Welcome back to Cover Snark! We’re also a little low in the Snark pantry, so feel free to send covers to consider to me or Sarah.
From Pam G: So Dr. Nips is back with a truly hideous shirt which he apparently left on when he got the tattoo. Also, where is his left arm?
Sarah: The way the mountain cross fades onto his pec looks contagious.
Amanda: The metal has got to be real cold on that nip.
Sarah: Would the big round part of the stethoscope bend that way on its own or has it fused to his chest??
Sneezy: Wouldn’t that mean he’d need another one? What if that one fuses to him too? How does he keep stethoscopes from fusing to his ears, or is it luck of the draw?
From Jen: The guy looks like he’d rather be elsewhere and the gorilla looks angry.
Sarah: I swear that guy was on The Bachelor.
Is that a Bachelor?
Elyse: His eyes aren’t vacant enough
Sarah: Does he resemble Nick Viall? WHY do I think I’ve seen this person before?
Elyse: Maybe a little? From the nose up.
Sarah: Imagine that as a compliment: “you have Nick Viall’s forehead!”
Elyse: He looks like what AI would produce if you asked it to make a Bachelor
Tara: The gorilla is definitely saying gtfo
Sneezy: He should listen while the gorilla is still speaking nicely.
From Leslie: I love the cover snarks. I don’t know if you have “covered” this one before but submitting one for consideration. Between the side eye and a polar bear. I don’t relate a yeti to a polar bear – but maybe I missed something in college environmental science class in?!
Sarah: OH, gracious. Leslie F has sent us a banger.
Everyone is confused here, especially me.
Maya: Do you think you are supposed to read it as Bearly better yet-I? Like one of the protagonists is barely better from something, yet they…something. Bc I also don’t understand
Sarah: MORE CONFUSION has arrived.
Elyse: They couldn’t afford yeti clip art, so they just went with the bear
Sarah: How much confused yeti stock imagery do you think there is? (Don’t Google that. Your search history deserves peace.)
Amanda: but that’s a polar bear…
even in paranormal romances, the ice caps are melting and the polar bear shifters must travel south for food and boning.
Sarah: Maybe the polar bear ate the yeti and that’s why he looks like he’s about to yark?
Maya: Get ready for a tragic backstory for the polar bear/yeti involving an ice floe and a beloved sibling that in the third act turns out to not be dead
Tara: I can’t even snark this one because I can’t stop laughing.
Sneezy: Said sibling would either have been frozen in an iceberg, or have become a grim dark anti-hero. Amnesia optional.
Amanda: That middle hand is confounding me so much because my brain keeps insisting there are five hands in this cover but there are not. It also looks very big.
Sarah: Even in photography, hands are difficult. This hand makes sense but also doesn’t? It’s very distracting.
Sneezy: I don’t understand how the knife hasn’t tipped over and broke something already. I know I’m nitpicking, but it’s smack dab in the middle of the cover, clearly meant to be a visual and thematic focal point.
I hereby declare that no book title shall contain more than one pun. Bearly Better Yet is acceptable (bearly). Barely Better Yeti … somewhat less so, but I am willing to forgive it so long as it is only the one. But if we have Bearly Better Yeti, what is the focus of the pun supposed to be? The bear?? The yeti??? The better???? Is “better” also a pun????? Is this also a gambling romance?????? About a bear-shifter from Tibet who is recovering from a gambling addiction???????
…Now that I say that out loud, it doesn’t sound half bad. Or perhaps I just need to sleep.
Warlander Silverback’s paper-doll stance makes him look like the player character from a low-budget first-person-shooter.
Also, dude’s going to be one big mosquito bite and have chafed junk besides, if he’s frolicking about central Africa in denim and no shirt.
In Sharp Evidence her left hand looks like she stuffed a glove and taped it to her sleeve. So what is she doing with her actual left hand? Was it her fingerprints on the bloody knife so she’s trying to distract him. My theory is that she is a secret groper and Mr. White Coat is about to get a surprise.
