It’s time for Cover Snark, where we take a look at some unsettling covers in an effort to make your Mondays a little better!
From Delight: I don’t know if this particular…oddity, has been featured before but I received it in a newsletter and I just couldn’t deal. I couldn’t. His face is green. He looks like he tried a weird shade of foundation that he failed to blend. And why is he looking at her with that expression? It is not at all sexy. Or maybe that’s just him trying to keep whatever is threatening to hurl out, in.
Amanda: She’s clearly guarding her boobs.
The dude also looks suspiciously like Brandon Lee from The Crow.
Sarah: It’s also from the “If we don’t use Scriptina, how will they know it’s a romance?” school of font selection.
Elyse: His foundation is not the right color at all.
Elyse: Does he have a rash?
Redheadedgirl: Did he get bit by one of those fluke thingies for that one episode of The X-Files?
Elyse: Also dude really needs a belt.
CarrieS: And a bra.
Redheadedgirl: He has one, it’s named Adonis.
HEYOOOOOO
Elyse: And some hydrocortisone ointment. He really just needs to go to Target.
Sarah: His pants are what’s tempting fate here. What’s holding them up? Wardrobe tape?
Amanda: I don’t like this extreme close up.
Sarah: I am very not ok with models looking at me from covers. Disliked trend is disliked.
Elyse: Do. Not. Want.
Amanda: I wonder if this is the industry’s counter to man-titty. “Fine! You don’t want some aggressive nipples? Then this is what you get!”
Sarah: “Aggressive staring!” Nope. Do not want.
Amanda: Is this a new Marvel superhero? “The Neon Lawyer.”
Elyse: There’s no neon in that cover.
Sarah: If you turn off the lights, does he glow? Is that what he’s looking at? His personal glowstick?
CarrieS: Is this a noir mystery? If so, I kinda like it. If it’s a romance, all I can say is I don’t have the energy to cheer that dude up and nothing will convince me to enter that motel. The only things getting lucky in there are bedbugs.
I feel Green Dude’s pain. I too experimented with “redness correcting” concealer with similar results, but unlike our viridescent friend, I decided I’d rather keep the obnoxious remarks about my rosacea than get new obnoxious remarks about my evolution into a cabbage.
I read “The Neon Lawyer”. Newbie at a rough and ready firm whose base is surrounded by shops with neon signage. (So far, so humdrum; not a superhero origin story, sorry.)
The protagonist is up against a Jack the Ripper type kid killer. It gets graphic. High level trigger warning.
(The ‘mystery’ is more on the whydunit and legal thriller side, kinda Rumpole style.)
My first thought on the Tempting Fate guy was “blood smears”, so rash is slightly less alarming. (There’s a vampire book with the same title, that I really love, which might explain why my brain went with blood.)
I thought blood too. But that paled for me when I noticed the length of his torso. That’s just unnatural!
All I could think of when I saw “Neon Lawyer” was “Rhinestone Cowboy.” Our expectations must be slipping fast these days.
@ Deb Kinnard – I also immediately thought of the “Rhinestone Cowboy” when I saw the title!
The neon lawyer is inconsolable because his favorite neon suit is at the cleaners and it was picture day at the Chamber of Commerce.
When I first looked at green face guy I read the title as Giardia. Made sense to me.
Coach cover: David Bowie had a love child with Gorden Ramsey.
“Tempting Fate” – is that guy’s torso reallllly long? I can’t stop staring
I’m almost sure that the blonde lady from the first cover is the same blonde lady from an F/F book featuring porn stars? Also, that dude might’ve thought he’d picked up a food foundation but he forgot about the v. important aspect of undertones. I bet you he picked neutral instead of cool. #SMH
TBH, the most disturbing cover is the Head Coach one. The stare doesn’t scream “romance” so much as “total serial killer”. #IJS
Scientist DH says neon is a noble gas, so maybe this guy is undercover royalty, with a lot of gas.
Those are tribal marks on the Tempting Fate cover. He’s Native American. S
Sorry, I actually *read* Tempting Fate, and the cover does a great job with capturing the essence of the character. Those are Native ceremonial scars, not blood, etc., and they tie into the story line. It’s a fantastic book, and series, so maybe brush up on context before you crack on what you don’t know. Oh, right, this is the judgement zone — silly me.
PS: I’ve enjoyed the SBTB site, but your comment on this particular cover was ill-informed and off the mark. I haven’t read the other books that you trashed so I can only comment on this one.
I don’t think “Tempting Fate”‘s torso is overly long so much as his pants hanging off his package instead of his hips, where we expect them, makes it appear so. Takes a lot of confidence to rely on your package to do the work of a belt. Epi.plumber’s crack in the back for sure .
