kift for Christmas. Dear god. The photos do not do it justice. They were just… incredibly strange. And even better: they came with a faux gold charm bracelet, with (if I recall correctly) a mask charm, a book charm, and perhaps a horseshoe. Someone at Mattel was clearly smoking crazy, kill-a-horse amounts of crack cocaine.
Ok, I now have to find this accidental deflowering-by-coach novel.
Any further clues? Name of protagonists, places, stuff like that?
One day I’ll make a list of the weirder deflowering scenes I’ve come across in Romancelandia.
I own that books too in the spanish version and the covers were the same.
About the barbies, it seems there was a doll about The Black Lion too
http://seriesysagas.com/judedeveraux/curiosidades.html
I think what you can’t see in #3 due to exploding hair is the horse, he has wings. I believe he’s a flying horse, and is so annoyed with his passengers he’s about to buck them off. In fact, from the positioning, he already has—they just don’t know it.
They will splat, he will fly on. This could be construed as a HEA in some circles.
It’s possible they will splat right on the lautengitarre held by Blondie in #1. Which, if you’ve ever landed on a lautengitarre after being bucked off an annoyed flying horse, you know really smarts.
Oh Nora!
I nearly hurt my lautengitarre I laughed so hard!
I own all these books. With these covers, no less!
Like many others here, Jude Deveraux was probably the first “romance” author that I read. They seemed so racy at the time (and at my age) but I bet they wouldn’t be nearly as exciting now.
And yes, if I remember correctly the lautengitarre is hers, he sings.
sistergolden-
Ruark definitely did deflower her in the coach but he was pulled out prematurely and carted back to prison by her uncle. Poor man indeed.
Oh, that poor, poor animal. I had a flash back of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with the poor whale created 200 miles over the planet’s surface…“Oh, what’s this rushing feeling? I think I’ll call it air..yeah! And this big thing rushing up to meet me…needs a big, solid name, like…. Earth? No…ground? okay… I wonder if it’ll be friends with me?”
But this poor animal is clearly thinking, “I’m about to become a small crater, and these two numbwits are trying to pin the tail on the damn donkey before we splat! WTF????!!!”
I am having high school flashbacks from these covers…not good.
Although, OMG! I don’t know which is more bizarre: a Jude Deveraux fan site in Spanish or the “Black Lyon” doll that’s featured on it. Seriously, if that’s really how he looked, how the hell did he get any play?
P.S. I did own these books at one time. Just out of curiosity: how much storage space do you people have that you have all these books still?
I have two six-foot tall bookshelves that are double and in some places triple stacked. Plus some random, small stashes around the house, like in my closet. And then a friend who borrowed my truck made fun of me when she found almost a dozen books tucked in various places. (She stopped teasing when she got stuck in a doctor’s office for three hours and only had to run out to the parking lot for something to read.) But I have to be selective.
And yes, I just admitted I’m selective and yet have multiple Deverauxs.
That Barbie/Ken set disturbs the hell out of me. He’s clearly leading her hand into his waistband. I can’t imagine why they didn’t sell more of these to kids….
I still own these books. They’re somewhere in the 4,000 cardboard boxes that hold our joint-tenancy book collection. We had to take the library apart when about-to-be-born 2nd daughter required it as a bedroom.
And I remember with a reasonable degree of certainty that the back cover carried a disclaimer: “No horses were electrocuted up the wazoo in the making of this novel.”
Okay, I tried to read “The Black Lyon”, but only made it part way through…and now that Spanish doll completely ruined any chances of me ever picking it back up…just don’t think I can love a hero with that vision in my head!!! Yikes!
Suzanne, the site it’s spanish, the doll isn’t, the girl who did the site found it in internet but I don’t know where.
I loved Deveraux books, specially Highland Velvet when I started reading romances and here in Spain we only have Deveraux, Lindsay, Garwood and a couple more romance authors but I haven’t read her new books in the last years, they don’t catch my atention anymore.
Snarking Jude Devereaux? You Bitches have gone TOO far!
(The hero in The Black Lyon is saying “Hold on…it’s stuck in there.”)
The Raider is the first romance novel I ever read while on a road trip up the East Coast on a prospective college tour back in high school (we were southern Californian Catholic private girls school bitches). It had the line “he entered her as gently as water lapping at the hull of a boat.” My mind hasn’t recovered since. However, the cover of the version my friend Darehead handed me had a very sedate sailing brig on the cover against a taupe background.
I’m so glad I sent these in to SB Sarah. *beams*
My favorite cover is Velvet Song because the heroine in that is supposed to be flat-chested!
Oh, and JJ, OMG! You know Darehead! She’s one of my BFFs. I gave her that copy of the Raider for Christmas in High School. Coolness. It’s a small internet, after all. 😀
Love it that someone else noted the Tuxedo Mask/SailorMoon-nes of the Raider. Which, btw, I absolutely loved, because back in the day, Jude D was the hotness. And I still love the Velvet series, although my fave was Velvet Angel, and the others were simply background stories.
And I totally believe that one day I shall meet up with one side of a gorgeous set of identical twins and somehow determine who is hottest and marry them, later to beget multiple sets of beautiful twins. Because that’s how the world works.
I love how having a hymen almost saves the day, except that trickster FATE steps in via a wandering rut in the road!
Thanks, Jennifer! Reading your recap may well have satisfied my urge to actually read the book.
I still own all my JD books too—with these covers and bought/read her up until Forever & Always. I miss her
Isacat, sorry, I must have misunderstood – thought the person with the website made the doll – either way, the Black lyon looked pretty scary in doll form – poor Black Lyon.
I actually had never read JD, but saw a recommendation for “Black Lyon”, but unfortunately, I just didn’t really care for it much. My first novelist was actually Johanna Lindsey, but I can’t read any of her stuff anymore either…authors like Laura Kinsale ruined me for some of the lighter, fluffier stuff I used to read.