Let’s get ready to…COVER SNAAAAAARK!
Elyse: I can’t decide if he woke up with a massive hangover or if some surprise butt stuff is happening.
Sarah: He looks annoyed. Like you forgot to close the blinds and he’s really mad about it.
Elyse: Oh maybe he was sleeping and the cat just started making the yakking sound!
Sarah: The cat most certainly started that noise. That’s the exact look I give.
Maya: or like SOMEONE was eating in bed and he just rolled over a piece of pasta that got dropped.
Definitely not my life at all.
Tara: Does anyone else see Logan from Gilmore Girls?
Shana: Yes, especially since Logan always struck me as a character who enjoyed pegging.
Tara:
Sarah: Please note I want Blanche’s shirt.
Sneezy: Apparently bed sheets are discombobulating. Maybe offensive?
Amanda: What on earth.
Her arm is the main thing that bothers me
Tara: I had a bunch of things leap out at me all at once. Why are they wearing jeans while she’s apparently wearing some kind of gown? SHE is supposed to be the nerd (I know anyone can be a nerd, but still). I have no idea what to make of that title. But yes, also that arm.
Elyse: I think if she let her arm hang down her hand would be past her knee
Sarah: What the…
Maya: It took me a full two minutes to figure what the first word in the title even was!
Shana: Same, Maya.
Sneezy: Does not compute. Does not compute.
Susan: I keep thinking his thumb is a keyhole boob window or something
I think my issue is that her body and the dress looks like the lure a horror movie monster would stick out for horny drunks.
Maya: I think I would like that book better or movie!
Like Teeth, but without the vagina dentata. Or with?
Sneezy: With. Definitely with. Or if you like variety, the teeth can be retractable.
Amanda: Just a PSA to give yourself at home breast examinations from time to time!
Sneezy: Would wolves come stare at us while we do?
Claudia: I think he’s trying to express milk.
Tara: And might be self conscious about it.
Shana: What’s that thing on his arm? It looks like a partially reabsorbed twin.
Sneezy: We should take a DNA sample.
Carrie: Whenever a cover shows the hero investigating his own penis I question whether he’d have much interest in me.
Sneezy: (Or anyone else.)
Catherine: That tattoo looks sort of like a gaping wound only without blood. You know those anatomy books, where they will show a normal arm or something and then kind of open one end to show you the dissected bit? Like that.
Lara: For once, the nips are protected.
Susan: I’m so used to that pose involving a baby somewhere that it took me three goes to realise there wasn’t one.
Amanda: Lara’s comment reminds of the beans reddit relationships post: I WILL NEVER JEOPARDIZE THE NIPS.
From Alex: Baby Shift: Indiana is just one of a very special 50-book series celebrating the babies of shifters in every state of America. While nearly every cover in the series features a nude male model whose junk is covered by a prominently placed (and weirdly photo-realistic) baby head, I find Indiana to be a true standout. Is the guy hitchhiking or inviting you to the gun show? Does that lion have laser eyes or rabies? Is it just me, or do the black eyes on that baby give a real “Satan’s offspring” vibe? Enjoy.
Sarah: Aslan is NOT HAPPY.
Elyse: So do they shift into the form of a baby then?
Tara: Definitely gun show.
Carrie: Oh look, it’s a portrait of my baby daughter – before and after being one minute late with a nap!
Also, not gonna lie – if they took the dudes out of this I would be so into a series about baby shifters and their shifter problems.
Catherine: He’s not a tame lion. He’s a rabid one.
Susan: I’d be here for a story about mecha lions babysitting as well though.
Amanda: Transformers: babies in disguise.
Sneezy: You know those houses that appear to have been decorated by a deranged ghost who now haunts it with confused ghost buddies that have no idea how they end up there and why Arnold keeps possessing teenagers passing by to order MOAR things off of the internet? This appears to be one of the rooms. As you can tell from the not-quite-right look in every creature’s eyes, the ghosts are now desperate to get away from Arnold, but even after possessing a man, a baby, and a lion, have no idea how to get out.