Two things, one serious, one less so:
Kris/#13: I think you’re overrreacting. First, the post is clearly labeled “Cover Snark”, not “Book Snark”; the comments clearly speak only to the cover art and not to the content of the novel, so it’s unfair to accuse anyone of trashing the book. Second, as I look at that artwork, I can’t tell whether the marks I think we’re discussing are scars in the flesh or marks on the flesh. Whatever the intent was, that’s poor execution, and that’s very much within the scope of a Cover Snark post.
Zyva/#2: I have to think that “Victor Methos” is a pen name…and hope that whoever’s behind it has not been watching so much Highlander as to start thinking that There Can Be Only One among romance writers.
Yeah, even with the knowledge that those are supposed to be ceremonial markings or scars, I can’t distinguish that that’s what they are. His chest just looks greasy/mottled.
Aside from that, I feel like his torso really needed an unobstructed view of his ab “cuts” and belly button. It’s very unfortunate that the title blocks them out, because it does make his body look super long instead of his pants just being really low.
Tempting Fate is one of my favorites from 2017, and I really love Pamela Clare. That said, I still chuckled at your Cover Snark! I don’t believe that the SBs would snark to do harm or be mean-spirited about someone’s race etc., and I think it would be impossible to do Cover Snark and expect that someone knows everything there is to know before proceeding to snark. Now if this was written by non-romance fans/readers, I’d be a little annoyed, but I trust SBTB because I know they snark out of love and truly appreciate the genre. (snarksnarksnark)
I fully admit that I found the cover for this book belied the depth of what I read, which is unfortunate for anyone easily deterred by covers and “romance book shame” 🙂 But it was kind of cool though when part-way through the book, the ceremonial scars came up and I looked at the cover again and went “ohhhhhhhh”. Also, this was when I was on a mission to find romance novels with Native American protagonists that was respectful and not super stereotyped or racist, and I felt really good about this one. Highly recommend this book!
@Kate: Thank you for that. You’re totally right that Pamela Clare is brilliant, and although suspense is not my cup o’ wordy tea, I’ve recommended her books many, many times, especially for her portrayal of Native American characters. I also think it’s really cool that you can read a book then read additional, almost secret meaning into the cover art.
Please tell me there’s a secret meaning to his very very very very very low cut pants? Please?
And I’m thinking The Monad Chronicles rhymes with The Gonad Chronicles.
Monad… Does that mean he only has one testicle?
Tempting Fate… It’s obvious what fat is being but with pants that low, shouldn’t we be seeing some pubes?
Head Coach: As I was scrolling down seeing a lot of hair, nasty blue eyes and then the word “Head” I said to myself, “I hope the title of that book is not “Head Lice.”
Neon Lawyer… everything about that cover is just icky. Why didn’t Victor’s editor point this out? Also what a creepy title that is.
A cover is a sales tool. it should make a reader want to look inside.
If the ceremonial scars tie into the story, that’s great–but I’m not going to appreciate that fact until after I’ve read the story. They are not going to entice me to look past the cover.
Head Coach. HEAD Coach.
@John C Bunnell.
I don’t get your reference. Massive amounts of Americana have passed me by because I wouldn’t sit through ads, tv schedule jerking around etc. Most relevant here, not into romantic suspense.
Please take into account when I say, plainly, The Neon Lawyer is NOT a romance.
The book description of The Neon Lawyer. Clearly not a romance. Where is the rule written down that Cover Snark can only be about romance novels? Plenty of other books have horrible covers.
Here’s the book description. “With money and hope in short supply, newly minted attorney Brigham Theodore decides it’s time to lower his standards. He joins a seedy fly-by-night firm in Salt Lake City out of desperation. After he loses his first case—a speeding ticket—he’s convinced his career is over. But to his shock, his boss hands him a slightly more complex case: capital murder.
Brigham’s new client is Amanda Pierce, a lost, exhausted woman who gunned down the man who tortured and killed her six-year-old daughter. A jury may prove sympathetic to her unbearable pain, but the law is no fan of vigilante justice—and neither is Vince Dale, the slick and powerful prosecutor who’s never lost a murder case. There’s no question that Amanda pulled the trigger—she did it in front of five witnesses. If she pleads guilty, she will avoid a death sentence, but saving her life this way comes with an admission that what she did was wrong. However, if she refuses the “guilty” label, Brigham will have no choice but to fight for his career—and Amanda’s life.”
Green guy’s face reminded me of that movie Laserblast that was on MST3K.
Also I definitely read Head Coach as “Head Couch” … both sound like PornHub videos.
@Gloriamarie
The rule I’m following here is “signpost Nightmare Fuel”, NOT “keep snark to romance covers”. I got the impression *from this site* that many romance readers are running screaming from precisely the kind of gritty content I encountered in The Neon Lawyer…at least in their fiction choices, at least for sizeable chunks of time.
I’d be a big meanie not to speak up.
@Zyva – thanks for the warning. I appreciate it.
