It’s Monday, which is the perfect day for Cover Snark!
From Deborah: I feel as if the horse is giving me a “don’t judge us” look, but…I’m judging. Oh, boy, am I judging.
Sarah: That horse looks like it would very much like some assistance, or at least an alternate breathing location that doesn’t include nipple.
I also admire how the L in “Royal” hugs the curve of the gentleman’s backside. That’s a nice touch.
Elyse: Poor horse. He didn’t consent.
He didn’t want this. He just wanted a sugar cube or an apple. Instead he got a face full of man titty.
Amanda: That “L” is definitely putting in some work.
CarrieS: A dog is a man’s best friend but a horse is a man’s best soulmate.
From Jenn: I’m submitting the book Fated by Rebecca Zanetti for a healthy dose of cover snark. First, please tell me I’m not the only one who saw this and at first glance thought it was titled “Farted”?! Second, what’s with the purple circle around his nether regions? Why not just a more obvious “your eyes here” label? And finally, are we to assume his testicles are supposed to be the Dark Protectors? So many questions…
Sarah: The circle is absolutely killing me. I can’t stop laughing.
Amanda: Just in case you didn’t know where his dingle is.
Elyse: This is like a shitty condom ad. “Dark Protectors! When regular condoms aren’t masculine enough for your fragile male ego!”
Amanda: Is his guitar tucked into his pants?
Sarah: I really don’t think that’s how you carry a guitar.
Maybe his pants are too stretched out, the elastic has given way, and that’s the only way to keep them on? With a whole entire guitar?
Elyse: There’s nipple sweat. Why is there nipple sweat?
Sarah: I imagine the guitar neck would chafe. Maybe his nipple is crying.
CarrieS: He is kinda bored but his guitar is happy to see you.
Amanda: A weeping nipple.
Sarah: No to all body parts weeping, aside from eyes, thanks.
Amanda: There isn’t too much to snark here but they really missed an opportunity to have his nipple be to the dot to the “i”.
Sarah: Or at the very least an umlaut.
CarrieS: The way he wears his flannel disturbs me. Is it windswept? Is part of it tucked in the back? This…is not how flannel works.
The pink circle looks like it’s trying to pull down his pants. Work harder, circle!
That horse is throwing some major shade with that side-eye: “Dude, neigh means neigh!”
Is the Halloween treat guy carrying a pile of books or a stack of planks? It might change my feeling about him if those are books.
I think that is a flannel bolero. Remember those short sweaters that only covered your shoulders?
I remember a story about someone shoplifting a guitar by stuffing it down their pants. It wasn’t a romance though, it was a either on a crappy customers type site or a news report.
That said, the angle looks wrong for it being down his pants. It does look like it’ll fall if he moves, because tucking the neck into the crook of your arm isn’t how anyone carries them.
Guitar man looks like he came out of a plastic injection mold. And the shiny spot is where he didn’t bake completely. Toss him on the seconds pile.
I saw that first cover & had a major flashback to the good old days of Fandom Wank and the man who ‘married’ his horse. Sadly, I couldn’t find the original thread but here’s an overview: https://www.dailydot.com/society/fandomwank-10-best-drama-stories-anniversary/ (scroll down to ‘his wife? a horse).
Dark protectors, as recommended by 9 out of 10 paranormal romance heroes…
I really hope that guy is standing on a mounting block or something. If he’s not, something is terribly wrong with either his legs or the horse’s.
The first cover makes me think of the quote: “There is no secret so close as that between a rider and his horse.” ~ R.S. Surtees
That said, looks like the horse got the oiling up on his muzzle for this cover, instead oiling up the guy’s chest. That is one short horse or a long-legged, pumped-up cowboy. The cover artist definitely has some skills with the placement of the L.
Could the Dark Protectors Official Purple Circle be some kind of shield? It’s kind of pulling his pants down or maybe there to distract us from that oddly place right nipple.
Guitar boy is definitely having some problems with his pants. Lots of pants issues today. I managed to get mine on before coming up to work this morning.
Mr. Halloween Treat grabbed the wrong shirt for the photo shoot and was captured forever in his little brother’s flannel. By the way, Tiffany Reisz’s holiday series is a lot fun!
I’m not hating that first cover because, you know, what Carrie said. Also had more than one horse face plant against my chest during an ear scritch.
And I can’t hate on flannel dude either. No matter how inappropriate an open shirt on a blustery fall day is, he’s a redhead toting a pile of books. He is my dream man.
My eyes keep reading “Royal Ass” for the first one. Maybe it’s because of the ass-hugging “L”?
You know if I had to guess, I’d guess ‘Halloween Treat’ guy *was* originally carrying a load of planks and the books got photoshopped in to make him look intellectual or something. Because no guy who spends that much time in the gym should be working that hard to carry a few books.
Also, the ass-hugging “L” is all the LOL.
Okay, so is Royal Atlas the name of the horse or is it what he has tattooed on his body like the guy from Prison Break? “Hey, take off your shirt, I need to see how far we are from the capital.”
I love the cover of Halloween Treat. I want that as a poster I can stare at while I burn my Mountain Lodge Yankee Candle.
Oh I love Her Halloween Treat! I know this isn’t a rec post but I stan hard for that one 🙂
Ya know, the more I look at the first one, the more I think he’s asking the horse “does my butt look fat in these jeans?” And the horse is all “what to say? Do I lie or tell the truth?”
And I’ve decided, based on LauraL’s comment above, that Dark Protectors are a line of jock straps, not condoms. Because a romantic suspense hero needs to protect his junk.
I have some questions about guitar guy’s pants-situation that have nothing to do woth the guitar. What is that hip tattoo? Is that meant to be a tentacle? A poorly drawn flame? A bad attempt of that “S” everyone drew in middle school? A tribute to his undying love of the number 33. It almost looks like those lines cartoonists draw over a character to indicate that they smell. Someone please tell me I’m not the only one seeing this…
@Bri:
Absolutely. That’s the smell when a man forgets to remove and wash his Dark Protector for a week.
There’s something wrong with the shirt. The cover artist using Photoshop missed the mark on this one.
Royal Thingummy (Royal Atlas? Isn’t that a traditional very large paper size?): It isn’t just the L. The curve of the R also matches the horse’s shape. This would imply that–shock and awe!–the cover was actually designed, rather than the usual
1. stock background
2. stock photo of male model with at least one visible nipple
3. stock foreground that has nothing to do with background
4. business with Photoshop (doesn’t matter whether it’s to add, delete, or implausibly move some part of the picture, so long as it’s obvious)
5. close your eyes and randomly select at least three, preferably five, unrelated fonts
Her Halloween Treat: Is her treat a realistically posed Ken doll in the original packaging?
I did think republics’ citizens weren’t big on tacking ‘Royal’ onto local things to jazz them up. I stand corrected. …And it turns out it’s kinda congruent in an odd way. The author writes some tearjerkers, including that Royal Horsestory series, and saddening is also the type of info Royal Commissions dig up, down my way.
Her “The Real Soccer Moms of Beaver County” series looks like way more fun, btw.
Coming in really late here, regarding #2 – go to google images, and do a search on “zen enso”, and you’ll immediately see why that purple circle had me wincing. Not only does it have nothing to do stylistically with the rest of the cover, but it’s about the only important symbol in zen, and that’s the most typical way of drawing it?
Seriously, WTF?
(…and, that particular brand of skeevy guy has always presented themselves as *Daoist* sex masters…)
Thank you for Guitar Guy, he made not only my day but also my mother’s and my siblings’ day(s?) as well. XD