Sarah: This is one of the most memorable Lindsey covers for me. She looks uncomfortable, like he stopped her from leaning over the port side and hurling into the sea. The ocean behind them looks pretty rough, and she does not look particularly well. See that sick expression on her face?
“Please, put me down, I’m going to boof.”
And as for you, Mr. Hunkadunk, I see that you’ve tucked your shirt into your massively thick and uncomfortable looking belt. Perhaps if your shirt blowing around is a nusiance, you might try buttoning it!
Also, I keep misreading the lettering as “Gentile Rogue.”
Candy: Oh, how I weep that bad eyeshadow colors were inflicted upon hapless maidens even hundreds of years ago. Aquamarine eyeshadow is the true abomination, not sodomy. When will people learn?
And Sarah, I didn’t think her expression looks so much seasick as… pained. As if Fabulous slid a buttplug into Miss Thang without bothering to use lube. See, she embodies two abominations in one! Four if you count her lipstick and foundation as two separate items.
As for Fabio: as always, he renders me speechless. Like you said, I like how he took the time and trouble to tuck the billowing shirt into his belt, but couldn’t bring himself to BUTTON THE FUCKING THING.
This cover features the elusive trifecta most romance novels can only dream of, by the way: There’s a Hint o’ Dick, I Got Coochy and, best of all, Whole Lotta Titty—on both hero and heroine’s parts.
Sarah: I have a heart of thunder. I have heartburn like you wouldn’t believe. This cover is not helping. Oh, the many peculiarities. What’s up with her hair? Her face? And the locale? They appear to be swooning in a lush patch of foliage in the middle of the desert near Devil’s Finger – in a lightning storm. Surely bumping uglies in a desert with an electrical storm moving in is not advisable, according to the National Weather Service. Nice suggestive blossoms, though.
And dude, dude. Your face is… squished. And you are…very tan. Wait, is this a Wishes-it-were-an-Edwards-“Savage” story? Alas, no, that is “Hank Chavez, the rough-hewn, insolvent outlaw.” He’s not a “savage;” he’s “insolvent.” And according to this cover, rather unwashed, too.
Candy: Insolvent? I think it probably means that regular soap and water are unable to cut throught the three-inch layer of oil and dirt this guy seems to have caked on him and one needs to resort to industrial solvents like toluene to do the job. Just like another Lindsey cover, this one revisits the pairing of stank-ass-nasty naked man with a woman dolled up like a two-bit whore, preparing to bump uglies while a lurid sky looks like it’s going to dump five different kinds of shitty weather on their horny asses.
And furthermore, what does the title even MEAN? It sounds singularly unpleasant. If you have a heart of thunder, may I please suggest you look up a good cardiologist? It just makes me think of that Strong Bad video game: YOUR HEART A SPLODE. Internal Organ + Violent Weather = Moronic Title. “Stomach of Lightning.” “Colon of Hail.” “Thyroid Gland of Tornado.” See? It’s equally stupid when you apply it to other organs. “Eyes of Blizzard.” “Penis of Hurricane.” “Vagina of Torrential Rainstorm.” Almost makes me want to make another romance novel title generator. (Though admittedly the last one makes more sense than I want it to.)
But this is “Covers Gone Wild,” not “Incredibly Stupid Titles Gone Wild.” That would have to be a whole other ‘nother weekly feature.
Sarah: This cover is akin to “Defy Not the Heart” weirdness. Can you imagine the artist trying to sell this cover concept?
“They’re in a snow storm. He’s wearing this weird cape and doublet dealie, and he has perfectly coiffed hair, while she’s got her dress half-falling down her astonishing bosom, and her hair is blowing straight sideways in the wind. There’s a castle, some storm clouds and snow – and here’s the best part! Wait for it…. wait for it…. there is a Viking ship sailing straight up out of her ass!”
And oh my God you couldn’t make this up unless you were a Smart Bitch thinking up prize titles: the heroine’s name is Kristen Haardrad! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Candy: I didn’t picture that Viking ship coming out of her ass so much as get the impression that her hair is regularly used as some kind of weird hiding place for presents and other objects. Like, he’s taking her hair down all sensually and shit, and he’s running his fingers through it and hoping he’ll get to brush against some hooter on the way down when his fingers snag on something and he’s thinking “WHAT THE FUCK” but she’s all “HONEY, SURPRISE! Look what I got you for your Christmas! Do you like it?”