@SB Sarah: Secret meaning of pants? He’s an engineer so I thiiiiink the answer is: science. And maybe the rock climbing. Also I will say, I’m not a suspense person at all either, so I was happy that this one was suspense-light and not triggery. Biiiiiiiiig fan by the way! You all make my day, and the podcast is my favorite thing right now 🙂
@Zyva, you wrote, “The rule I’m following here is “signpost Nightmare Fuel”, NOT “keep snark to romance covers”. I really have no idea what you mean by “signpost Nightmare Fuel”.
The authors I know are involved in the development of and final choices for their covers. I have dissed covers of a cherished and dear friend and she appreciated honest feedback because she wants people to buy her books.
If a cover is dreadful, it is fair game for comments. Books with terrible covers can be enjoyable to read.
BTW, people here might like to know that a long-awaited sequel to a certain trilogy will be released on the very appropriate date of Halloween.
@Gloriamarie.
Re Nightmare Fuel. I already mentioned the “Jack the Ripper kid killer” (primary/backstory) antagonist in The Neon Lawyer. The graphic, gritty detail the book contains. (“Too gritty”, to borrow the terms of a Rec League requester.)
It’s not entirely simple to give a specific Nightmare Fuel content warning *obliquely*, ie give the “flavour” of the horror without the full, triggerific detail. Yet still, treading that fine line is a far cry from a blanket condemnation of cover commentary, presumably with said blanket ban being based on the pretext that the book isn’t “light” reading.
Fair warning on content is fully compatible with open season on covers… I just thought that, in this case, my familarity with the content did not add pizzazz to my thoughts on the cover.
But hey, suspect me of saying the cover is above commentary, and I will vengefully bore your socks off with my dull commentary:
The Neon Lawyer cover looks a touch gentler, close to soft focus in spots, than the content proved to be. …Although I suppose the “leave graphic content for the eleventh hour” move is next door to the least gruesome, “leave the details to the imagination” option. Kinda.
Otherwise I didn’t see the oddities people might well find viewing the cover in isolation. I assumed the guy was looking down the way people do when they feel like kicking rocks in frustration (in this case, frustration at injustice). In reality, most likely it’s no Rodin, this cover, but just goes to show how strongly the blurb can influence perception.
I fully accept science and rock climbing pants. No question.
Zyva/#23: Mea culpa; sometimes an intended joke just falls flat (OTOH, tagging the book as a romance was just sloppy on my part).
To explain: Methos is/was a major character in the Highlandar movie and TV franchise, played by Peter Wingfield — the premise of the story being a competition among capital-I Immortals to decapitate one another because There Can Only Be One. And this is the first time I’ve ever seen the name come up in modern context that isn’t overtly connected to the franchise character.
@John C. Bunnell.
Thanks for the explanation. The only One Thingmo that leapt to my mind was the One Ring in Tolkien.
For the rest, … It seems that Victor Methos is the real name of a real lawyer, with a legal thriller writing sideline. So, if there was a symbolically violent struggle for exclusive rights to the surname, he might win.
Btw I really hope the “wanna be The X name” idea doesn’t catch on. I have a ” ethnicity mismatch/ cultural borrowing” first name, plus a Nom de Mom chosen belatedly. I would be crushed by better claimants on all counts.
Is it just me or …
Yes, I know perfectly well what a “Head Coach” is. Thing is, with that extreme-close-up image, I can only read it as “guy who coaches your head” (like “Life Coach”, same intonation). What is he teaching me to think, and what qualifies him to teach it?
I couldn’t read past “The Monad Chronicles” without thinking “Ooooh, a romance novel about functional programming!”
I’d totally read that.
@Zyva, I recently came across another over that strikes me as just wrong. The cover itself is rather lovely but it has the title “Christmas in Atlantis” splashed across it and my reaction was “Whoa, Nellie, how is that possible?” After all, the first mention of Atlantis is in Plato writing approximately 6.5 centuries before Jesus was even born and Plato claims Atlantis sank some 9000 years before he wrote about it.
I looked up the book and the description only implies pagan times (it’s available for pre-order) but mentions spiked eggnog and Christmas decorations which only bemuses me further as eggnog is medieval in origin while Christmas decorations themselves if ornaments are meant, weren’t invented until after the Refornation.
While I realize various business, including publishers, love to milk the winter holiday season for every dime they can wrest from the hands of consumers, the legend of Atlantis has it sinking centuries, if not millennia before Christians starting celebrating Christmas, ergo there could not possibly be a Christmas in Atlantis. I have to cite the lack of that pesky appearance of verisimilitude.
While Christmas may be a secular observance to retailers, to many of us, it is still the celebration of the birthday of Jesus.Although it is said we are not to judge a book by its cover, we all do and there is no other information available.
Anyway, I am simply baffled by that title. Hmmm…maybe we could have a new feature… Title Snark… LOL