Cover Snark: The Bird Did It

What is time anymore? Have some Cover Snark!

Bound to the Alpha by Olivia T. Turner. A shirtless man flexes in front of a grizzly bear who is torn between eating him or the dangling bunch of cherries nearby.

Sneezy: Have we talked about this?

If the cherries are supposed to cutely hint at his virility, dangling them in front of the bear seems like a bad idea

Catherine: The bear is clearly about to steal his cherry.

In every sense of the word.

Elyse: Omg the author’s name is on the cherries.

Sneezy: Imagine tattooing your name on your character’s dick and balls. Imagine tattooing dick and balls period.

Catherine: I like that at first glance the cherries spell out OTT. Which is about right for this cover.

Sarah: That guy looks like he is PISSED that this bear is ogling his cherries.

Gillette Park by Gerri Hill. A bluejay looks menacing as it sits on stump near an old, rickety bridge.

Tara: I shit you not, this is the cover for an f/f thriller with a cop and doctor who are on the hunt for a serial killer. Now I want to know if the bird is the killer.

Amanda: The bird HAS to be involved somehow, right?

Tara: Look at its angry, beady eye. That bird has definitely been killing two or three people every year for twenty-three years…

Maya: Bird’s the lookout

Or the eyewitness!!

Tara: Now I want it to be smoking a tiny bird cigarette while telling the tale

Maya: That book needs to exist

Amanda: Is anyone familiar with The Staircase?

Maya: YES

Amanda: For those uninitiated into this bonkers case.

Maya: We studied that case in law school and I got Socratic methoded by the prof about what I thought was going to happen in the opening and I was like ohhhh it’s just going to be about his porn collection because prosecutors are the worst and then it was about his porn collection.

Claudia: Omg I covered that case!! I was living in Durham and working for the local paper. I was not the court reporter but we had 2-3 people there every day. I was so so major!!

I was there for most of the jury selection and oooh boy fun times.

Elyse: That bird killed someone. I refuse any other explanation.

Sarah: I’m on team bird. I trust its judgment.

An old copy of Wuthering Heights. A man is wearing a luxe red housecoat as a ghost woman stares at from behind a window.

Carrie: Found at Friends of Library Sale. How could I not purchase something so gloriously awful?

Maya: Is that Heathcliff? Does he not know that ghosts can come through closed windows?

It’s been a while since I read Wuthering Heights, but I feel like Emily Bronte has a solid handling on things ghosts can do.

Sarah: Love the gown.

Amanda: Seems like a perfect time to relisten to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW3gKKiTvjs

Carrie: That is one bonkers video.

Now I need a matching bonkers Jane Eyre cover

Elyse: WTF are her arms made of ?

Carrie: Spite.

EllenM: I love it. It’s so extra.

Susan: It looks like an RL Stine book.

Tara: Thank you, Susan! I was trying to remember which kids’ book author that cover reminded me of, but I was completely stumped.

Cowboy Firefighter Heat by Kim Redford. A fireman in just his pants and a blank tank top poses in front of a big red barn. He's wearing a black cowboy hat.

Susan: I feel like this one is maybe stacking too many templates on the male lead.

He’s a cowboy-singer (not a country and western singer, specifically a cowboy) and a firefighter

Elyse: His pants are confusing me.

Sneezy: Why is he so oily?

Amanda: Does he secrete the oil himself?

Sneezy: Do you think he needs a supplement for that?

Comments are Closed

  1. Susan says:

    Amanda, you can’t post Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights music video without including Noel Fielding’s version!

    https://youtu.be/ftWaeBXELnA

  2. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    The WUTHERING HEIGHTS cover seems to have achieved a peak moment of “people unclear on the concept.” It puts me in mind of this cover for Emile Zola’s naturalistic classic, L’ASSOMMOIR (helpfully renamed NANA’S MOTHER), which has been given a whole 1950s MGM movie makeover look:

    https://www.amazon.com/Nanas-Mother-Emile-Zola/dp/B002MHSYXY

  3. Crystal says:

    Okay, a couple things. I inadvertently clicked on the Alpha Heat Whatever, and it has a first person narration in the synopsis, and apparently our heroine is a virgin. Cherries, virgin? Get it? GET IT?

    Two: yes, of course the bird did it. Birds are evil, water fowl are their overlords. If you tell me an owl murderized someone, I’m gonna nod and go, “Yup.That tracks.”

  4. HeatherS says:

    That Geri Hill cover would work if it was about a park ranger and a city girl who is a bird watching enthusiast. It decidedly does NOT convey romantic suspense “on the run from a serial killer” vibes.

  5. Escapeologist says:

    @DiscoDollyDeb that Zola cover is surreal… his books should have all the content and trigger warnings, but I guess classics get a free pass.

