As someone who has tremendously bad allergies, this Cover Snark features my nightmare. Enjoy!
From Tammy: Have you already used this one for Cover Snark? Because I’m thinking this guy really needs to see a doctor. That chest hair is NOT normal.
Sarah: He’s right to be very concerned. I’ve had nightmares like that. Shudder
Amanda: Thanks, I hate it.
Sarah: How much cortisone you think he’s going to need?
Amanda: All of it.
Sarah: I wonder if they sell cortisone in a bucket. He’ll need a trowel. OR WAIT. Maybe it’s mold?!
Amanda: I can already feel my allergies acting up.
Sarah: That’d be a handy way to weed out (HUR) potential dudes. Do they set off your allergies?
Aarya: Is he a tree shifter? Like a dryad? That’s the only reasonable explanation for this.
Lara: Could he be at a body-painting convention? You know, with dramatically different styling (including no more looking at his johnson and feeling sad) I could get into this…
CarrieS: When athlete’s feet gets REALLY out of control, this is what happens.
Amanda: I see no blade guards on those skates!!
Elyse: Oh man. I don’t think that mist is ice.
Amanda: A refreshing Sierra Mist maybe?
#notsponsored
Aarya: My mind went straight to the gutter but I’m going to pretend it’s ice.
Forget the blade guards. I’m concerned about the temperature. It’s really cold in an ice rink. He needs to layer up. Safety first!
Elyse: Also is Victor his name? Or a description?
Sarah: Assuming that’s ice, and someone is skating near enough to toss ice that high up his legs, he’s got to worry about blades to the front AND to the back. That’s a lot to worry about.
Lara: I suspect the primary purpose of “VICTOR” is to hide the janky photoshop… Also, I can’t quite explain why, but this cover made me LOL. Perhaps I imagined someone shouting VICTOR while shooting ice bits up and Mr Broody in the middle there just not getting into it.
CarrieS: Ouch.
CharlotteB: All I can think is “shrinkage.”
From MizFletcher: There are no words that can say more than the poor bear’s expression.
Sarah: Hath we snarked this bear before?
Amanda: We may have? But why is that the default pose whenever a man and bear are on a cover?
Sarah: I really question people’s sense of animal awareness.
Susan: That bear looks attached. Uncomfortably so.
Aarya: This is probably a bear shifter romance. But 1) he’s wearing a cowboy hat and 2) he looks like he’s riding a bear. So I guess that makes him a bearboy?
Sarah: It doesn’t look like he’s wearing pants, and that bear certainly doesn’t have a saddle. Does that mean he’s bare-assed riding a bear bareback?
Susan: *clap*
Sneezy: Looks like a guy on tinder trying to make people thing his dick is a bear.
Lara: Yes, Sarah! He is bare-assed and bored while riding a brooding bear bareback. I might have been a little more interested in tongue twisters if they were more like this and less like Shelly selling sea shells.
CarrieS: Guys, we’ve talked about this so many times. I’ve lived in two different places with large bear populations, and “don’t try to have anal sex with a bear” is the first safety rule. PLEASE don’t make me tell you again.
CharlotteB: The bear is Not Amused.
Amanda: How many abs is too many abs?
Sneezy: Why’d he only oil is abs?
What’s the point of suspenders if he’s only going to pull his pants down?
Sarah: Something is off with the composition of the photo too and I can’t figure it out.
Amanda: The head looks different than the body.
Sarah: His face and right arm look like they are from a different photo – yes exactly.
The light on the bent arm is also throwing off perspective.
And may I say again, this type of cover art does nothing for me. I feel so strange like, eh. Abs. Oil. Fine.
All it does it remind me of things like, Oh, oil…do I need to make more salad dressing for lunch?
Is my oil change due for my car?
Amanda: As someone with oily skin and whose face is essentially a pizza slice during the summer, oily anything does not get me going.
Sarah: Like, gotta get the sex blanket if someone’s engaging in sexytimes with someone wearing that much oil everywhere. Sheets will not recover from that mess.
Too practical for romance cover art? Come hang out with me.
Amanda: I just imagine a woman trying to straddle him and just slipping right off and onto the floor. A human slip & slide.
Sneezy: We go to water parks and not oil parks for a reason.
