Hey, hey, it’s Cover Snark day!
DPZ: For cover snark. Every single time I look at the title, I read it as The Donner Party…which is perhaps not the association you want in an erotica. (She also looks like she can’t breathe in that mask.)
Sarah: I thought it said “Donner Party,” too.
Tara: So is it the Donner Party meets Eyes Wide Shut?
Maya: I’m sorry, I can’t help where my head is at, but all I’m seeing is Animal Crossing egg hats.
Amanda: fuck those eggs
Maya: accurate!!
Amanda: The cover does seem to have a new design as when I searched for it, there’s a dominatrix in a leather cat outfit and the confusing font has definitely been fixed.
Carrie: Why is she wearing a disposable cake tin on her head?
Susan: There is something wrong with the line of this man’s arms.
Maybe it’s that his arm is about as big as his torso.
Elyse: The perspective is way off.
Sneezy: People need to stop taking photoshop classes with Frankenstein. Clearly, he’s not THAT kind of doctor.
Amanda: He looks sad that his pecs aren’t as big as his biceps.
“It’s okay little guys. We’ll get there.”
Maya: I feel like Ms. Tyra needs to help him with his angles.
Amanda: He needs to do a booty tooch.
Susan: I think the actual plot of the book is “I am sad I’m not hench.”
So is this cover supposed to be an in progress shot or what?
Carrie: I’ll never understand why pictures of guys examining their penises are supposed to be sexy. I kinda think I’d want a guy who already knows where it is and what to do with it.
MAYBE his fascination with his penis explains his over-muscled arm.
Amanda: …I don’t like this one bit and I can’t even articulate why.
Kiki: That bellybutton is an eye.
And I think it’s watching us.
Carrie: His abs are the same size as his pecs.
Tara: It’s like his spine is in a weird position.
Elyse: It’s like the image was compressed vertically.
Sarah: He can keep sandwiches under his pecs, though.
Shana: Elyse, I think your diagnosis is spot on. This whole torso looks weirdly scrunched.
Amanda: “Diagnosis” makes it seem like Elyse is the Photoshop Doctor. She’s not there to make you better, just tell you what’s wrong and send you a bill!
EllenM: It looks like a key but of torso between pecs and abs was cut out and the remainder was smooshed together.
I have decided this is a robot man and he’s missing some pieces.
Catherine: He looks a little bit pregnant to me…
Elyse: Maybe it’s gas.
AJ: Did you ever make a clay person as a kid and then put your hand on the head and just slooowwwly squish it?
From Angie
Tara: I bet her periods suuuuuuuuck.
Amanda: But also…accurate.
Sarah: I’ve had days like that.
Carrie: I see that it’s a documentary about my uterus.
Aarya: The title fits perfectly. Curse is right.
AJ: Man, I WISH it only happened thrice.
Susan: I only saw the top half and was like “Oh but that looks okay!”
Nope, I was wrong, I retract my statement, that looks HORRIBLY uncomfortable
Catherine: Whatever she bargained for, it wasn’t worth it.
That said, after all the anatomically bizarre covers we have mocked, perhaps we were due for one so accurate that it makes me reach for the naprogesic?
The Dinner party cover in the UK is just a woman in a leather cat costume rather than My mother slept with a Faberge egg. I prefer the latter, if you’re going to write erotica at least be eye catching even if the cover model looks like she fell on a Christmas bauble.
Thrice cursed? This month it’s more like the Never-ending story (with no luck dragons)/.
Are you sure that the P.W. Steele book IS a romance? The title and the cover shot suggest that it might be a self-help book for gentlemen with size anxiety.
The GUARDING TEMPTATION image would be better suited to the fanfic cover, GUARDING KUATO [based on the 1990 movie, Total Recall].
