Kerry Allen's Blog

Aug 01 2007

What’s in a cover?

Tag: Cover me — Kerry Allen @ 1:00 am

I don’t judge a book by its cover. Maybe it’s because I buy 99.99 percent of my books online, and it’s hard to judge the teeny-tiny image available. Maybe it’s because I know cover creation has little to nothing to do with the content of the book, which is what I really care about. Maybe I’m just not that visually oriented.

There are people, however, who won’t touch a book if they find the cover offputting for whatever reason. There are some covers that even I, brazen wench that I am, would dread taking out in public. There are some covers, though, that stand out as exceptional. Here are a few of my favorites:

Dark NeedGenerally speaking, I don’t want to see a character’s face on the cover because it never coincides with my imagination, and my idea of an attractive male face is oddly out of sync with the world of male modeling.

A notable exception is the cover of Lynn Viehl’s Dark Need. This is not at all how I envisioned Lucan (the male lead in the book), but I like looking at this guy’s face so much, it replaced that of one of my own characters in my mind.

Dark Lover.

I think J.R. Ward’s covers are pretty tasteful. Technically, that’s a clinch, but the monochromatic scheme tones it down and classes it up.

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Smoke ThiefThe covers of Shana Abe’s Drakon books depict no people at all.

(If I could find this dragon in the form of a mirror frame, it would be on my wall right now.)

However, my mother returned this book to me unread because she could not identify it on sight as a romance novel. I ’splained it to her and gave it back. She read it and really enjoyed it, but she would have passed on it, based on the cover, as being something other than what she was interested in reading…

Tender RebelI even have a favorite among the 1980s bodice-ripper covers, so much so that I bought my mother a brand-new copy (with the abstract flowery cover that was en vogue at that time) so I could take this one with me when I left home.

I have a shoulder fetish, what can I say? (Man shoulder, that is. I want to tell her to fix her sleeve.)

(This cover also snuck in just before the Dawn of Fabio. The next book in the series was not so fortunate.)

Never Lie to a Lady.

I don’t read historicals anymore, but I think the covers of Liz Carlyle’s latest series are beautiful.

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Wicked DeedsThe first thing I jotted down when planning this post was “The hero isn’t running around half naked in the book, so why does he always have to be half naked on the cover?” So I cracked up when I dropped by Meljean Brook’s site, where she had posted the cover of Kresley Cole’s next paranormal (my first glimpse of a book I have been waiting and waiting for) with the caption “Clothes are way hawt on a hero.”

So true. Enough with the heaving bosoms of both genders. I’ll spearhead a charity clothing drive for cover models if that’s what it takes to supply shirts for them all.

(Note that the woman on Cole’s cover is wearing a fabulous gravity-defying designer gown. You can have it. Ms. Brook and I will be duking it out for the guy’s coat. She’s a tiny thing—I bet I can take her.)

What are your favorite romance covers and why, and for those ruled by that first visual impression, what cover qualities make for an auto-reject?

2 Responses to “What’s in a cover?”

  1. Kayelle Allen is SO pretty.
    August 1st, 2007 at 6:48 am

    I’m in love with Bells, from Michael Barnette’s Through Neon Eyes series.
    http://www.mojocastle.com/TNEzoner/zoner.html

    The attitude of the character jumps out at you … and after reading the books, you can tell immediately that the cover artist had too. :)

    Laura Givens did the cover of all my books, and I love what she’s done with them. All four are on this page on my site:
    http://kayelleallen.com/Books.html Clothing wise, I’d say I like the red dress (definitely gravity defying) worn the empress, and the tux by the hero on the cover of Alitus. Although two of my books have half-dressed characters (or in the case of the one in the tub… not dressed at all *wink*), the other two have heroes in tuxes. I’m shooting for a tux on my next cover, the final in a trilogy. There is something about a tux… *sigh* Oh, and about that guy’s coat. Definitely. I wonder if he’d loan that to one of my heros? I’m betting they could take him too. Hmm. Since some of my heros are gay, that might be very interesting to watch. *smirk*

  2. Kayelle Allen is SO pretty.
    August 1st, 2007 at 6:50 am

    Addendum to that… the empress isn’t wearing a red dress. *_* That’s NarrAy from At the Mercy of Her Pleasure. The empress has on an empire waist glittery black gown with elbow length see-thru gloves. *ahem*

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