I feel like Cover Snark is the perfect way to end 2018.
From MAOM. Thanks, MAOM!
Amanda: She smells something real bad.
Sarah: I bet he doesn’t wash beneath his wings.
Elyse: WHY IS HIS HEAD ON WRONG
It’s like when you were a kid and you popped the head off a Barbie and it never really went back on right again.
CarrieS: The woman and and I have he same facial expression right now.
Amanda: Thank goodness for commas.
Sarah: Oh dear god.
CarrieS: Medical body horror novel, right? Not a romance, right? RIGHT?
From She-Kilian: What’s he planning to do with that pitchfork?
Sarah: He looks like someone and it’s bugging me that I can’t identify who.
Amanda: Is that Michael Bolton?
Elyse: OMG it IS Michael Bolton!
Sarah: Oh, wait, maybe?
Maybe if Michael Bolton and that portrait of George Washington did a face swap?
CarrieS: “Unavailable” is not a level. He looks pretty chill for someone who is gonna fight gnomes. Hasn’t he seen Gravity Falls?
From Starlightarcher: I would like to submit a cover for potential cover snark. Because um…I don’t even play a doctor on tv, but I’m pretty sure that’s not ribs or abs are supposed to work.
Sarah: Something appears to have gone slightly wrong on ab day. Or Photoshop day. One of the two.
Amanda: I think he’s covertly doing the pit check.
CarrieS: Again: based on the “perfect town bit” – horror, right? A searing expose of racism and antisemitism and other isms? Not a romance, RIGHT?
Elyse: It’s like when the alien wears the Vincent D’Onfrio suit in Men in Black.
Abwahaha that Barbie doll head comment XD
These covers just keep getting more WAT the longer you go down. Honestly, the fourth is almost normal (for covers featured on Cover Snark, anyway).
Does it bother anyone else how fake rib-dude’s face looks? I know his ribs are weird, but it’s his face that’s really bothering me.
Also, yay for more Cover Snark! I didn’t think we’d get any till the New Year <3
Also also, Chase, the Bad Baby is an Amazon best-seller? Surely that must be from people just wanting to see how utterly insane it is, right?
And thrice again also (sorry, commenting while tired and sick and keep thinking of things to say after I’ve hit the post button!), that third cover is giving me the most pause. I’ve never seen a book cover with that much word salad in it. I mean, those are all certainly…words…it’s using there, but what any of them mean in relation to each other I have no idea.
That, and the creepy, creepy artwork that at first glance looks like a photo and then on second glance becomes a rather poorly-done, lifeless painting is giving me a little uncanny valley.
Of all the weird stuff that’s going on in the first cover I find myself wondering about the weird fingers on her belly most. Was a guitar photoshopped out of this picture? Does she have appendicitis? (That could explain the look on her face.)
Thanks for ending the year with a great cover snark; here’s to many more in 2019!
That angel looks like young Corey Feldman. Perhaps he is not an angel but a gym-obsessed time lord who just whisked that appalled young woman out of a convenience store, hence her expression (wait, I was getting Doritoes you mfer!)
The first guy’s head and body clearly don’t go together, but who among us has not decapitated a stock model who just didn’t have the look we were going for?
My question is: Why THAT head? It can’t be the hair, which is also clearly shopped. Must be the sexy lipless food slot or the serial killer stare at the camera (he’s letting you in on the secret that he’s about to shove her off a cliff!) that’s universally acknowledged as cover catnip.
Is it just me, or does Legacy Builder’s hair look kinda like tentacles, more jellyfish than squid?
All I can see on Legacy Builder is Richard Gere. I DON’T KNOW WHY.
The first cover looks like they used the same face from different angles for both characters…unless, of course, the “unintentional entanglement” is that they don’t discover they’re actually brother and sister until after they’ve made out for the first time.
As for Legacy Builder, I was so distracted by the second character (is that Peter Drinklage as Eddie Vedder in a recreation of an early-nineties Pearl Jam video?) that I didn’t even notice all the other weird stuff going on—like, the completely disconnected way the guy is holding that pitchfork. Dude, you are not baling any hay holding that thing like that!
And now I must confess my greatest shame (perhaps greatest “stain”), I actually had DISGRACE on my “Read if it shows up as a freebie or for 99-cents” list…but now I’ve seen the cover, well, I’m not so sure.
@Luce, OMG I was so distracted by his weird head that I didn’t even look at the hand until you pointed it out. Is he trying to stick his finger in her belly button?! No wonder she’s making that face!
Thanks for the laughs, SBTB!
Angel’s arms seem proportioned wrong, like Ken doll forearms snapped onto The Hulk’s upper arms.
All I can see on “Legacy Builder” is Freddy Krueger. Its Nightmare on Elm Street with pitchforks.
LOVE the Forever 21 outfit on the girl of the “Angel” book. It’s like they kidnapped a girl walking through the mall for a cover shoot.
“Thank goodness for commas.”
