And I don’t think that’s all he’s serving, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Come on, now, this is just kind of sleazy. They’re not even trying anymore. And you know that the girl is not wearing a bra under her white shirt (and she’s all wet!), so I’m surprised that we’re not seeing a little nipple action (surprisingly enough, not even on the man). Man… this is why the haters call romance novels “chick porn”. It’s Not Chick Porn, damn it! The girl’s all, “Kiss me, you damn fool, and make it believeable” and he’s all, “Umm… okay… I’m just doing this as a favor to a buddy. I have a nice, cushy job at the gay strip joint down the street… and I don’t like girls that way!” That’s totally the vibe I’m getting from him. Look at the way he’s kind of holding himself away from her. Hey, MK, you sassy bitch, what do you think? Am I wrong or am I wrong?

** And yes, I know I’m wrong a lot.

Thanks to my buddy Amber (whom I really, really appreciate) for the cover!

Reader Dorothy says:

The cover is from a 1940’s Shirley Temple movie….. I love the oddly serene look on Shirley’s face as she gets a spanking from the creepy middle-aged guy. Kind of like Shirley Temple meets Betty Page.

I think what disturbs me the most about this poster is the “oddly serene look on Shirley’s face” because she’s probably day-dreaming about what she’s going to do with the money that this nice man is going to give her after he finishes spanking her. He also kind of looks like Bill Powell and that really upsets me because I really love him in the The Thin Man movies, although I could, strangely enough, picture him turning Nora over his knee and spanking her with a hairbrush. Huh… actually, that’s kind of hot, now that I’ve thought about it. Umm… excuse me, I’ll be in my bunk.

From my brilliant buddy, Spikedru:

[This] is a particularly fine example of late 80s awfulness. I could start on the guy, with his open-to-the-naval shirt tucked into stupidly tight jeans and his manly pose. Talk about a gun as penile compensation. But the girl: is it just me or does she look like she really needs [to take] a pee? She’s sort of holding the pose, but she’s edged a leg across to stop her peeing in her pants. Or maybe she has thrush and is desperate for them to stop posing so she can go have a really good scratch?

Spikedru usually sends these covers to me in emails, so there I was, perusing my emails when this one jumped at me. You gotta click on the damned thing and enlarge it to get the full effect. It’s really quite striking. I think my jaw actually dropped. I really don’t know what’s going on here, but all I can really say is… the hero looks a little stinky. You know, out there in the wild, where mercenary types like him drop everything they’re doing, and play bodyguard to a rich man’s daughter because the rich man offered him a lot of money, and there’s a little girl in the village that he’s watching over who is really sick and needs medicine… well, let’s just say that hygiene is probably not his first priority.

Gee… I hope the “rapture” they’re talking about here isn’t the same “rapture” that they talk about in those awful Left Behind books. I bet white boy over there would feel really stupid if the Rapture came and swept up the gorgeous black lady he’s trying to devour and he was left making out with hisself. On second thought, these two would probably get “left behind” because I’m pretty sure that the Bible says that black people and white people can’t make out on book covers. Ha-ha, that was a joke, people… ease off on the hate mail. Laugh with me. Don’t be a hater!

Cover courtesy of my buddy Amber.

Cover courtesy of the fabulous Amber