Oh wow, that came out less puny and more dirty than I planned on
Aarya: I can’t believe that y’all haven’t mentioned that he’s practically holding (and touching) himself.
Amanda: I mean, I think some of us have penis blindness at this point.
Aarya: I, sadly, have not reached that state of bliss.
Tara: I’m trying to figure out what the left hand is holding onto. Is it the locker door. Because it’s very far away from the rest of the locker.
Sarah: Waaait. Is that the fire hose he brings to the inferno? Better be a very small fire.
Is it just me or does “Victor” look like Ricky Martin?
Yanno, none of those cover models look happy. Mr Sycamore appears to be concerned that his chest lichen is growing over his chin, Victor is unhappy about the missing blade covers, the wild rancher Just Knows that at some point he’s going to be photoshopped behind a bear and the fireman is confused about why someone just greased his abs.
Also, the fireman’s suspender looks like the tie-down my husband uses on his truck. Just how heavy are those pants?
#1 I was relieved to find there are Australian sycamores. The model looks enough like Briggsy that him being colonised by a foreign tree would be extra disturbing.
Still a little worried we’re on a slippery slope towards sexualising updates of Arcimboldo portraits.
#2 What most weirds me out is the random banner/flag over iceman’s left shoulder. Wa? The mist only looks like visible airbrush. Though the way it spotlights his pelvis rather accentuates the existing Ken doll look effect there of how his body is angled and the fig leaf positioning of the skates.
#3 The title seems to say *the bear* is ‘taming’ the rancher, not vice versa. Would prefer distasteful dominance poses consistent with that.
What’s up with this trend for nude hockey players? Granted, most of them are pretty to look at, but it seems rather impractical, if not downright dangerous. And where are the nude covers for the ball sports? Tennis, anyone? Or how about curling?
The fireman looks like he’s doing a final pose in Riverdance or ballet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it leads to questions.
Ok Bitchery—cover-model maven DiscoDollyDeb is here to introduce the uninitiated into the unalloyed joys of the covers of Brenda Rothert’s Chicago Blaze hockey series. You may remember a couple of months ago, ANTON was making the rounds in the comments (the cover really is great—sexy, soulful, and vulnerable—not to mention…dat ass!), but the most recent book, KNOX (rhymes with…well, I’ll get my mind out of the gutter) takes everything to a whole new level of, ummm, exposure. So, behold in all their glory, Anton, Luca, Victor, and Knox:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PGKXQ7V?ref_=dbs_w_series&storeType=ebooks
You’re welcome!
@MirandaB, one possible hypothesis:
https://www.nowtolove.com.au/celebrity/tv/dance-boss-2018-contestants-teams-50121
The placement of that bear is, ah, unfortunate.
What happened to Fireman’s right hand thumb? It looks truncated.
@DiscoDollyDeb: I have to admit that I find the Anton cover Relevant to My Interests (I thought the book was pretty good, too). I think that the presence of skate blades near delicate skin makes me too nervous to enjoy the others.
The sycamore cover immediately made me think of Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer which was NOT a romance.
Victor looks like he has horns
See I imagined fireman as not holding a locker door but holding that arm high and proud flashing the victory sign as he presumable fiddles in his pants while singing Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy but unironically replaces “cowboy” with “fireman” in every chorus. Embarrassed patrons at karaoke night stare at their beers in misery
I LIVE for Cover Snark. And now I know to never have anal with a bear. Whew… I didn’t know that since I’m a city girl. Holy Crap you all crack me up!
For those who might find this interesting, The Game Grumps did a video last week where they try to guess romance novel plots from their cover art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1CY_cXIO-U
Speaking of allergies, I’ve often wondered how my terrible allergy to cats would play out in a PNR. It’d be a tragedy, I guess, or slapstick. She breaks up with him after finding out his secret. He’s upset because she won’t accept his cat nature, but it’s really that his fur gives her migraines.
I have heard of having a bushy chest but #1 takes that to extremes. He looks like he’s concerned that the Knights Who Say Ni are coming for his shrubbery. And is that McCreary as in Bear McCreary? It looks like the kind of novel he would write.
Victor clearly was not the victor in the strip poker game. At least put the skates on so you’re not walking across the ice in bare feet! You’re just asking for pneumonia, bro.
I didn’t even see the word Rancher in that third title at first; I was like “Your wild what?” I feel like they’re both saying, “Life’s a bear.”