The last one looks like one of those photos from an old uni prospectus. The ones trying to show two students pretending to study a blank piece of paper pretending it’s some really important test findings.
Once Broken, Twice Loved: Are we now accepting entries in the Excessive Fonts category if there are only three, provided they clash sufficiently? Be that as it may, if I were suffering from a broken heart, I’m pretty sure I would run like hell if I caught a glimpse of anyone looking like a romance cover novel. Yes, even if he’s a medical professional. (Or, at minimum, a third-year medical student, since that’s when Major Pharmaceutical Company passes out the stethoscopes.)
Warlander / Silverback: Series titles are so confusing. Is this Title #1 in a projected Warlander series, of which this first one is individually called Silverback? In any case, what I’d really, really like to know is what our model has come face-to-face with that stops him from even thinking about the advancing silverback. Especially since I’m pretty sure gorillas don’t sneak up on you from behind, so he must be heading for the same threat himself.
Bearly Better Yeti: I know it’s supposed to be a reflection, but it looks like one of those sinister Asian lakes that is permanently a scary, un-lake-like color. But at least I can understand the cover model’s puzzlement, since that is nowhere near the climate for either a yeti or a polar bear.
Sharp Evidence: The recurring theme of this week’s selections seems to be Misplaced Emphasis. What is written on the back of that evidence envelope that is more interesting than its bloody contents? I’m reading the knife as being inside the plastic, since even a cover model would have brains enough not to hold a knife by the tip in his bare hand. And speaking of bare hand, where are the gloves? For that matter, his lab coat looks as if it still has creases from its original packaging. Give it an hour or two and it will no longer be so pristine.
I see we’re still plugging Made of Wyoming whisky. Some day I will figure out why “sharp and dry” is a selling point.
Sneezy, the knife is inside the evidence bag. The guy looks like Nick Viall agreed, even has the sneering lips
Warlander was talking smack about the Silverback and then realized “Oh, he’s behind me, isn’t he!”
So I’m not alone in thinking that guy looks like Nick Viall? PHEW. I am glad I’m not alone.
ONCE BROKEN, TWICE LOVED: He’s a Ken doll who is a doctor in a boy band — and he’s a ghost!
WARLANDER SILVERBACK: The silverback stares in contempt at the bronzeback.
BEARLY BETTER YETI: The curly part of the B is reaching back to tickle the man’s nipple.
SHARP EVIDENCE: The evidence-gatherer’s terrible handwriting is a major plot point.
Surfer dude Dr Nips is shooting laser beams out of the left one. He might want to get that checked out. And what’s up with the satin scrubs? Or did he go to work in his PJ’s?
That woman’s hair looks like a colony of — something (bees? moss? barnacles?) that is slowly devouring her head. And that note is either extremely cryptic or extremely bad handwriting or both; either way they clearly can’t figure it out.
since there are stigmas against those with naturally curly hair, please be careful with the negativity when comparing it to other things.
@denise, my apologies, I did not mean to offend. It didn’t even occur to me, since I and everyone I know have always envied people with naturally curly hair. (In fact my mother put me through a hellish number of home permanents in my childhood to achieve that very effect, hoping I would fit in with all my Italian cousins who did come by it naturally.)
Besides, the hair on that cover has clearly been photoshopped in; if you look at the sides of her face you can see that the original model had dark, straight hair, and the red curls have been plopped on top of it.
Photoshopped or not, the stigma exists, and it’s not an excuse.
While I’m white and have experienced verbal abuse and discrimination because of my naturally curly hair, what happens to BIPOC individuals is beyond compare. Hence the need for the Crown Act.
https://www.thecrownact.com/
About “Bearly Better Yeti”–The guy was a yeti who somehow turned into human, which explains his confused expression and lack of clothing. He is wondering about his hairstyle, which was not his usual yeti hairstyle.