Cover Snark: For the Love of God, Clean Your Beards

Y’all, we have yet another gross, moldy beard today. Is this a new theme?

Dead of Night by Emily Goodwin. A man is kissing on a woman's neck and she looks annoyed.

From Alex: A lovely design in most ways, but rather undone as a romance by the combination of her expression and stance.

Sarah: I agree. Gorgeous color scheme and interesting pose but she looks she’s…bored? Annoyed? Both?

Tara: “Excuse me, can someone please get this man off my neck?”

Claudia: MAN: I’m sorry I left the toilet seat up.

Sneezy: “Are you confessing to breaking and entering then? And stop touching my boob. You realize it’s attached to me?”

Sarah: That’s a terrific “this motherfucker, amirite?” face.

I could use it as commentary on social media.

Maya: She’s giving me “I came out tonight to just dance with my friends” face.

a.k.a. me and my entire 20s

Amanda: I know that moment.

Carrie: “I’m not here for your entertainment, do you really wanna mess with me tonight?”

Lara: Which one is the vampire? Because he is missing her jugular by quite a margin. Unless he’s going for her spinal cord… which is a whole other kettle of fish.

Catherine: Maybe that’s why she looks so exasperated and bored. “Dude, I came out here for some hot vampire sexing, and you don’t even know how to bite me properly?”

Code Name: Hacker by Sawyer Bennett. A man with a long beard looks super serious. His beard his glowing green and appears to be hacking into the Matrix.

Amanda: MATRIX BEARD

Tara: I think algae beard is beautiful but also do not want to touch it.

Sarah: What the.

Amanda: I can just feel the slime already.

Elyse: They sell special shampoo for getting chlorine out of your hair.

Sneezy: The Importance of Beard Hygiene: a cautionary tale.

Chapter 1, Why Your Beard is Not a Snack Pouch.

Lara: It’s not much of a code name if it does what it says on the tin via hacking.

Catherine: Nope, nope, nope, I need you to wash that beard, mate.

Shana: But, but…he has dog tags! And tattoos! Can’t you look past a little beard slime for those?

Bear Necessities by Novalee Swan. A woman in a trucker hat is resting her hand on a bear.

Amanda: Ma’am that is a bear.

Tara: At first glance, I wondered if a certain Canadian literary classic got an updated cover.

Carrie: You know…I kind of love it (Bear Essentials, I mean). What with the bright colors I guess I feel like it’s just, “Hey – here’s some bear porn, you know, if that’s your thing.”

Sneezy: It looks a bit like an evil demon bear spirit is melting out of her.

You have a point though Carrie, it gives great confidence the label says what’s in the tin.

Catherine: The colours are great! And I agree, it’s leaning into the bear porn with confidence. I kind of like that.

Saving Kimi by Brooke Stanton. There is a shirtless man, but his long hair is hiding his face and he's wearing a fedora. The woman is in a white dress with a hot pink sash around the middle and a holding a bouquet of bright pink flowers. The clouds are gray in the background and there's also a tipi.

From Melodie: The more I look at this the creepier he is.

Amanda: Kimi definitely needs saving.

Sarah: This is extremely creepy. She definitely needs an assist.

Sneezy: All I see is…Cousin Itt.

Elyse: Nothing on this cover makes sense. Also is that pink cling wrap around her middle?

Lara: I’m kind of stuck on the flowers. What is their purpose in these shenanigans?

Catherine: Oh God, he has no face. And… is that supposed to be a wigwam in the background? I have… concerns.

Shana: His hat is on backwards. Is his head on backwards too, because that would explain a lot.

Perhaps he’s mesmerized by that poorly photoshopped tipi, straight outta Google image results.

Comments are Closed

  1. Kit says:

    Ok, here’s my thoughts:

    If the man on Saving Kimi had curls instead of straight hair I would have mistaken it for Slash fanfic (that is Slash from Guns n’ Roses not the other Slash fic).

    Last time I checked Dead of Night is still free on kindle in the UK. It’s serviceable enough I didn’t read beyond halfway, but I think that’s more due to the main characters getting together too quickly (I like a bit of slow burn in my romances).

    I’m wanting to check out the shifter book, bear essentials but having an actual bear in the front is an odd move. I suppose it’s slightly better than the usual superimposed photo shopped near in the corner of another *insert cliched badly done paranormal cover here*

    Bear: rule 34 springs into mind.

    Code name Hacker: man, you need to get to a decontamination chamber before you start shuffling your feet and need to eat brains.

  2. Heather M says:

    Kimi looks like she’s wearing a bad bridesmaids dress…in the middle of a Western? An (accidental?) Western horror? All I know is she’s been transported from a different kind of book, and that man needs a face. The void is so disturbing.

  3. C R says:

    I’m a little disturbed by the body of the girl on Bear Essentials. B/c without Zooming in on the face, the effect is, “16 year old” … especially with the outfit and colors.

  4. Cheryl says:

    Her fingers on the Dead of Night cover will haunt me all day.

  5. Ellie says:

    The photoshopped hat on Cousin Itt (and Itt himself obviously) and Kimi’s bridal gown/ bouquet are so disturbing the tepee failed to even register. I had to scroll back up, like “What is Shana even talking about? Ohhh, that tepee.”

  6. Melodie says:

    I’ve been haunted by the Saving Kimi cover since I submitted it. Once you get past all that is wrong with him you start to realize that her head isn’t attached and is the hand with the flowers coming out of the black void where his chest should be? My theory is that we are too late to save Kimi from having her head stolen by the headless shirtless horseman.

