Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Sarah: A Lifetime Original Movie: Not Without My Head! - Juliana Marguiles goes on a bad ‘shroom trip, and finds her head has been poorly cut-and-pasted onto a book cover beneath a man for whom “The Fairy Ring” means something entirely different. One-and-one-half stars.

Candy: I’m not sure if this cover would be improved or made worse if I viewed it under the influence of some good old-fashioned psilocybin.

I’m thinking “not,” because that thing is a bad trip if I ever saw one.

I’m also slightly disturbed by the way the the cover looks more like exceptionally bad Inara/Wash Firefly ‘ship fanart.

Sarah: Trixie curled her hair around one finger and giggled in that high-pitch, wind-chimey way of hers. 

“Thore, I get that your brother is the Tower of Golden Shower, and your cousin is The Fistin’ Piston. But why are you called The Amber Inferno? And why do you order your AssBlaster Burgers with extra saffron and sweet potatoes?”

“...Thore? What’s that smell?”

Candy: Look, I’m just saying: with a title like Amber Inferno, I expect a cover that looks sort of dark and broody and atmospheric, not a shitstorm of purple and My Little Pony on steroids and glittery crap. And what the fuck is up with that, anyway? Somebody needs to sign up for Glitter Pen Anonymous like DAMN. Unless those are pegasus turds we’re seeing?

Sarah: Now that men with hair extensions and multi-finned tails have been added to the US Team, synchronized swimming competition will never be the same.

Candy: Why is the naked girl trying to show off her cheerleading routine while being hauled around by a demonic merman? And why does her hair violate all the laws of physics? Is that what she’s cheering on? “Two four six eight, guess which law we really hate? Gravity! Gravity! GRRRRRAVITY! Woohoo, woohoo, go Spartans!”

Sarah: Please sit down and place your head between your knees in preparation for the following complimentary statement:

Damn. Nice buns.

Now, why he had to mess them up with some Sharpie marker drawing and a sacrum tattoo, I have no idea. I think the lower back tattoo is just the strangest thing. It’s like an ink warning: If I keep bending over, it’s ass crack ahoy!

But what the hell is going on with his arms? He’s admiring his bicep while She-Ra humps his wrist and pulls his hair - you had me at the buns but you lost me at wrist-humping She-Ra.

Candy: Riding a winged horse while wearing nothing more than a bra and a really skimpy garter belt. Right. That’s a GREAT idea. But maybe there’s no such thing as saddle rash in Heaven?

And as for the guy’s tattoos: the one on his sacrum looks more like an arrow pointing the way to especially obtuse people. Between the hair, his completely clean-shaven body and the fact that his chest and ass are bigger and perkier than a Playboy Playmate’s? I’m thinking that at the very least he likes to switch hit, if you know what I mean.

This week’s cover snark was brought to you by this year’s RITA nominees. Quality romance != quality covers, as many authors can probably attest to (poor Loretta Chase--will she ever catch a break, or does God really hate her so much that she’s forever doomed to hideous covers featuring dudes with greasy perms and/or jaundice?). So, congratulations to the nominees, and also best of luck--especially with the art department.

Candy: The Secret Wife hands the (no doubt) Even More Secret Baby to Gunther the bodyguard so he can exterminate the last of the evidence of her drunken Cabo weekend.

Sarah:

Dude. Isn’t that the bald guy from Night Court? You never know WHO is going to turn up as a cover model next!

And why is there a car driving into his crotch?

Candy: HAY GUYS! THIS BOOK IS LIKE OMGHOT LIKE REALLY FOR REALZ HOT! EVEN THOUGH THE GUY LOOKS LIKE A BLIND DATE REJECT BUT U NO HES HOT COZ LOOK AT ALL THOSE HOT CHICS STANDING AROUND HIM.

Sarah: Here at SBTB we present the following ironclad rule: “If you have to use an exclamation point to assert the hotness of your hero, there is no way said hero will be remotely hot on the cover of your novel. Instead, your hero will look like a meth-addled Joey Lawrence.”

Whoa.

Candy: OK, I know the guy is supposed to be putting his hands up in surrender, but from this angle, it looks like he’s excited. “Ooooh, ooooh, Sharon Stone is shooting me with a red laser! How veddy, veddy exciting! I can’t wait to tell Mumsy about this, she will just die!”

Sarah: Either he’s running to Mumsy, or he’s gyrating his hips like those guys in the Nextel commercial and she’s so pissed about his poor dancing skills that she’s going to shoot off his schmeckie and see how well he dances now, huh, punk?!

We have taken mercy on our readership and suspended our DeSalvo cover fug for the nonce. Well, OK, not really. There’s ONE DeSalvo cover in this batch of cover snarkage, but it’s pretty discreet. We do have other types of man-titty for your viewing (dis)pleasure, however.

If you are Leigh Greenwood, you are one lucky man/woman. Because oh, holy night, you got yourself some fine DeSalvo covers for your “The Cowboys” series. From Greenwood’s website:

The freedom of the range, the bawling of the longhorns, the lonesome night watch beneath a vast, starry sky - they got into a man’s blood until he knew there was nothing better than the life of a cowboy...except the love of a good woman.