Arnold just ordered 1200 more fake branches.
Can anyone explain to me why so many authors have the subtitle “USA Today Bestselling Author” underneath their names? Is it a genuine thing or is it something anyone can put on a book? Three of these cover snark authors have it on their books and I’m not buying it, it seems to be like putting “new improved!” On a food label in my opinion because it’s on so many books.
Someone please enlighten me! It’s driving me mad!
Ditto New York Times Bestselling Author! I hasten to add!
Wh…I have so many questions…but why are there lion shifters in INDIANA?
The nerd lady’s arm: technically, the proportions look OK (elbow falls somewhere about the waist, forearm and upper arm seem right together – I draw things for money so like to know this sort of thing) and it still looks too long and I keep scrolling up to try and figure out why.
Despite the unfortunate cover, TEMPT ME is a really good book. The h&h share a bdsm dynamic (no pegging, alas) and about a third of the book is one long, extended scene between them. I liked the fact that Crews acknowledged that for young women today, FSOG has always been part of the cultural landscape.
As for THEIR NERD, it’s not her arm that bothers me so much as the hand of the guy on the right: one, his wrist is turned back in what looks like a painful way; and two, that hand is really huge compared to the rest of his body—but perhaps that’s a subtextural message about how big other things are. Snort!
I feel like for that first cover, the look of the model is inspired by Julian Assange? Which. . . is a choice, for sure.
@Heather M you would think the shifters were similar to the wildlife of the area? Then again people move around. In the UK I’m guessing there would be a prevalence of fox and badger shifters, though no one I know of has written about badger shifters (actual badgers, not honey badgers that is).
So, based on the cover art, Jace, sorry JACE, is being chased by an evil tree-creature who has given him some kind of wood-rot disease that started in his shoulder and is now spreading.
I can only guess that his love interest will be a tree surgeon who breaks all the rules.
On “Their Nerd”, I think the reason her arm looks extra long might be the way the highlighting emphasizes her upper arm. Where is the other arm of each of the guys, and why does one of their elbows look weird, and what his in front of his finger below her breast?
That thing behind Jace is definitely some kind of tree monster, and I question his decision to get in one last self-groping session before it eats him. The thing on his shoulder looks like an opening with gears/clockwork inside. Is he mechanical?
I think that lion of Baby Shift finally got tired of fruitlessly chasing the laser pointer dot and ate the pointer, hence the glowing eyes.
Why is no one talking about JACE’s disappearing waist? That’s not how people work.
Sorry, but the Tempt Me guy is definitely getting an (unwelcome) anal surprise.
The Tempt Me guy reminded me of DEADPOOL on International Women’s Day. Ryan Reynolds did it better.
Does any one remember the Berkley Breathed “Bloom County” cartoon about what gives a man’s life meaning? Worth looking up. I see it every time I view a cover image of a man looking down at his…endowments. It’s a cover trope I don’t understand as appealing, no matter the sorts of muscles he is showing off.
I so appreciate you calling attention to these and other matters relating to cover art. Please continue the (educational) snark!
I had to go to the Amazon page to finally figure out the title of Their Nerd. None of them specializes in good penmanship, apparently.
@Leslie: that pose is called the “oiled up look down.” It’s a de rigueur look for certain romance covers. Every cover model has that pose in his portfolio.
@Kit
Authors can use “New York Times bestselling author” or “USA Today bestselling author” if they have made the bestseller list at either of those publications.
As for what it’s worth … I think that depends on how you measure it? For example, you might have a book/author who hit the list over and over, so that might indicate that a lot of people like her work (and that she’s consistently good.) Some authors earned it by participating in box sets with a multitude of other authors, with a promo goal of gaining enough sales to hit the list and add that title to their name. Or they participate in a publisher’s anthology that does well because of the ‘big’ names that are also in the anthology (this is how I got mine.)
Some publishers have rules about when it can be used. For example, when I was in an anthology that hit the list, they wouldn’t use the NYT title under my name because it wasn’t on the NYT printed list (only the extended list.) But when another anthology hit the printed list, they began to use it. (But we don’t use it at all with my new pen name, because that name hasn’t earned it yet.)
