Buckle up for some Cover Snark, everyone!
From NCK: Why are his edges showing? It looks like his hair was pasted on.
Sarah: I remain hesitant to go near his hair. Perhaps it’s the light or the yellow shading, but I fear it may be radioactive.
Amanda: Is that a Jonas brother?
Sarah: I thought the same thing!
Amanda: Maybe that field is where they grow ’em. Like little cabbage patch babies.
Sarah: The Jonas Patch?
Amanda: Sounds about right.
Pick your own personal Jonas in our state of the art Jonas Patch!
Sarah: Now I’m picturing a Boy Band Orchard. Free gallon of cider with each bushel?
CarrieS: You know, other than the hair, I like this one. Yellow isn’t my fav color, but at least it’s different, and I like the flowers. If only he didn’t have sort of a vacant expression, like he’s trying to see if maybe there’s some weed in those weeds.
From Annette: OMG, it certainly looks like he got hit in the kneecap…or the nuts. Either way I’m pretty sure seduction isn’t on his mind.
Amanda: Should grizzlies be plural here? Methinks not?
Sarah: I’m doing a lot of existential pondering in how shifter/human psychology and awareness is written. Are they siblings of a sort? Are they aware of each other? Are they the same consciousness or separate? Does one have more control than the other? Do they exist as two beings in one body?
That would be a terrific plot, actually: a shifter psychologist doing research into how human/shifter consciousnesses coexist in different species/series.
I’ve now over-thought enough about this cover.
Elyse: Why the kneecap though? That’s so oddly specific.
CarrieS: Nothing about this cover is appealing on any level whatsoever. And yes, I too wonder about the kneecap.
Elyse: I’m not a doctor but I don’t think the human neck is supposed to do that.
Amanda: Side boob alert!
Sarah: Her hand is alarming me. Is she going to remove his soul through his trapezius muscle!?
CarrieS: This cover makes my neck hurt.
Amanda: It’s gonna hurt when he crashes into her face.
Sarah: Well, they do have ice right there.
Elyse: This is like super discount Cirque de Soleil
CarrieS: Major bonus points for color and a sense of movement. Demerits for a sense of movements that make a collision painful and inevitable. Also…does he have a face? All I see is hair.
Stealth Maneuvers: are her eyes open? She is not enjoying this embrace of sorts. Or she’s just freaked out by his neck.
The guy on the first cover looks like Issac Hanson to me!
While commas clearly save lives [let’s eat, Grandma!], apostrophes are just as critical for salvaging one’s mental health. I could have found a way to deal with the weirdly plural possessive “Grizzlies’ kneecap,” but without the apostrophe, there is no bloody way.
I thought the series was “The Grisly Grizzlies” and the hero of this particular book was called Kneecap.
Each subsequent book would be named after a hard body part (Skull, Teeth, etc), and of course everyone would be waiting for the last in the series.
WHIRLWIND’s cover model looks like Ryan Reynolds and (a young) Val Kilmer had a baby.
Oh dear, I just finished Jaine Diamond’s DEEP and DEEPER duet—and DEEPER has the same cover as STEALTH MANEUVERS except they’ve airbrushed tattoos on the hero. I liked the books, but I’m never going to be able to think of the hero again without seeing his elongated neck!
Maybe it’s my screen, but the yellow on “Whirlwind of Color” seems rather muted.
I think Kneecap is screaming because fast-growing vines have burrowed under his skin. He’s done for.
Tides: underwater glacier tunnel? No crash, because they’re swimming. Water is too clear, give us a little swirl.
The first cover put me in mind of a much better one – Dee Ernst’s “A Slight Change of Plan”. No guy on the cover of that one, but dandelions & lots of green. Very soothing. I’d link to it but I’m typing on my phone while waiting at the ophthalmologist’s office & just getting this typed is stressful enough. Anyway, crop out Creepy-Haired Guy & I like it!
Mr. Jonas on the first cover likely uses more hair product than all the Bitchery combined. He can’t remember if you do “she loves me, she loves me not” with a daisy or a buttercup.
I think the grizzlies were both awakened early from hibernation or are hangry. Are those ferns growing on the human’s body? No wonder he is screaming. Some ferns can cause skin irritation.
I’m concerned about the Stealth Maneuvers couple. Why are they without shirts and near a flag? Are they exhibitionists? Did they use their shirts to put out a fire? So many questions and my neck hurts, too.
When were mermen added to the Weeki Wachee Springs mermaid show?
I don’t get why they would block the author’s name with the Kneecap model’s head.
@Marian Perera It is called Grisly Grizzlies with a colon and then the poor man’s name. In this case Kneecap. Rather sadly, they don’t go with your body parts idea. The first is I believe named Lachlan. 99 five star reviews if I read that right, so the bear-shifter thing is a goer. K
Atlantis dude does have a face if I zoom in but it’s NOT an improvement. Holy pointy chin.
Also, that is a lot of fonts.
I don’t know about his kneecap but his arms sure are grisly. He’s probably screaming at whoever gave him that stupid name.
Some nice ballet going on down at Atlantis but I hope she keeps sliding past fast enough so she doesn’t become a casualty
You know, I also have seen multiple versions of that ET-necked guy on the Stealth Maneuvers cover and may have actually sent one to y’all. I’m pretty sure they’d completely shaded out the woman’s boobs in that one though.
I think that the Kneecap cover has a major typo. It was actually supposed to be Gristly Grizzlies and was a cautionary tale about the evils of shifter cannibalism. This totally explains cover guy’s urgliness. Also I suspect his head is obliterating the author’s name due to the ongoing feud between cannibal shifter bears and c. s. foxes.
Re: Whirlwind – So why, exactly, is Nick Jonas wearing a croissant on his head?
@Qualisign Surely the lack of punctuation indicates that ‘kneecap’ is being used as a verb? So then it’s just a sentence with a missing object. The Grisly Grizzlies Kneecap … who, exactly? Their graphic designer?
Still works as a series, too. The Grisly Grizzlies Kneecap, The Grisly Grizzlies Headbutt, The Grisly Grizzlies Sucker-Punch and Run Away …
I think the woman in “Stealth” is trying to give him the Vulcan nerve pinch so he’ll retract his freaky long neck.
@Andi Thanks so much for the grammatical alternative for kneecap as verb rather than noun. While a direct object would help, you have restored my mental health!
Stealth Maneuvers: she’s clearly Vulcan and is about to neck pinch the hell out of this creep whose kiss she clearly isn’t enjoying at all. Get ‘im, girl!
A Whirlwind of Color: Needs more fonts. And that’s not something you hear every day on Cover Snark. And, uhmm, did the designer think the title is A Single Shade of Yellow?
@Marian Perera:
Each subsequent book would be named after a hard body part
Darn, beat me to it. I too wondered if it’s a series: The Grisly Grizzlies: Toe, The Grisly Grizzlies: Ankle, The Grisly Grizzlies: Shin and so on up.
Stealth:
I knew I’ve seen that Vulcan nerve pinch before!!! It was on another cover snark!
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2018/10/cover-snark-dukes-in-space/ — scroll down to the last cover
Aw, thanks for posting mine! I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who thinks it’s a tad ridiculous.
As for poor Kneecap, one of the creepiest things my sister – she’s a nurse – has ever said is “What prominent veins you have!”, and that’s all I can think of looking at this cover.
@NCK Agree about the veins. I think his arms are secretly a subway map. Let me see if I can find the stops I usually take as part of my commute. Also I’m wondering how he got the name Kneecap.
I’m all for a stroll in the Boyband Patch.