Is it just me or does that fireman resemble Nathan Fillion?
Am I the only one who thought “frozen nuts” for the ice hockey cover?
Victor appears to have horns.
The fireman’s head is much too small for that body and where is his underarm hair? Isnt manscaping passé by now?
#1. I am SHOCKED that I seem to be the first person to see this cover and immediately think of Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy mid-shift. Of course the book would sadly have dialogue issues. “But Daniel, I love you and I don’t care that you’re turning into a tree.” “I am Groot.”
#2 The naked hockey cover just baffles me because they don’t play that way so it makes me think there is some perv in the locker room taking random pictures. That being said, I do want to see the rest of the covers just for reasons of curiosity.
#3 For the love of God, angles matter. I can’t figure out if he’s riding the bear, screwing the bear’s butt (clearly someone didn’t listen to the park ranger) or the bear is his penis. If it is door #3, then no, hell no.
#4 OMG he is so oiled up that whoever he rescues would just slide out of his arms. Has to be coming home from a bachelorette party a la Magic Mike. Has to.
So the bear cover. The positioning makes it look like he’s trying to do something illegal and dangerous to the bear, but then I realized that his body just kind of fades out. Seriously this dude’s legs look they are noncorporeal or nonexistent.I know it’s a bad Photoshop issue, but it makes him look like he only has half a body that is hovering behind that poor put upon bear.
@MaryK
There’s a Sherilyn Kenyon Dark-Hunter novel that has this very storyline. He’s some kind of big-cat shifter and she’s a serious reporter down on her luck and … I can’ remember why she’s at the animal shelter. There’s a throwaway line at the end of the story about how she’s going to have to learn to cope with the animal dander.
I binge read them, so I have no clue which one it was, or how it stands alone.
Huh. I glanced at the fireman and saw Alex P. Keaton.
Taming My Wild Rancher: Is that an installment in a series–Taming My Wild insert-manly-job-title–or the result of an after-hours madlibs session at the publishing house?
@ DiscoDollyDeb and the hockey blaze: “Anton Luca Victor Knox”, in that order, sounds like some kind of military alphabet. Now I really want ALVK to stand for something rude, but perhaps we have to wait for two more letters to round out the team.
Re: Fireman – David Duchovny before his face lost the baby fat??
The first guy just found out he’s half Ent.
I live in the hottest Southwest, but even I know blades shouldn’t be close to those parts.
Why is Brad Paisley banging a bear?
I like the Chicago Blaze series-I’ve read the first two, and I will read the rest. I do enjoy reading about hockey, and have finally started to watch it. I use my very old Kindle where I don’t really see the covers-but for this series? Worth a look! I can swear I’ve read scenes in several hockey series where players are being photographed, on the ice (naked) for calendars to benefit charities. I can’t even imagine that in real life! They would be freezing, right?
all these covers…there are no more words to be said
My one comment about the hockey covers is that all the men seem to have had much more sun exposure than the hockey players I have seen. It makes me wonder if there are tanning booths involved in these books. The Chicago Blaze series would make the start to a lovely calendar though.
Outside of ANTON, this is my favorite hockey romance cover (I think it was featured in Cover Awe at one time), although, admittedly, our hero does seem to be missing some crucial-for-a-hockey-game attire:
https://www.amazon.com/Playing-Dirty-Harlequin-Blaze-Book-ebook/dp/B01L79LF7E/ref=sr_1_2?crid=28U98N8KVT537&keywords=taryn+leigh+taylor&qid=1573646733&s=digital-text&sprefix=Taryn+le%2Caps%2C172&sr=1-2
Am I the only one who keeps parsing bear boy’s hat as an Afro every time I scan past that image?
The “Victor” cover makes sense if you think of it as a failed marketing idea. The hockey rink was in danger of going under so they printed a nude calendar to sell at games. Then someone saw “The Full Monty” and decided the teams needed to take it to eleven to save the sport…
My theory is it’s a bear centaur? With some really funky anatomy.
#1 reminded me of a Steven King story where the man was taken over by a plant. 2) bwahhhh. 3) even the rancher looks bored banging a bear.
Aside from his other problems, the fireman looks uncomfortably like Riley Finn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which for me just polishes off this world of nope.