You feel that? That’s the feeling of Cover Snark, just waiting to be read and enjoyed. That’s what that is!
From Jennifer. Thanks, Jennifer!
Sarah: I think I know where the baby is. I’m rather surprised she doesn’t.
Amanda: Is the baby lost, so he/she contacted a mail order bride in order to be found?
RHG: Too bad we didn’t have this one for the Mail Order Bride Rec league.
Sarah: Is this also a secret baby romance? If the baby is lost, is it a secret, or vice versa?
That would be some powerful trope combination.
Amanda: I mean, the baby isn’t exactly secret? His head is the size of a Volkswagen. It also creeps me out that the photoshop did a decent job of having the baby’s head resting on the heroine’s shoulder.
RHG: The heroine looks a little like Keira Knightly, doesn’t she?
Sarah: She’s being crushed by a giant Photoshop baby, it’s true.
Keira Knightley, yes. Or Penelope Cruz.
Amanda: She looks more like Katie Holmes to me.
Sarah: Oh good call. Very true.
Amanda: Also, the more I stare at her, the longer her neck seems.
Sarah: Oh yeah, her neck is troubling me, too. I keep measuring my own.
CarrieS: PHOTOBOMB!
Amanda: Upon first glance, I thought she was milking his tie into the cupcake.
RHG: …I don’t think that is accidental.
Sarah: I think the cupcake is…doing something cupcakes don’t typically do?
CarrieS: Did she just yank a dagger out of that cupcake and stab him in the neck? Are sure this is a romance?
Elyse: That cupcake probably isn’t safe to eat now. Why would you ruin a perfectly good cupcake like that?
From an anonymous duo.
Amanda: She’s clearly trying to make a break for it.
Sarah: It is difficult to say who is more uncomfortable at this moment, the person in the white shirt or me.
CarrieS: That’s not what I’d call enthusiastic consent. Also, I’ve been at the base of many a pier, and let me tell you, it doesn’t smell very romantic down there.
Sarah: I just guffawed and scared the cat. That is very true. It’s a stinky place.
Elyse: That is clearly a “Whoa? What did you have for lunch today?” face.
Amanda: Look at those noodly fingers.
Are they super long to anyone else?
RHG: Super long.
Elyse: Whoa. No. Do not like.
That’s like some Slender Man shit
CarrieS: The only problem I have is trying to figure out if he’s a teen or if he’s supposed to be a grown man who skateboards. Skateboards are great so I don’t know what my problem is, but the idea of a 25 year old still skateboarding seems not right.
…Averting my eyes from the baby because it’s freaking me out; wow, that girl in the third pic is REALLY not into that guy. I’m sensing even less enthusiasm than the old-school cover for Essie Summers’s Summer in December, where the girl is kissing the guy and he looks physically pained. I kind of hope those figures were photoshopped together, because otherwise I’m a bit uncomfortable about the dynamics at that photoshoot!
And eek, fingers.
On this episode of How Not to Font, we explore the definition of “accent fonts” and show what happens when they’re abused.
Skateboards are great so I don’t know what my problem is, but the idea of a 25 year old still skateboarding seems not right.
By 25, one should have enough of a sense of one’s mortality to reconsider activities that frequently involve pitching headfirst into concrete. There are lots of activities that aren’t inherently immature that process as immature to me because the potential consequences seem too irresponsible for an adult. Even if the result isn’t death or irreparable brain damage, who the hell can afford to have broken fingers? Someone who has a momma figure to wait on him while he recovers. Therefore, instant interpretation as an entitled manbaby.
Cover snark is always fun.
The first cover has so much going on in so many eras. She’s got a Madonna with a long neck vibe going on and that’s medieval. But she’s dressed early Georgian. The title board is definitely wild west. And the baby is 21st century. Is it a time travel book?
The second cover is definitely giving a murder mystery vibe. I wouldn’t be eating that cupcake.
The third cover just goes to show what happens when you go out dressed like that young lady.
The last one. Yeah. I don’t think I have ever seen such a clean skateboarder.
The last one spelled “maverick” wrong. Unless the dude is named “Mavrick Allstar”, which would be stupid.
Can I just say that, while the cover is all kinda wtf-ery, I love that baby’s face: those big surprised eyes and the mouth just ready to emit a loud coo (or, conversely, spit up) makes me smile.
@Herberta Really, why did the author hold back? It could be Mavrick Allstr
Is it just me or does that baby look just like Bernie Sanders?
Is it only me or does Mavrick look like a concerned pretty boy who’s showing those troublesome skinny fingers to a physician? “No, they’ve always been this way, is that normal?”
Thank you for making me start out my week looking at someone giving a handjob to a cupcake. I feel better about going to work now.
It doesn’t help the first cover that the giant baby also has a fuzzy aura around it.
I know it’s probably from the photoshopping, but I’m getting a weird, alien vibe off it. (The size is not helping. No earth woman gave birth to giant baby.)
I can’t even figure out what’s going on on the second cover. She appears to either be stabbing a cupcake or trying to prove she’s the rightful ruler of Candyland by pulling it out.
Given the way her fingers are wrapped around the blade, I assume the blood is her’s, but the splatter pattern is all wrong.
The third cover, her hand placement suggests she’s going for a good grip before slamming her knee between his legs.
The fourth cover… is he wearing a leather hoodie? That seems impractical.
On the Breaking Rules cover: Why is that woman’s hand a different color from the rest of her? It looks like they photoshopped in a mannequin’s hand.
You’d think the Maybe guy would show a little more reaction to that cupcake’s arterial bleed. He is very calm in the presence of stabby Ms. Thing, cupcakes that bleed, and cupcake blood stains on his white shirt.