Personally, I have a lot of friends who, when they hit the list, I genuinely celebrate for them because it is a big deal for an author. Sometimes in a contract, they get another bonus (actually another advance against royalties; it’s not extra money, they just don’t have to wait for the royalty check to come in to receive those earnings). Sometimes it garners extra attention and promo. So that’s all good!
But should a reader pay much attention? That’s a lot harder to say.
“Transformers, babies in disguise.” Just spit/spewed my tea…..
Thank you Smart Bitches
The guy on the Fanning cover looks likes he’s dropping the title out of his armpit. Disturbing. Either that or he’s about to do a deodorant sniff check.
Hah! At least the top one catches that Just-woke-up mood perfectly.
@Meljean thanks. For the record I’m not criticising any author who uses it but I wonder if it has been overused and has lost its impact on readers
There’s no equivalent that I know of over here in the UK.
@Kit
Oh, I agree! As a reader, it doesn’t really factor into my decision to buy a book (aside from how a book that has sold so many copies and made a list might end up on my radar, when a title that doesn’t have as many sales/word-of-mouth might not.)
In the UK, I’ve noticed that publishers are more likely to put things like “International Bestseller” or “The Sunday Times Bestseller” — which makes sense! USA Today’s list can’t expect to mean much to a reader in the UK.
The funny thing about Tempt Me by Crews, is that the look on Conrad’s (the h) face is very in line with his behavior. LOL! The others are for me, cringy.
I was sure the title was “Thin Nerd” and the man was spanning her rib cage with his hands.
And on the “Baby Shift” cover, I see a man and a girl baby, who may shift into a male adult lion? Seems like an intriguing ability.
I think covers 2-4 have me speechless but I totally second that Tempt Me guy is annoyed by cat related hijinks. The hacking noise, being throat pawed at 4am for treats (been there, done that) or even maybe the mewling because the cat is stuck in the blinds somehow.
@Meljean I’d forgotten about the Sunday Times bestseller! I blame everything that happened this year for that. Generally I go for the blurb or I when I get a free KU subscription I try something different.
Very interesting, @meljean! Thank you for that industry insider info and all your awesome books. (I don’t know @meljean, but love her books, and recommend you check them out! The Guardian series (paranormal), The Iron Duke series (steampunk) or Milla Vane books (barbarian paranormal). All really excellent. In fact, might be a perfect COVID reread.) ❤️❤️❤️
So nobody noticed the toxic cloud of baby farts? Maybe that’s what made the lion rabid…
Their Nerd has weird hands on the ends of the misshapen arms.
The guy on the Fanning cover is doing the “Who has two thumbs and (fill in the blank)? This guy!” pose. In this instance the blank would be filled by “has a lion for his lower body.”
Between the arm and the font I read that as “Thin Nerd.”
Mr Tempt Me has the same look on his face that I get when the kids come in and start talking while I’m trying to count. “Really? You can see I’m trying to do something here.” Given the pose, I’m assuming he was doing the plank exercise when they interrupted. Maybe he was going for a personal best time.
The Thin Nerd looks reluctant. She’s leaning away from the guy in front without wanting to lean on the guy behind. Not a good look.
Jace is either trying to a boob and penis check at the same time and he’s concentrating really hard, or he’s being groped at a bar and he doesn’t like it. Poor Jace. Sexual harassment sucks.
And the Baby Shift cover is a hot mess. Why is there a baby in the woods? Why is she wearing a purple satin dress in the woods? Why do the lion’s eyes glow? Why is there a lion in the woods? And why is Indiana on a farm? Who is he amusing by blowing up his biceps through his thumb?
Jace looks like 2 different action figures glued together.
The Tempt Me guy is giving a look that says “Why the hell are you shoving a camera in my face first thing in the morning? How about I shove that camera where the sun don’t shine. Without lube.”
As for Jace, just remember, men get breast cancer too. All genders should self-examine from time to time.