We’re back with Cover Snark! Take some care this week and don’t forget to vote.
From Cayenne: Is it just me, or is it possible that this bratva dude is showing where the Alien baby used to be? Is that the baby in the title?
Sarah: That’s not where my c-section scar is but everyone’s body is different.
Amanda: Chicks dig alien baby scars
Elyse: Personally I like the choice of zippered vest only. It’s a bold fashion move that suggests he finds sleeves too constraining.
Amanda: I have a sweater with a zippered back and every time that cold metal hits my skin, it’s very unpleasant.
Sneezy: He looks terrified, and I would be too if I broke my zipper as badly as he did. It also looks like he somehow initially worn the vest inside out…and zipped up
Wait, actually the zipper looks fine, just the fabric is ripped from it.
CarrieS: The cover makes me feel confused and slightly afraid.
Tara: At first glance, I thought this was a murder mystery
Amanda: It took me a second to realize it was not a footprint in the snow and then it all came together. The red “Love” in the title is very menacing.
CarrieS: I agree with you – it’s a bland but serviceable murder/thriller/horror cover but awfully dire for romance. Someone is definitely gonna die horribly in this book.
Sarah: Who killed a snow angel? Why would you do that?
Amanda: Is that snot? What is that color?
Sneezy: It could be:
a) snot
b) veins of alien babies yet to be birthed from his body
c) poison
or more charitably d) something mouldy
Sarah: What’s a trouple.
Is that like a throuple? LIke a triad of people? he pissed off three people who are in a relationship and it was so bad he had to run into the forest?
Amanda: A trouple that is a traveling entertainment troupe, obvi.
Sarah: Possibly including some troubadours.
Sneezy: Maybe he stole the money they made over spring and summer that was supposed to see them through the winter
Elyse: Wasn’t there a filter on My Space that looked like this?
Amanda: I thought she was pregnant and then I thought it was a whoopie cushion
Sarah: That was my exact thought pattern as well
Tara: 
CarrieS: They were doing so well…by which I mean so ok….and then the whooppie cushion…I just don’t understand how these things happen.
Sneezy: The placement of the whoopie cushion makes no sense either. It’s rather useless for reliably padding your stomach. Unless she’s trying to skeeve out a perv…
The placement of what I assume is a series title on the first cover is unfortunate. At first glance, I thought the title was “The Bratva’s Wicked Doms Baby” and was confused.
As for the third cover, that shade of green reminds me of the slime ghost in Ghostbusters. The guy looks like he smells something bad; it is not a sexy expression. And the series title is “Bad Boys, Need Love, Too”? What is with that first comma? There’s no need to pause there. This bothers me more than the gross looking shade of green, to be honest.
I too read the title as TRACKED BY THROUPLE and expected the tag line to be, “He picked the wrong people…for a ménage.”
I’m troubled by the lack of footprints leading to the snow angel. Was levitation involved?
@Sally
Was levitation involved?
It is a snow ANGEL…
🙂
I’m with Sally — the most troubling thing here is the lack of footprints either to or away from the snow angel. Supports the theory that this is a horror or mystery book.
Ack, the grammar on the second one: “Bad boys, need love, too”
Those commas are KILLING ME.
Never mind about the whoopie cushion. What happened to, you know, legs?
if you read the title in William Shatner’s voice, it makes much more sense! “bad boys….. need love….too!
The “takeing” on the spine of the snow angel book is what’s killing me.
Taking a Chance on Love
(“take a chance, take a chance, take a chance on me”):
Aside from the lack-of-footprints issue, there’s something seriously wrong with the snow angel’s head, as if it had been decapitated and the gap filled in with a turnip.
Tracked by Trouble
I think we’re all missing the significance of “Book 3”. The series goes:
Book 1: Bad Boys
Book 2: Need Love
Book 3: Too
Book 4: (Watch This Space)
Now if only they’d stuck with my favorite font, Avant Garde, instead of dragging in those others…
The Reclusive Earl:
Seriously, is that pink thing supposed to be a rose petal? It doesn’t even have the right veining.
That last one creeps me out, because the face looks… off. Like she’s holding it in front of her real face. What’s behind it? Horrible scars? An alien masquerading as human?
Or maybe it’s just lousy photoshopping.
