Cover Renovations: From Fraught to Hawt

Pam Rosenthal’s book The Slightest Provocation is being re-released with a new cover, which she wrote about over at the History Hoydens blog, (which is a rather awesome author collaborative blog and totally worth reading weekly, yo). The old cover, as Rosenthal put it, would appeal to readers who might be “in the mood for something improving and uplifting.”

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And the new cover? Rosenthal highlights the fact that it is encoded with, “hawt.” Since it features her “angriest, sweatiest, most contentious pair of lovers,” Rosenthal is quite pleased with the visual encoding of the new cover:

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I am SO impressed, NAL. Srsly, you have achieved the romance cover trifecta! Mullet: check! Shirt unbuttoned, but still tucked in? CHECK. O-face? CHECKITY CHECK CHECK. And a two-point conversion for both waxed abdominals AND a strangely bent heroine leg – way to go!

Which cover rocks for you? Would you be more likely to pick up the first version or the second? What do you think of the redesign?

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  1. Diane V says:

    Since I rarely read historicals (we’re talking Garwood and McNaught) for me the covers are for two distinctly different types of books: 

    cover 1 – makes me think that it would be old time English romance ala Jane Austen
    cover 2 – makes me think of an old-style Catherine Coulter (with the required rape scene)

    so I’m guessing the cover 2 is to go after those readers who like hot historicals.

  2. GoShawdy says:

    I think both covers equally attract different segments of the romance reading audience. One attracts the trashy lovers and the other attracts the historical loving lit majors.

    If you want to talk about covers that are totally misleading, I’m more disappointed in the covers that depict the main male character as some ruthless executive in a suit, yet over the course of the actual book, he only wears wooley sweaters or t-shits and jeans.

    …Yes I love men in suits and I am unashamed. They need more sex scenes that involve the love of the suit and the man in it. Not only talk about how hot he is, but talk about that bespoken double breasted wonder with herringbone pinstripes and that beautiful deep purple silken tie! (*sigh!*)

  3. Melissa says:

    I think I’d pay more attention to the first cover rather than the revamped one. I tend to not take a lot of the covers with the hero and heroine tossed together like that seriously. With the old cover:

    a) no one would know it was a steamy romance novel
    b) it’s just prettier, IMO

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