Legacy Builder guy also looks like some Owen Wilson was thrown into the Michael Bolton/George Washington/Freddy Krueger mix. And is the guy behind him a gnome? He’s pretty casual, with his hands in his pockets, while Owen is ready to do battle.
Disgraced guys milky eyes are more troubling than his torso to me. Dead or inhuman.
OK, I just came over from DA where Jane posted a sale book, Lesson that Taught Love by GL Tomas, that really could have used some of your snark treatment. The cover model’s pigmentation changes so dramatically the lower down her body you look. Did no one think this would be noticeable?!
MULLET RICHARD MARX is who the first guy’s head reminds me of. Whew, that’s been bothering me all day.
First cover: yeah, the hand. Is that his hand? Her hand? A third option?
Last cover: Just like the first cover, I don’t believe the head is the original that goes with the body.
I’m constantly amazed by these covers. Is anyone checking before publishing or printing? What author thinks “yeah! My cover is awesome!” after seeing the above? Are beer goggles involved?
My take is the angel’s head is the original and the “Barbie head not right effect” is from the way his hair was did by the Photoshopper. For sure, that hair was altered. No one has hair like that except a family friend of ours who is stuck in the 80s and Richard Marx, thank you Ren Benton. The heroine has smelled something bad and is thinking whether or not she has enough Mr. Clean when she should be thinking about that very creepy hand.
Chase, the Bad Baby is a self-published legal thriller. Chasing the bad baby away from the Christmas tree is what many of us have been doing over the past few weeks.
@ Dena – I also saw Richard Gere (having a greasy hair day) on The Legacy Builder. Is he defending the town with a pitchfork? Just like the good old days. The gnome is simply creeping me out with his leer.
Disgrace appears to be an angsty, post-divorce romance with a bad boy hero. The shifty eyes on the cover guy gave it all away to me so I can skip this book.
Happy New Year and happy reading and snarking to one and all.
El Greco’s Crucifixion. It is a disgrace.
I love this feature.
Angel model is Jason Aaron Baca and that is how he looks (that is, his head and body) except for the hair. His hair is short and yes, someone did a lousy job putting extra hair on his head. The same author’s A Vampire’s Unlikely Alliance shows him with short hair. He is also the model on Michelle M. Pillow’s Perfect Prince so you can see he does have a good physique. On that one, however, someone gave him long hair that could actually be natural. He is also on Lynn Raye Harris’ Hot Mess with his natural short hair.
OMG the blurb on the first one…
“Fallen warrior angel, Caden Silverwind, lives alone in Colorado’s rugged Rockies, healing from physical wounds as well as the mental anguish suffered during battles with dark demons. Then he finds a woman barely clinging to life after a horrendous beating. He is not prepared for the entanglement she brings to his life, nor the feelings she awakens in him.
Bureau of Indian Affairs Agent, Mystic Rayne’s personal dilemma and assignment nearly gets her killed. Divine intervention is a complication she never expected and her growing attraction to Caden is undeniable. Can she trust him with her secret?
Their quest to uncover her attacker takes them from the pristine mountains in Colorado to the wilds of Wyoming. Along the way, they find answers which may place them in more danger. Determined to solve the mystery, they must also navigate their feelings and fears to find love and unite heaven and earth.”
Silverwind? Mystic Rayne??
Plus that the book’s no 4 in the Demon’s Witch series!?
Amazingly, the second book is by a lawyer.
Though maybe it only amazes me because I’m Australian and where I’m from using an identifiable stock photo of a surgeon to sell your malpractice-related wares is a defamation case waiting to happen: cf Nixon v Slater & Gordon [2000] FCA 531.
I can’t even get past the font on the first one to look at the picture. Why did they use two different fonts? They used one for the first three words and a completely different one for Entanglement, then went back to the first font for the author’s name.
The eyes on Disgrace are also disturbing me @Susan. It’s like there is only the white of the eye and the rest is missing.
Re “Legacy Builder” with pitchfork.
My brain must be Frozen because I thought “Gnome Name: Crags” meant the human protagonist was adopted by gnomes. Or body-swapping à la Avatar.
Music-wise, the fashion sense etc reminds of Chris Franklin’s Aussie Weird Al Yankovic’d version of Meredith Brooks’ hit “Bitch”.
Was a guitar photoshopped out of this picture?
Last time we had a cover picture featuring a really bizarre finger position, someone hereabouts rounded up her resident Guitar Expert and was able to identify exactly what chord he was air-guitaring.
Anyway, what’s with all the covers where he and she are looking in different directions and clearly thinking entirely different thoughts? She: “Uhm… Did I leave the oven on?” He: “Is it supposed to be D sharp or D natural?”
Happy New Year, all. I’m concerned that the angel’s wings both appear to be attached to his left shoulder. It seems that would make flying a bit difficult. But maybe that’s the physical injury @Zyva reports. He lost a wing in battle and the surgical re-attachment went horribly wrong.
Can we say “Unintentional Entanglement” three times really fast?
Oh, and spot-on with the Barbie head.
Speaking of heads, what in the world is on the forehead of The Legacy Builder?