Nahhh.
At first I was thinking there was something weird going on with her sleeve in that last one. Now I’m wondering if the Earl is so reclusive she’s having to reach in and drag him out of a Bag of Holding.
How can we be sure that’s a snow angel? The snow could have been disturbed by THE DYING THRASHES OF THE MURDER VICTIM! Although there’s no blood, so it could be THE TERRIFIED THRASHING OF AN ABDUCTION VICTIM. WHICH OBSCURED THE PERPETRATOR’S FOOTPRINTS. Or the perpetrator may have obscured his own footprints, if he was thorough enough.
Taking A Chance on Love is obviously not a murder mystery, it’s a paranormal. The lack of footprints is because the angel/wereduck/pirate and demon/gargoyle/viking protagonists got frisky while flying and crashed while doing the deed. They had to fly off again instead because all this happened while fleeing the mafia/motorcycle club/dragons who are after them for being too sexy to live.
#2 – Here is an alternative title with subtitle, or possibly a haiku…
“She Took a Chance on Love:
this is what was left of her.
A paranormal murder mystery”
“Bad boys, need love, too” – the comma abuse has me so on edge, I don’t care what they need. Did they ask what I need?
This mood brought to you by Monday(TM)
I have nothing new to add, but this is just the best Cover Snark I’ve seen in a long time, and that’s saying something!
In addition to the horrific grammar mistakes, I thought ‘Tracked by Trouple’ dude had a mullet (due to the weird black shading/cross hatching that is slowly enveloping him).
Taking a chance on love. In the blue border on the left, they spelled takeing. Ugh. So bad.
I don’t know why the publisher thought that font was a good idea on “Tracked by Trouble” (it really does look like “Trouple”). What’s worse is that all three books in the series have “Trouble” as part of the title and they all use that font and they all look like “Trouple.” That’s just asking for snark!
Also, I’m a former English major who cannot stand the misplaced (worse, just unnecessary) comma in the series name. But again, it is consistent across all three books.
Bratva Dude should be happy that both the angle of the shot and poor lighting make it difficult to pick out his Harry Potter tattoos. They would not bring him credit on the inside. (And isn’t “Wicked Doms” a bit redundant for a series title?)
There are no footprints around the snow angel because angels sublimate to gas above -17C. The snow angel fell from the sky, went splat, warmed up just a little bit, and sublimated away…
I’m more disturbed by “New York Times Bestselling Author Calinda B Writing as Callie Bardot” than by anything else on the third cover.
The last cover is just a bad photoshop job inspired by Venus on the Half-Shell. The painting, not the “Kilgore Trout” book, although the latter would probably be more interesting…
The first cover looks like he’s preparing for a Care Bear Stare (TM)
I am so happy to see so many other people bothered by the lack of footprints. How could the publisher not realize how wrong it looks? Are they from a warm climate and hadn’t seen snow before?
I came back to read more snarky comments and you all delivered! Bless you Bitchery ♡
@11 Lianne and @16 Bagel
Cannot unsee… mask-face and… mullet… *shudders*
@ 19 Jaws “The snow angel fell from the sky, went splat, warmed up just a little bit, and sublimated away…”
and @ 21 Quidnunc “Are they from a warm climate and hadn’t seen snow before?”
This line of reasoning made me snort-laugh and reminded me of a vintage meme from the 2010s: https://amp.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/q71z4/crocodiles/
@ECCSpurlock “drag him out of a Bag of Holding”
Spews coffee! LOL! And she’s definitely casting a glamour spell.
Speaking of not being familiar with snow, I just realized that the snowbank to the right of the angel was thrown up by a snow plow, because the snow angel is in the middle of a road!
Maybe the real angel dropped straight down, made the mess, and was yanked up by his parents again: “How many times do we have to tell you never to play in the road?”
The poor thing on the last cover looks like she has a toothache and wishes we’d leave her the hell alone.
@Quidnunc The lack of footprints reminds me of a Regency I read where the couple are snowed in by a blizzard, so they wade through the deep snow to go skating on the frozen pond. I think the author and editors must never have been in a snowstorm, or they would know that snow falls everywhere, even on frozen water…
The Bratva’s wicked eyes are wonky. Is he maybe blind in one of them?
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