Welcome back to Cover Awe!
Cover art by Clover Lane
Elyse: Could we actually have an alien romance in cover awe!?
Amanda: Is that an alien romance?! Also in fairness I do love the new ice planet barbarian covers
Elyse: It is an alien romance! The other book in the series is gorgeous too!
Tara: Oh my! Those are stunning!
Sarah: I would not be surprised to see that image as a poster available for sale. Wowser, that’s pretty.
Sneezy: SO pretty! I love the cascading flowers!
Amanda: While I’m getting Lindsey Lohan vibes from the woman, I like the illustration and vintage quality of it
Sarah: That is VERY Lohan-esque. What is she doing with her hand? Is that snow or a muff? I think it’s a muff. And I love the design of the whole cover.
Sneezy: Yeah, I agree! The colours and layout reminds me of pretty stationary.
From Jen MG: I just saw two incredible covers that need to be considered for Cover Awe!
Elyse:I love the warm colors
Sarah: I love the cover for The No Girlfriend Rule. It’s so cute and charming and a little vulnerable, especially the one hand touching the hair like oh my gosh this person is talking to me?!
If a cover trend is Adorable AF Queer Folks, I’m very happy with that.
Sneezy: Awwww! This is just stinking cute! I love the warm colours, the happy queer people, the nerdy stuff the shop is selling, all of it! Just all of it!
Amanda: Oh I love the Isabel and the Rogue cover!
Sarah: The library and the yellow gown are probably Beauty and the Beast references, and everything else is so interesting and beautiful – the filigree window and the lower border are especially cute.
Lara: They’re both gorgeous!
Sneezy: I, too, plan to seduce my love interest with shelf space.
The first one is really pretty but also sort of gave me uncanny/AI vibes, so I tried to find the artist/designer (Clover Lane), but I can’t seem to. Any more info on who it might, or is it just AI?
The No Girlfriend Rule is a wonderful book. It was easily one of my Top 10 Reads of 2024.
@Lily: When I went searching for the business, I found the domain was no longer registered, so I wonder if they sadly are no longer around.
A Duke in Winter’s model looks almost exactly like Adelaide Kane!!
@Amanda Thanks! I saw that too, and eventually I got to the author’s page and found the other books in the series. The covers all have a similar vibe, but an artist would be a lot more consistent in how they draw the faces. I’m guessing it would be weird to switch up the artists across those, so still getting the AI vibes. :/ Oh well, I guess.
I would never have guessed that THE HOLLY KING’S SACRIFICE was an alien romance. So gorgeous cover, but is it doing its job?
Love THE NO GIRLFRIEND RULE. It looks like happy people in summer. Just what I need at this time of year.
THE DUKE IN WINTER – yes, but what is going on with her mouth? Kind of a moue going on there? For some reason, this one detail is just throwing off the whole thing for me.
THE DUKE IN WINTER – what is going on with her collar bone migrating onto her shoulder?
The first image is definitely AI, the way the hair strands in the center left and center right edges are a dead giveaway. Disappointing and upsetting to see it featured.
The covers for The No-Girlfriend Rule and Isabel And The Rogue are such sweet, delightful illustrations and use those bold yellows to great effect! And I love the composition, posing, and restrained color scheme for A Duke In Winter (though I’m with everyone else picking up big Lohan vibes from the model, ah well, lol).
All are beautiful covers. The only odd thing is her collar bone looks offset on A Duke in Winter.
When I did a deeper dive on the defunct Squarespace link, I think Chloe Parker is Clover Lane Designs based on the email you can see in the descriptor, plus it mentioned she was an indie writer. She has another similar cover, and the rest are mostly bare-chested covers. Final connection is the name of the email shown in the defunct Clover Lane descriptor matches the author’s Instagram handle.
Whether the cover is AI, I didn’t bother going down that rabbit hole, but I feel certain I did solve the cover artist source.
@denise Thank you for that solve!
I’ll just drop the AI discussion at this point!
@Jay: We aren’t in favor of AI covers, either, and sometimes we can’t easily spot it. I don’t make a point of featuring AI covers purposefully; if they are, it means we missed one. Oops on us. But it’s also important to show how some AI art is harder to detect by the average reader, and we sometimes we honestly can’t tell. So thanks for that.
Devil’s advocate: you can find watercolor stock images for covers.
Because I had a few moments and was curious, I did a google lens search, and the woman’s image is available on at least two other books–reverse profile–both available on Amazon, but without the horns and other flora. One is a non-fiction anthology, the other is a notebook. And the flowers are slightly different, but that’s not uncommon for stock photos.
Looking on Shutterstock, similar, but different, watercolor images are available in portrait isolated, which could be easily layered, so it’s not necessarily an AI image. https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/set-woman-portrait-flowers-watercolor-isolated-2322792725
I didn’t look at any other sites. Granted, it could be AI, but it could just be a watercolor stock photo which was layered with multiple floral pieces easily available online.