Cover Snark: Meet Bubbles

We hope you’re ready for Cover Snark!

Bubbles by Candace Evans. A buff brown-skinned man stands in front of a red car in an auto body shop.

Amanda: What the Goodreads description doesn’t mention is that Bubbles (the hero) is a werewolf.

Sarah: Bubbles the Werewolf!!!!

Amanda: Who is also an ex-con and is in a motorcycle club.

Sneezy: Double Bubbles, toil and trouble.

Foam and pout, like cheesecake wobbles.

Lara: Before I saw the name, I saw the shoulder. I’m not even sure what that muscle is called, but I’m pretty sure that muscle on top of the shoulder shouldn’t be square. Or is it a shadow?

Ellen: It’s a shadow but it’s an incorrectly shaped shadow based on where the light seems to be coming from otherwise…kinda looks like he’s got a baby alien gestating in that trapezius muscle.

Catherine: I’m still stuck on Bubbles the Werewolf, honestly.

Gruff Ass in Love by Sasha Burke. A man with his shirt unbuttoned and in a cowboy hat is tipping the brim in our direction.

Amanda: All the books in this series have an ass theme.

Bare Ass, Hard Ass, Gruff Ass.

Sarah: Gruff?

Amanda: Yeah, that’s a new one for me.

Sarah: Like, the crime dog?

Elyse: It sounds like a fungal issue to me.

Carrie: No. I’m not shaming y’all. If this book speaks to you, so be it. But no, no, no, no, no.

Sarah: Carrie, that was rather gruff.

Carrie: I say it like I see it!

Sneezy: Cheese Grater Ass

Lara: The tagline says “no euphemism”… and I might regret this, but I would like a literal photo of a gruff ass, please. Morbid curiosity FTW.

Ellen: Wait, which part are we supposed to take literally? That he has a gruff ass or that he has likeable rocks?

Catherine: It’s a pity, really, because it would be quite a nice cover without that title. And now all I’m thinking about is billy goats. Specifically, the three billy goats Gruff, Ass, and Love. Oh my…

The Lost Lords Bundle by Mary Jo Putney. A blonde-haired woman sits upon a pink, cushiony couch. Her dress is also bright pink, though it appears her neck has gone missing.

From Lucy C: Hello, this lady has no neck and I want someone to know that.

Amanda: That empire waist is doing her no favors.

Sarah: Duly noted, Lucy. No neck, AND bad photoshop.

Elyse: Remember when you’d pull the head off your Barbie and it never went on right again? That’s what this looks like.

From L: I’m still having a laugh at the woman’s photoshopped head.

Sarah: Looking at it again, it almost looks like someone stepped on her.

Carrie: The photoshopping is awful and so is the title – but I can I just say that every single time I try to be elegant I end up in that exact position – slumped over, legs sprawled around, dress all bunched up? I feel you, my poorly photoshopped sister.

Sneezy: Is anyone else creeped out by the dude lurking in the back? Why does he look so flat and…weird shaped? It’s like he’s a laser printed gingerbread man stuck onto the wall.

Lara: The poor lady has been turned into a reverse bobble-head… her head belongs on a much smaller person.

Ellen: For once a cover that is not improved by the inclusion of a head.

The Game Warden's Mate by A.M. Griffin. In front of a glowing fuchsia background is a headless man covered in tufts of dark fur. We don't mean chest hair. We mean everywhere-hair.

From Sandy: I’ve come across some covers that I wanted to send in the past but I couldn’t pass this one. If I have to look at that then others have to too. The Game Warden’s Mate is just a complete train wreck.

Sarah: What happened to this poor man?!

Amanda: Is this…a bigfoot romance?

Sarah: I don’t know. According to the line at the bottom it’s a “abduction sci-fi romance.”

Elyse: There’s not enough neck on that thing to justify the chest and shoulders.

Carrie: There’s medication for that, buddy.

Sneezy: I can’t decide if he looks like he’s wearing the most useless coat, the furriest stripper costume, or the most half-assed armor.

Lara: Did he hold still in the ocean for a real long time? Long enough for seaweed to make a happy home on his bosom?

Ellen: Why does his torso have a mustache? I feel like a mouth is about to open from his midsection and start talking.

Catherine: It looks like he’s got moss or something growing on his chest. And arms. That can’t be good for you.

Comments are Closed

  1. Antipodean Shenanigans says:

    Is it bad that the dealbreaker for me to buy Gruff Ass in Love is that the geology student heroine is described as “clumsy”? Up until then, I was on board.

  2. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    Faces on chests again! Noooooooo!