Talk about misreading a cover… I read the series title of “Thrice Cursed” as INTERNAL Bargains Book 1. Which makes total sense with that cover. Just sayin’…
OK, am I the only one who saw that…whatever it is…on the Thrice Cursed cover and thought, phallus, not uterus? I mean, not the thorny bits on the side, but the central (ahem) pillar. There’s even a white bird perched suggestively on top. This just can’t be accidental.
Sadly, when a top-tier romance author like Talia Hibbert gets stuck with a photoshopped nightmare of a torso on one of her covers, it’s an indication that there’s not gonna be much hope for the less well-known writers.
You know how sometimes someone calls and asks, “Are you in?” before they show up at your place? I’m imagining cover guy has to check that his dick is home before he can drop by to see him.
“Are you in?” is not a question one usually expects to hear during an erotic scene!
Forget about the Donner Party, is that CONEHEADS EROTICA?!!!
@DiscoDollyDeb yep, definitely an overload of headless torsos on romance covers. I keep thinking a) wishing they’d stop these covers and b) this would be unacceptable if the gender is reversed
@Kit: I have no problem with the torsos if there are also shoulders, necks, heads, and faces to go along with them. The “headless torso” covers still show up, but thankfully not as frequently as they used to.
“MAYBE his fascination with his penis explains his over-muscled arm.”
I totally lost it with this and disturbed my working-from-home husband with a loud shout/laugh. Thank you, other Carrie.
@DonnaMarie, first thing I thought when I saw that cover was She must be Queen of the Coneheads!
And I feel like that second guy is scolding his penis for emerging from his pants at an awkward time. “Are you in? Are you going to stay in like a good boy?”
“Dinner Party” looks like someone made a mask out of a Christmas ornament for a Barbie size doll (with something odd about the left eye hole). Nothing about that cover is at all sexy to me.
The belly button on “Guarding Temptation” either looks like a very creepy eye, or like the small, pouty mouth on a belly face where the eyes are the abdominal dents above “m” and “ati” in the title. Either way, creepy.
Minor point: what are those strange little rod shapes protruding from the hips of “Thrice Cursed”?
I can’t be the only person who did a spit take at the conjunction of “man looking intently at his briefs” with “Are You In?” But is this really the reaction a bookseller wants? What if you have one of those bookstore-and-coffeshop combos?
The title Guarding Temptation would give me the creeps, independent of what else is or isn’t on the cover. You come away feeling that the designers had a big fight about whether they could use the phrase “jail bait” in the cover copy.
@harthad. I had to back up and look at the cover of Thrice Cursed again to find the white bird after shouting outloud at your comment. I can almost hear the snickers from the graphics department after designing this cover and then betting on how many people would comment.
Oh dear. I think the “missing bits” from #2 (the expression on his face says “but it was here yesterday!”) and the missing torso from #3 ended up featured at the D
oinner Party. In the “I’m having an old friend for dinner, Clarisse” sense.Which, together, is the G-rated explanation of #4: Indigestion from the three previous cursed covers.
The Are You In? model looks like he’s pulling out a deep wedgie. Perhaps a reference to the book title…
Cover #3 model has what looks like a trail of drool running down his chest. He might also have a tracheotomy scar.
Cover #1 looks like Conehead Erotica. Not a good look. Now I’ve got Dan Ackroyd in my head and it ain’t pretty.
I have NO CLUE what they were going for with cover #2. If he was dressed and had a puppy it would make some sense.
Cover #3 looks like a short woman lying down with her shirt undone. The title font is tragically blocking our view of the cover model’s abs.
And #4 is not only cursed by the uterus/penis of doom, but she’s also in the sights of at least three snipers, if the laser points are anything to go by.
ARE YOU IN ?? I’m thinking his junk is totally missing if he has to ask.
The disappointing thing about the Talia Hibbert cover (other than that it is very ugly for a pretty good novella) is that the hero is specifically described as being big and bulky and having a belly. It’s such a nice change from all the heroes with ridiculous abs, and then the cover does that?
Dinner/Donner party: Is dinner at Medieval Times?