  6. Ren Benton says:

    Cowboy-singer-firefighter has to be at least two people physically as well as descriptively. I’m a shoulder aficionado, and that one is wildly out of proportion to his head and neck.

    I get it, cobbling images together is a necessity, but it takes 30 seconds of a transparent layer over the original body part to get the scale right.

  7. -m- says:

    For those interested: every year,beginning of July, all around the world, people celebrate Kate Bush during the most Wuthering Heights Day Ever.
    That means you still have 1 month for finding the perfect red dress (and maybe this year a matching mouth mask).
    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo7ApSneQwI&w=560&h=315%5D

  8. Hannah says:

    I have that edition of Wuthering Heights, as well as the matching Jane Eyre. They’re fantastically bad. My grandmother once asked me if I wanted a t-shirt with the Jane Eyre cover printed on it, and I had to politely decline.

  9. Gill says:

    China Drum do a great punk version of Wuthering Heights

  10. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    When it comes to Kate Bush, for me it’s “Running Up That Hill” or nothing.

  11. EC Spurlock says:

    The bird may be contemplating scavenging the corpse. Although the way the fence is drawn it does kind of look like it’s holding a little tiny gun in that back foot. (@ Crystal: It’s a murder of crows. They get tried by the Parliament of Owls.)

    Watch it, Heathcliff, Ghost Cathy is about to pull you out of that tower window you just opened. And the video is even more bonkers if you turn on the closed captioning.

    Sam Beckett just Leaped into that cowboy/fireman. He’s got his “Oh boy” face on.

  12. DonnaMarie says:

    “Spite.”
    Bwahahaha

  13. Merle says:

    Are the letters of “Alpha” supposed to be furry, or hairy? Because neither an Elmo colored bear, nor a guy with Twizzler colored body hair, sound sexy to me.

  14. Emily says:

    Regarding The Staircase, did anyone watch Trial & Error, a sitcom on NBC a few years ago? It was dumb but funny and I swear they based the first season off of “the owl did it” theory!
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_%26_Error_(TV_series)

  15. denise says:

    Gillette Park looks like a guidebook from AAA

  16. JoanneBB says:

    The font on Wuthering Heights brings to mind a bunch of Anne McCaffery books I acquired from my parents’ bookcases. I guess publishers REALLY liked flowy serif fonts. Extra-serif ?

    https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/crystal-singer_anne-mccaffrey/385441/

  17. SusanE says:

    Is it weird that what bothers me most about Wuthering Heights is her hair blowing to the left and the candle flames blowing to the right?

  18. Kat says:

    I’m getting a bit of a James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause vibe from that Wuthering Heights cover.

  19. Louise says:

    @denise:
    Darn, beat me to it. I was going to say of Gillette Park: Is it just me or … does that painting just scream 1960 Tourist Poster? Pan back a little ways and you’ll see the mode of transportation, which might be either a family sedan or a luxury train (the kind with an upstairs viewing lounge), depending on target audience.

    Cowboy Firefighter: Which part is the variable? Does it go Cowboy Firefighter, Cowboy Cop, Cowboy Pharmacist and so on; or does it go Cowboy Firefighter, Wrestler Firefighter, Stockbroker Firefighter and so on?

  20. JenM says:

    I am GOBSMACKED! How could I have been a big fan of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights all these years yet NEVER HAVE SEEN THAT VIDEO, or heard of the Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever? Thank you so much for remedying that appalling lack in my pop culture education. I swear, the things I learn here…..

  21. BellaInAus says:

    The Alpha and the bear seem to have a long running dispute about… something. Which is why he’s wandering about in a towel.

    The Gillette Park book looks like a field guide to a park that has no particularly interesting features. Except evil birds.

    And the Wuthering Heights seems to come from the Aerie series I bought in the early nineties. Same title font, same author font, same “complete and unabridged”,same slightly dodgy artwork, same price point.

    And the Cowboy Firefighter book is so bland it tells me nothing. Except that the barn appears to be on fire, if that particularly glowy shade of red is anything to go by. And the cowboy firefighter is off duty.

  22. denise says:

    @Louise I was thinking the Brady Bunch Plymouth Satellite with the pop-up trailer. Or some kind of earlier variation.

  23. kitkat9000 says:

    I’ve always liked Pat Benatar’s version of “Wuthering Heights.”

  24. Gill says:

    @kitkat9000. Oh I’d not heard that before. Yes, it’s a great version, without all that voice athletes. Lol

  25. kitkat9000 says:

    Oops, sorry! I thought I’d copied the link instead.

  26. Megells says:

    Don’t forget the most wuthering heights day ever! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nxEPNs1H28

  27. Christine McCullough says:

    I love love love birding. But that is a Stellars Jay and much like other corvids, they do murder for fun.

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