  3. Escapeologist says:

    Bubbles has a lopsided chest, and his pants don’t look right – where’s the zipper? Is this actually a denim mini skirt?

  4. Kit says:

    No @Antipodean Shenanigans it isn’t. I find the clumsy heroine stereotype highly irritating. It’s a personal thing for me, I’m dyspraxic and clumsiness is sort of a common occurance for me, I’m ok with accident prone characters in novels, but it’s often played for laughs and extra infuriating when the heroine is magically cured at the end by love. It doesn’t work like that! Ok rant over, wouldn’t read the book for that reason, the bullet point blurb and the disclaimer at the end (No cheating, cliff hangers etc and a HEA! Don’t get me started on those…)

  5. Ren Benton says:

    I see your Bubbles and raise you BOOGER, another biker book (alas, no werewolf that I can ascertain) named after the hero, title smeared across the cover in an infectious green hue. The heroine fondly refers to him as Boog. I know it’s hard, but try to control your rampaging libidos.

    (h/t @flyawayfairy on Twitter for picking it)

  6. Kit says:

    Bubbles? Isn’t that a My Little Pony? Speaking of eighties toys, cover number four looks like that hairy He Man figure (forgot his name), after being chewed by the dog.

  7. Jazzlet says:

    I can not work out where that woman’s legs are supposed to be, or come to that the rest of her torso, is it very long or is she sitting on a lot of cushions

  8. Jazzlet says:

    Oh and I’ve just worked out what Bubble’s shoulder reminds me of – mine the time I broke the tip off my collar bone, it looked very much like that, very wrong. I wouldn’t have been able to ride a motorcycle when it was like that.

  9. Zyva says:

    Was ‘grumpy bum’ taken? The “Day My Bum Went Psycho” franchise has gone too far!
    (However, my lizard brain thinks a Grumpy Bear tattoo would be hot wherever it was sited.)

    Bigfoot at the bottom makes me think Abe’s Odyssey villain. IF they were so kind as to do euphemistic close-ups during death scenes, blocking out the carnage at the jugular with the bulk of the torso.

  10. Trish says:

    I think Bubbles jeans are on backwards.

  11. Tina says:

    My first thought when I saw that last cover is: “Does the poor guy have Mange? Alopecia…? Chest Pattern Baldness…?”

    Not to be shallow (ok I am ) but dude, that cover is not attractive.

  12. Amanda C says:

    I just see a giant gapping mouth on the Game Wardens chest.

  13. Cates says:

    So I couldn’t resist looking up The Game Warden’s Mate, and let me just say that whatever your assumptions about the plot of this book, they’re almost certainly wrong.

    I was flummoxed when I found the book’s Amazon page and saw that the subtitle had been changed from ‘an abduction sci fi romance’ to ‘an alien abduction romance.’ Like the SBs, I had assumed that this was some sort of Big Foot/werewolf/shifter romance.

    Oh no. It’s so much worse. (No offense intended if you’re into shifter romances. To each their own.)

    Apparently Xrez Ym’ihla is both the titular Warden AND the unevenly furry fellow on the cover. He runs some sort of Interstellar Hunger Games and finds himself falling for one of the kidnapped contestants forced to compete in the game. Maybe I’m wrong and this extreme power inequality is handled with grace and finesse. Maybe the author manages to write a safe, sane, and completely consensual romance between this woman taken against her will and the man who holds her life in his hands. It just seems very unlikely to me.

    Either way, I don’t know what I expected but that wasn’t it.

  14. Sandra says:

    A biker named Bubbles…. I just can’t fathom it. Even for a weekend warrior type.

    And amazing that the game warden has all that fur and yet. There are his nips in all their bare glory. Does he wax certain portions of his anatomy?

  15. EC Spurlock says:

    Game Warden is Chewbacca, hunting for vengeance on whoever put the Nair in his shampoo bottle.

  16. I’m shocked–shocked!–that none of you Bitches have noticed the missing apostrophe. Losing a whole bundle of lords is seriously negligent and will shake the foundations of Regency England.

  17. denise says:

    Bigfoot looks a bit mangy.

    Run from any wereman/werewolf/male shifter named Bubbles. Unless you’re into that.

  18. LMC says:

    I just see a spider head in the last one. That would be a mood killer if the molting chest doesn’t already do it.

  19. batgirl says:

    The Game Warden looks to me as if Robot Monster has been working out.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Monster

  20. lils says:

    By the title of the second cover I was expecting a mule/donkey shifter.