  7. C R says:

    I don’t get ANY of this from the cover of Saving Kimi (Amazon summary below). It’s always bad when someone makes up a tribe (“Cheraksaw”) because they know they are going to get the details so wrong. The Chickasaw (close to the spelling) don’t use TiPis. As an Oklahoma native, things like this make me mad.

    ————————————-

    Fleeing a forbidden desire in the small Oklahoma town where her white father raised her, Kimi escapes to the Cheraksaw Reservation to be with her mother—and quickly finds herself in the arms of her childhood friend, Soaring Falcon.

    No sooner does she arrive then her mother forces her out to make it on her own. Her only choice is to take work she doesn’t want…as a governess for hard-hearted widower, Alex Randall. But the rumors and the reputation Kimi fled in town follow her there.

    When she discovers a shocking secret about Mr. Randall, desires for her new boss ignite. Then tragedy strikes, and Kimi must risk everything to save both the men she loves. But deciding who will win her heart may mean stripping away the one thing she values most—her freedom.

  8. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    The woman on the cover of DEAD OF NIGHT just discovered that big hands don’t necessarily translate into big anything else!

  9. Escapeologist says:

    Dead of Night – proportions are wrong on the whole side of her body touching the dude. That arm looks swollen like an allergic reaction.

  10. Dee says:

    How long did it take for slash to straighten his hair?

    The first and third covers are mostly decent except for that one element of “hmmm”.

    The code is his beard. Interesting. Is he also hiding a bomb there?

  11. Louise says:

    Dead of Night: Did someone tell him it’s tastier if you go for the carotid artery instead of the jugular vein like a normal vampire? If so, things are about to get VERY messy.

    Code Name Font Mismatch: Ooh, ooh, I get it, I’ve figured it out! His beard is reflecting the green screen of his monitor, because he’s an Old Skool Hacker who insists on using the same machine he got started with in 1987.

    Bear Essentials: Yes, very nice, but eventually that bear is going to notice there’s a pesky human leaning on his back. But I’m really worried about that magenta-colored gas that’s creeping up on them from all directions. What if it changes one of them into a lemming?

    Saving Kimi: Which one is Kimi? Who needs to be saved from whom? And did she and the heroine of Dead of Night spend the week at the same boring convention, leaving them feeling as if nothing will ever interest them again? Why is there a tipi on the grounds of the nursery which is the only possible source for those flowers? If, on the other hand, Kimi is the man, then clearly the people who saved him did not get there quite fast enough. Maybe he wandered off-set and encountered the previous cover’s bear, with unhappy results.

  12. Gail says:

    One of the best Cover Snarks yet. Thanks for the chuckle.

  13. HeatherT says:

    @Escapeologist — or is it that her arm on this side is fine but the arm on her hip looks to be badly photoshopped on from another (thinner) model? I don’t think arms work that way.

  14. ECSpurlock says:

    Ms Dead of Night is clearly done with this guy’s shenanigans. “I’m telling you, buster, give it up, I’m anemic!”

    He should be Code Name: Treebeard. He’s growing moss.

    That bear looks like he’s about to scratch his back against that woman, which will end badly for both of them.

    Are we saving Kimi from the Deathless Horror of the Plains? Or just from ZZ Top?

  15. Kris says:

    In Dead of Night….seems like Kim Kardashian has already moved on from Kanye.

  16. Betsydub says:

    Re: Saving Kimi – Damn this pandemic! Kid Rock has been unable to go to the salon to get his legendary blond streaks for well over a year, and now he’s embarrassed to show his face to his fans (let alone to Kourtney Kardashian… uh, I mean Kimi).

    And R.I.P. Felix Silla, beloved as Cousin Itt in the classic television show, The Addams Family. Mr. Silla died on April 16 at the age of 84. The Bitchery obviously misses you and sees you in the oddest places.

  17. Merle says:

    I think Kimi is an entomologist or insectivore, or perhaps both, who is looking for insects in the flowers. Meanwhile her date, taking advantage of her distraction, is dropping his disguise to show his true nature as the Formless Void (Genesis 1:1, aka Tohu Wabohu). Apparently they are at a “Native American” themed prom, but he has muffed the dress code.

    I agree, the Bear Essentials bear is scratching its back on the woman– since she appears to be floating above the ground, this will probably just cause her to drift away… She doesn’t look like a very good scratching post anyway.

  18. MsCellanie says:

    I never knew about “Bear” until this post.
    And – seriously Canada? The Governor General’s Award? Seriously?

  19. Maureen says:

    I read that Code Name series by Sawyer Bennett, and enjoyed it! I even braved the green slime beard! It helps when it’s an ebook and my paperwhite is black and white 🙂

  20. Cake and Monsters says:

    Did anyone else misread that as ‘Shitter Town’? No, just me? >.>;

  21. Kris Bock says:

    Cheryl: Her fingers on the Dead of Night cover will haunt me all day.

    What fingers, I was too busy noticing her annoyed expression.

    [Scrolls back up]

    OH HOLY °|}?;:* NOOOOO!

    [Fetal position sobbing]

  22. denise says:

    Bear Essentials looks like it was dipped in a bowl of Fruity Pebbles.

Comments are closed.

By posting a comment, you consent to have your personally identifiable information collected and used in accordance with our privacy policy.

↑ Back to Top