Welcome back to Cover Snark!
From Gloriamarie
Sarah: Have we snarked this before? I’m getting all the alien/nanny/childcare books confused.
Amanda: We have snarked MANY Tasha Black covers.
Sarah: I still have many questions about the absence of social support networks and child care in this universe.
Claudia: Can they really be an advanced society? I think not. I do think we haven’t done this one yet but many like it. The last one had cosmic poop in the vicinity of the baby’s diaper and this one is clean.
Sarah: Yes and this one is horny.
Amanda: More of a title snark.
Sarah: Wait…
I … okay I give up
Amanda: What are they looking at?
Sarah: I love how they picked a model that looks like Meg Tilly from Agnes of God
Claudia: They are looking for Jesus!!
From Melodie: I have definitely looked at too many bad covers when my first thought is not “They need shirts to fight fires,” or “His creepy zombie hand is going to choke her,” but “Well, I guess they would be that dehydrated standing in a volcano.”
Elyse: I have it on good authority that firefighters wear clothes into fires. So they don’t die and stuff.
Amanda: I thought one was the ghost of Bane in the upper right corner. It’s like A Christmas Carol but for firemen.
Sarah: that is one way to effectively depilate I guess. Burn those chesties right off.
From AM: I thought it was a ghost balloon behind the guy’s head, not a dragon against the moon!
Sarah: Sir, sir there’s something…b-never mind you look busy.
Amanda: Either her head is too small or her hands are too big.
Sarah: The neck is out of alignment, probably from trying to Photoshop Meghan Markle’s head onto the body.
…Hang on, the firemen are not the ones who needs to be nannied, right? There is a kid involved here, somewhere? I mean, I would hope that firemen are physically and emotionally mature enough to be trusted minding themselves alone for a few hours…
Also, re: Nun for the Viking Warrior, Amanda voiced my literal first thought.
@TMary looked up the blurb of the fire men book. The firemen find a baby on the doorstep of the station hence needing the nanny. It’s like Three Men and a baby with lots of banging.
Read this author before, ok once in a while but very formulaic, usually RH with 3-5 men.
I don’t think the Tasha Black covers are that bad! I do love her books though
She must find his nose very attractive in the last cover.
Harlequin Historical covers often seem to feature one model that is trying to look like they’re focused on the other (emphasis on the “trying”; often they look more like they might have IBS) and one model that is either looking intently at something else, sometimes you, or trying to remember whether they locked the front door, and either way evidently indifferent or oblivious to the existence of the other. But I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen one where they just decided that yes, whatever is going on out of frame should be stared at by both models. Have I been misunderstanding all along? Maybe there actually IS something bizarre or uncanny or otherwise worth looking at in the Harlequin Historical photo studio. Should we be concerned? Maybe someone should investigate?
What if the dragon is not up in the sky, but it’s actually a TINY dragon that’s giving the hero some kind of heated neck massage with that stream of light coming out of its snout?
Alien CEO Needs a Nanny: O heavens, it really IS a series. I thought I was kidding when you ran the first one. I’m disappointed Amazon only lists four (numbered) titles. Our alien–who looks awfully humanoid, barring the obviously CGI horns–also needs a new graphic designer who can explain (a) why four fonts in seven sizes will always be too many, and (b) why putting “Alien CEO” in ALL CAPS is not the best idea.
A Nun for the Viking Warrior: Is this another series, and if so, which way does it go? A Nun for the Blacksmith, A Nun for the Wandering Troubadour … or is it A Housekeeper for the Viking Warrior, A Chaplain for the Viking Warrior, and so on? Seriously though, couldn’t they have tried to make her habit look hand-sewn? His haircut also looks fearfully present-century. In short, the whole thing makes me remember why Harlequin Romances were once considered the lowest of the low.
I haven’t the energy even to point out that “Viking” is actually a verb: going out viking, kind of thing.
Nanny for the Firemen: If I were a romance heroine, I would start asking why so many, so very many men are suddenly in need of a nanny. Maybe it’s worth looking up the children’s mother to find out why she was impelled to leave. And, wait, “FireMEN”, plural? I don’t want to know what has been going on at this station, or for that matter why the local Child Welfare office also seems to be offline.
Drakaina’s Fire: Author forgets how to spell Dracaena (I think it’s a plant genus, but am too lazy to look it up) and hopes the reader won’t notice.
Both the nun and the Viking are looking way too modern on that cover. Yes a nun’s habit is modeled after Medieval clothing but as it is now the elements are more decorative than functional; they should have done a little more research. And no Viking would wear his hair that short, or a tunic built like that.
And those firemen definitely need a nanny to make sure they get dressed before going to work.
I’m also a little concerned about the exploding D on that last cover.
I think the nun book is about cosplay night at the club. He’s wearing a fancy bathrobe over a scarf and she tossed a few tablecloths on her head and put on grandma’s dickie after spending all her time on her makeup.
Please tell me the baby wasn’t born with the horns, because ouch.
I see a little more face mashup of Ingrid Bergman (The Bells of St. Mary’s)/Audrey Hepburn (The Nun’s Story) in the nun book cover.
The local volunteer firemen never look like that.
Fire has too much copy/paste photo shop going on.
@Denise, your first comment echoed my thoughts. Ouch, indeed!
I’m not Catholic, but that strikes me as a very transgressive cover. I happen to like Harlequin Historicals; they have some good authors, and I prefer their covers to what I see on a lot of hr covers these days, which is either cartoonish or a woman wearing a giant poufy pastel dress. HH covers are usually more historically accurate, and they’re more serious looking, with a darker color palette. This one though…
All four covers add to the snarky stew. The photorealism of the Harlequin Historical cover is pretty jarring. In connection with the cosplay query above, perhaps “nuns and vikings” is a variation on the “tarts and vicars” theme? (Now I’m see Bridget Jones as the nun and Mark Darcy as the Viking, perhaps carrying the ugly Christmas sweater under one arm . . .)
@Louise, Viking wasn’t just used as a verb. It’s past my bedtime and I’m sleep deprived, so I’m just going to refer to the first runic inscription that I can think of that proves this, Sm 10 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_runestones#Sm_10).
Latin transliteration:
-u(k)i tyki × uikikr reisti * stein * e(f)tir : kunar : sun : kirims × kuþ healbi sel hans
Old Norse transcription:
[T]oki, Toki Vikingʀ, ræisti stæin æftiʀ Gunnar, sun Grims. Guð hialpi salu hans!
English translation:
“Tóki, Tóki the Viking, raised the stone in memory of Gunnarr, Grímr’s son. May God help his soul!”