This series tells the stories of nearly a dozen orphans who’re adopted by Jake and Isabelle Maxwell and grow up on their cattle ranch in the Texas Hill Country.

So as the longhorns bawl (perhaps due to the purple prose?) you find a bunch of orphans, who, judging from the covers, miraculously all look alike (except for Sean, who wants you to pull his finger). That is some serious scientific mystery right there, folks. I’m amazed that A&E hasn’t done a heavily-promoted special on the identical orphans. They’re all desalvolicious in their own special way.

Sarah: The mullet. The manly firearm held erect from his manly crotch. And of course, the mantitty. Buck is a master of manly manliness. And he only likes women with mullets and salmon colored dresses. Sorry, ladies.

Candy: He only likes women with mullets? The hell you say. I swear to God that’s an Adam’s apple I see peeking ‘midst yon flame-colored mullet tresses.

Sorry, ladies, indeed.

Sarah: Identical faces… all sporting mullets. Chet, of course, is blonde.

Now, here’s my problem with this cover. There is only one Chet. This is Chet.

And also, this is Chet. That dude with the hat? Not Chet.

Candy: Man, that little inset looks like the lead-up to the following joke:

What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?

Nothing, you already told the bitch twice.

I’m just saying he looks like he’s about ready to tell the little lady the first time.

Sarah: Nice waxed chest, there, Luke. It’s good that you keep up with your brother’s love of the mullet, but I think you’re really interested in brotherly love of a different sort, hmmm? Those daisies, they mean something, don’t they.

Candy: Much as it pains me to say it, if Viggo Mortensen decided to undergo laser hair removal and pectoral implant surgery while dressed in Hidalgo drag, he might look like this incarnation of DeSalvo.

Sarah: Matt, not only do you have Luke’s shaved chest and Chet’s mullet, but you have a decided love of hair product, too. Your horse, his hair is everywhere. But yours? Moves not an inch. So manly.

Now turn the horse around so Candy and I can check for a glittery rainbow sticker on your horse’s rump.

Candy: “Hold on, I don’t want this pomade. I want Dapper Dan.”

“I don’t carry Dapper Dan, I carry Fop.”

“Well, I don’t want Fop, goddamn it! I’m a Dapper Dan man!”

Sarah: Poor guy. No mullet, his shirt appears to be buttoned, and he’s somewhat normal looking. And his gun, it is not held in an erect posture. For all these sins and more, he gets a backseat to some chick with a bad wig and a skirt that is so short, she wil have breathtaking thigh chafing within the hour. He is way in the distance, and his hopes of gettin’ some from Drew? Distant as well.

Candy: I agree that his chances of scoring with Drew are slim to none, but I’m not sure the fella minds. Something tells me he has a gallon tub of Dapper Dan in his saddlebags and he’s off to meet a man with a strong hankering for it--and not just for his hair, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Sarah: He looks like he feels a little guilty. Here he is, trying to impress you, sharpening his wee little blade, wearing his finest feather headdress, and ...whoops!  A little poot slips from beneath his buckskins. And he hopes you won’t notice but it’s visible, a green, sulfur cloud that wafts behind him. Ooops. No wonder he feels guilty. He killed the Laird of the Wind with his green Savage Thunder.

Candy: His buddies HATE going hunting with him, not only because of the thunderous savagery emanating from his behiney, but because the stench scares away the animals for miles around. Also, he doesn’t look savage so much as he does kind of tweaked-out and worried. He looks like he’s just snorted a huge line of coke and trying really, really hard to stifle a real ripper, but not quite succeeding.

Also: Egad. What are the odds that there’d be not one, but two books entitled Savage Thunder? Gotta love the romance novel industry.

Sarah: Oh, Holy God, SHE’S A MAN, BABY. A MAAAAAN.

Candy: Wow. Props to the art department for finding a person who has bigger titties than DeSalvo. But Sarah has a point. I’m now wondering: Where else is she more generously endowed than our erstwhile hero? Is that the shadow of...other things...I see? Does her cinnabar cave hide a lusty dragon?

Sarah: Sometimes happiness means a musclebound man with a mullet whose hair, although egregious, is still better than his partner’s, as she sports one of the seven lesbian haircuts.

And sometimes happiness means faking, *le sigh*, yet another orgasm for the cover of a romance novel.

And sometimes, happiness means getting to look at a cover like this to say mean things about it, and having so many horrible thoughts pop into my mind that I just giggle like a mental patient who got her hands on the contents of one too many helium balloons.

Candy: Do you ever have moments when so many quips flood forth that they basically jam your brain, kind of like all the Three Stooges trying to ram their way through a doorway at once?

Yeah. Am having one of those moments now. The word “beard” seems to be one of the few coherent words that has escaped the logjam. (Huh huh, “logjam.") All I can say is, bitch doesn’t need to wait for the rainbow. The rainbow’s motherfucking THERE already--see? All sparkly-like, right on the bumper of his car.