Alternative theory: Ms. Thing has a grip on his tie to repeatedly smash his face into a conveyor belt of cupcakes. In which case he is still too calm and I protest the waste of cupcakes.
noodly
I just spit coffee all over my keyboard.
That first cover. My Lord. I can’t believe someone is actually okay with this being use on their novel. I thought the tie in the second cover at first glance was a knife covered in blood and then I realized it was a tie covered in chocolate cupcake. *craghing at these cover*
I hadn’t realized that I apparently have limits when it comes to cupcake pr0n.
Why, given that living creatures are so hard to photoshop in a natural way, do so many self-pubbed authors insist on using covers with humans and other living creatures on their covers?
I am an absolute sucker for men with long slender fingers. It’s the only feature I can think of that will cause me to give a guy’s hotness factor a multiple-point bonus. But APPARENTLY EVEN I HAVE LIMITS.
@Anonymous: You’re not the only one. I call them musician fingers (even if he’s not a musician), but that guy’s are disturbingly skeletal and kinda look like he’s missing his distal knuckles.
The mail order bride is a little, make that a lot, too neat and tidy for someone who has crossed the country in a stagecoach or possibly has milked the cows and hoed the vegetable garden before posing with her book. Did babies photobomb in the early 19th century?
Breaking Rules girl looks like she is not being led into temptation, thus trouble. I’m thinking a fear of the tide rising quickly combined with the kisser’s breath has made this a bad day for her. The only trouble she is worrying about is passing out and getting washed out to sea.
She hasn’t just crossed the country. She has crossed the Pacific from what was then Burma, where she was raised as a member of the Kayan tribe. Feel free to make up a backstory involving a missionary father who died when she was a child, and the relatives back home didn’t find her until she was almost grown up.
A few more minutes among the dead seaweed and used condoms, and getting washed out to sea will begin to look like the more attractive option.
That cupcake cover made me think I had discovered a new paranormal category. You use the magic spatula to stab the victim in the neck. He bleeds chocolate icing and becomes a cupcake shifter!
WHY must they continue to put babies on the cover of romance books? There should be a rule against this sort of thing.
The mail order bride troubles me. I’ve read about women with a swan-like neck being considered attractive, but never a woman with a giraffe-like neck. And did she swallow a golf ball or does she, in defiance of the vast majority of her sex, have an Adam’s Apple?
Baby on the first cover: “I KNOW YOU SEE ME GET ME OUT OF THIS BOOK”
Also, yes, long neck. I think it grew in-between my first and second look at the cover.
Hm.
“E.T. phone home!”
Second cover: Hm, she must have concealed a dagger in his tie. “Honey, come here, your tie looks loose–” “HRRK”
Third cover: I – yeah, my first thought was, “I’m willing to agree with the tagline, but that girl doesn’t look tempted to do anything more than break that guy’s teeth. Are the rules being broken the ones of their relationship?”
Fourth cover: Oh look, somebody cloned Shawn Mendes. And did to his fingers whatever was done to the widowed bride’s neck.
(Wait…how can you still be a bride if you’re widowed?)
We had some very nice piers in Southern California to hang out under. I actually took most of our family’s holiday pictures under piers when we lived down there… I mean, everything else about all of those covers is incredibly disturbing, but not that element for me.
Another reader from SoCal on the nice piers thing, Christine is right! They aren’t that bad of a place to make out, assuming you actually want to make out and not pitch your partner into the sea as I think that gal does.
Also as a Californian, know plenty of people who are still skateboarding into their 40s so have less of an issue with the last cover except those fingers. I agree with Ren that Mavrick (*cringe*) is missing his distal knuckles, or they’ve been moved perilously close to his fingertips.
I really thought the guy on the cupcake cover had been stabbed in the throat, then was very confused about why someone jammed the end of the knife into a dessert. It would be useful if you got hungry while murdering, I suppose.
No words for the first cover, but that title looks like it came straight out of the Random Harlequin Title Generator. Anyone know if that’s still online?
A few seconds with the world’s leading search engine led to Romance Title Generator, although the randomizer seems to have confused romance and fantasy/SF.
SusanE – CUPCAKE SHIFTER. Dying here!
@Louise: Well, that’s a time sink!
My favorite was “The Churchyard of the Unknown Scent,” better known by its original title, “Who Farted?: A Breathlessly Wholesome Church Potluck Romance.”
#1) You overlook the obvious explanation for the baby: his parents are giants.
#2) I am disturbed by this trend to only show the lower portion of a man’s face on covers. What is wrong with the top halves, I always wonder.
If that cupcake had an explosive bleed when she stabbed it, why didn’t any of the cupcake blood get on his face?
Is it a vampire cupcake, is that why she stabbed it?
3) I wonder who thought this was romantic? I question their judgment.
Also, what is that ominous object on the horizon?
#4) I hope this guy is a pianist. Can you imagine the reach he would have on those keys?
As for people over 25 skateboarding, I can tell that CarrieS has not spent much time in San Diego and LA and points in between where people in their 60s are still skateboarding.
@Gloriamarie: Re: ominous object, I vote for pirate ship. Not because it makes any logical sense, but because, in the immortal words of the grandson from The Princess Bride, “Murdered by pirates is good.”
@Mary, or the pirate captain, a wronged peer of the realm, is coming to rescue her from the clutches of that man whose attentions are so distasteful to her.
@Gloriamarie: I like it! Sounds like a much better story 😉
Also, I forgot to mention this in my last reply, but yes, those fingers would be excellent for a pianist! I bet he could reach a tenth at least.