And is it too much of a copyright violation for us to create a “Duchess of Haardrad”? Because goddamn, I really, really want to.
On the Gentile Rogue cover, she looks like she’s farting on his leg in some very strange mating ritual.
And he looks like he’s really digging that farting action.
DO NOT MAKE ME LINK TO FART FETISH SITES I WARN YOU NOW
There are fart fetish sites. EUWWWWWW. That is just so wrong.
As I learned real quick once I got on the Internet, there are fetishes for EVERY body fuction you can think of. Seriously. Think of a body function, and there will be copious numbers of websites dedicated to it, some of them terrifyingly specific.
And actually, no less a personage than James Joyce was a connoisseur of the thundering roses. From this website, which excerpts letters from Joyce to his wife, Nora:
“My prick was stuck in you for hours, fucking in and out under your upturned rump. I felt your fat sweaty buttocks under my belly and saw your flushed face and mad eyes. At every fuck I gave you your shameless tongue came bursting out through your lips and if a gave you a bigger stronger fuck than usual, fat dirty farts came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to fuck a farting woman when every fuck drives one out of her. I think I would know Nora’s fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also.”
Wow, I fucked up that link, didn’t I? Heh.
Honestly, I’m trying to respond in some way to that quoted passage, but I think I may actually (inform the Press) be speechless.
I knew there was a reason I didn’t read Joyce.
Sadly enough, I think the dirty letters are some of his best writing…. :gulp:
Golly that JOYCE! Of course I ran off to read that site. I have work to do. Any time anyone feels that this generation contains the first pioneers of porn, they should be forced to read those letters.
The man also liked dirty laundry:
“The smallest things give me a great cockstand …a little brown stain on the seat of your white drawers, a sudden dirty word spluttered out by your wet lips, a sudden immodest noise made by you behind and then a bad smell slowly curling up out of your backside. At such moments I feel mad to do it in some filthy way…”
Dude, to quote the therapist on South Park, Joyce was seriously into mookey stink.
Too bad there’s no Lindsey cover for that. Although that first one comes close.
Good think he liked toots because you get the impression from the letters that his wife was seriously into eating beans and cabbage. And maybe she was lactose intolerant.
Oh Dear Lord. I come back from RT ready for some Smart Bitches and I get FARTS and DIRTY LAUNDRY. There are some things I would have happily remained oblivious of and those letters now top my list followed closely by “meat curtains” and blue tentacled dicks.
After reading this site, all vestiges of my innocence are gone forever and I’m now heading on the path of needing therapy.
Many many years ago, there was a cover, think it was by Leisure but can’t remember the author. Heroine had on a yellow dress, there was a brownish shadow on the back of the skirt. So help me God, it looked like she’d had an accident.
Obviously, this was burnt forever into my mind.
If you look at the actual cover Gentle Rogue, you will see that the artist has acutally included her nipples under her gauzy bodice. I always wondered if anyone actually looked at that cover before approving it.
Colon of Hail? LOL! Gawd, I nearly blew out my sinuses snorting Pepsi through my nose when I read that.
And does it really say “insolvent”? I have to dig around in my ancient bin of dust-covered romance pulp and see if I have that one just so I can read that.
I described Smart Bitches to a friend the other day as the “MST3K of romance writing, especially when they take on the bookcovers”.
After reading this latest wonderfulness, I believe that may not be a strong enough accolade.
Here I was, thinking that the heroine on the Gentle Rogue cover was the one I’d pick if I ever won a Smart Bitches award, and now you’ve all ruined it for me!
I also could have happily lived the rest of my life without knowing that bit about James Joyce. It may be a while before I ever read Dubliners again . . .
Alyssa
I’m glad I’m not the only one who keeps misreading Lindsey’s titties. I mean, titles.
Dear Publisher, new font, please.
That font is terrible, isn’t it? It’s so easily misread as a serif font with all those pointy edges. Gentile Rogue indeed.
At least in these covers the T doesn’t look virtually identical to an R (though a few come pretty damn close), making “Heart” into “Hearr.”