    And when is abduction ever romantic? Not my idea of a romantic weekend getaway

  21. Janet M says:

    Are the lords lost on their mission to find the lady a new roll of TP?

  22. DonnaMarie says:

    @Kit, Beastman.
    Yes, I have that brain.

  23. Louise says:

    Gruff Ass: Raise your hand if you started in the top left and therefore misread the circled blurb as “The Hat … Forever series”. (But is that my favorite font, Avant Garde? If so, I take it all back.)

    The Lost Neck Bundle: I can’t stop thinking of one of Claudette Colbert’s co-stars who in a moment of exasperation exclaimed “I’d wring your neck, if you had one!”

    The Game Warden’s Mate: the line “his game, his rules” just adds a layer of confusion and distraction, because game doesn’t belong to the game warden. That’s kinda the point.

    @Kimberley Ash:
    the missing apostrophe
    Matter of fact, I just assumed it was a series collectively called “Lost Lords”, all bundled into one omnibus volume. Is it instead meant to be “The Lost Lord’s Bundle”? I don’t even want to think about what plot could warrant that title…

  24. Dee says:

    Bubbles looks like he is seriously hulking out. As he is a werewolf, obviously the picture was taken around a full moonrise. Did anyone check on the photographer? Just wondering.

    I have NO WORDS on gruff ass. The rocks comment has me speechless.

    I agree with the other comments about the Putney cover. That IS what trying to reattach a Barbie head looks like. And the Flat Stanley cardboard cutout lover with the 3d hand is a creepy addition. I vote for a redesign.

    Bigfoot should never nap. The humans are clearly shaving him as he sleeps.Or that is the weirdest manscaping plan ever.

  25. BellaInAus says:

    Bubbles doesn’t look like he’d shift into a werewolf. But he’s angry about it, whatever he turns into.

    The gruff model is completely inappropriate. He doesn’t look gruff at all. Maybe the rock lover has the gruff ass?

    The Lady in pink looks like she’s been at the party about an hour too long. Flat Stanley is comforting her – “Be brave, only another three hours and we can leave.” Also, her puffed sleeves seem to have elastic in the bottoms, which is a problem if this is an historical.

    And the beast guy doesn’t have a head. He looks like an escaped extra from an original episode of Doctor Who. He may be about to eat someone with the mouth in his stomach. That stomach fur is actually a moustache.

  26. TMary says:

    Bubbles the Werewolf?

    Do his knuckles say “cobra”?

    Also, @Cates: I can’t say what I was expecting for The Game Warden’s Mate, but it wasn’t the name “Xrez Ym’ihla”. Are you sure that’s his name, and it wasn’t somebody’s cat walking across the keyboard while they were typing up the summary?

  27. @Louise, it is a bundle of books. Which I knew already and didn’t remotely realize only after I’d posted the comment 😉 Still, I decree that the word bundle should have been in a different font. Otherwise, that man needs to keep a closer eye on his luggage.

  28. Karen H near Tampa says:

    If you think the current cover of “The Game Warden’s Mate” is awful, take a look at the original (you’ll have to go to goodreads since amazon is only showing the one above). I kept meaning to send it in for a Cover Snark but never got around to it. Hope it doesn’t give you the nightmares it’s given me! (And I hope this isn’t a duplicate post but the one I did a while ago hasn’t shown up so I think I did something wrong.)

  29. Rasakendra says:

    What does it say about me that the one thing which bothers me most in the “Bubbles” cover and what I can’t let go of is that it clearly states “Motorcycle Club” in the title and he is standing in front of a car? I mean, how hard can it be to find a picture of an actual motorcycle as background?

  30. Rhode says:

    Pretty sure Gruff Ass is gruff because he waxes his butt. I mean, no man with neck beard scruff like that would have a the totally sleek hairless chest that we are seeing, naturally. So since he’s a gruff ass, it’s not hard to figure out where else he’s waxing.

  31. Kit says:

    @Karen H yes I looked. I don’t know if Gorilla Erotica is a thing but that’s what I thought. (Knowing how depraved the internet is there probably is). Also it looks like there’s light coming from his crotch…

  32. TMary says:

    @Karen H: He…doesn’t even look hairy, he looks like someone scribbled a humanoid shape and then added muscles.

    And…are his nipples lopsided?

    Also, does this guy have a head?

  33. Rick says:

    Did the Lost Lord lose his apostrophe?

  34. Priscilla says:

    “Remember when you’d pull the head off your Barbie and it never went on right again? That’s what this looks like.” OMG that made me guffaw at my desk this morning! Thanks Elyse!

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