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A Lying, Deceitful Cover

Sometimes, it’s not the cover. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with this cover except the weird, severely airbrushed disembodied head over this woman’s shoulder. What pisses me off about this cover is that it’s a big, fat lie. It’s not a “dark paranormal” in the vein of Angela Knight or Susan Squires, like the dark background and the font suggest. It’s wacky and zany, like something written by MaryJanice Davidson or Katie McAllister. Just check out this back blurb:

He’d lived a thousand years for this? It’s enough to make a vampire want to rush outside to soak up some rays, order garlic mashed potatoes, or fall on a wooden stake.

Dear God, let the hilarity ensue. Just check out this description of the heroine:

Kisa Evans has a boatload of problems. She’s a virgin, someone is stalking her with the intent to keep her in cat form forever, she’s a virgin, the deadly Guardian of the Blood is out to murder her sister’s fiancé, and she’s a virgin. Werecat law says that she can’t mate with any male weaker than herself. Hello? She’s not your usual lap kitty. There IS no male stronger than Kisa.

Man, she’s a virgin, too. I guess it’s alright because she’s got some kind of excuse for being a virgin. I can’t stand it when the heroine shrieks high and low about being a virgin and it has nothing to do with the story. And “There IS no male stronger than Kisa”? Uh-oh, expect a too-stupid-to-live heroine telling anyone who’ll listen that she’s a strong, independent womyn and needs no man to rescue her. She’ll need rescuing, of course, because she’s naturally a ding-bat.

I’m about to get a nose bleed just by reading this blurb.

Thanks for the tip, Laura!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 28th, 2006 at 1:20 pm and is filed under Covers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

9 Responses to “A Lying, Deceitful Cover”

  1. Robyn
    Posted: Apr 29th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
    1

    How long d’ya think it took this author to come up with the pen name “Bangs?”

    Oh, come on. That can’t be her real name.

  2. Bam
    Posted: Apr 29th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
    2

    Hmmm… I went to high school with a girl named Eileen Bangs and when that Ricky Martin song came out… ah, you know the rest.

    Maybe it is her real name, cynic!

  3. Robyn
    Posted: Apr 29th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
    3

    Maybe I am cynical. I’ve just read too many books about mysterious werewolves trying to keep their “carniverous lunar activities” a huge secret when his name is Wulf von Changendoggie, Duke of Lycanburg.

  4. Devon
    Posted: Apr 30th, 2006 at 5:21 am
    4

    Is that Billy Zane? Man, he keeps busy!

  5. Bam
    Posted: Apr 30th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
    5

    I’ve got a book in my TBR pile called the Wyld Wulfs of London or some such silly thing. Tell me that’s not awesomely bad.

  6. kitschweb
    Posted: May 1st, 2006 at 7:15 am
    6

    Wulf von Changendoggie? OMG I’m *still* laughing. On a totally unrelated note, this is *exactly* the problem I had aeons ago with the movie Gremlins (which, if you’re old enough to recall, was marketed as a warm fuzzy kids movie, when, in fact, it was teen horror!).

  7. MaryJanice
    Posted: May 8th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
    7

    The werewolves in my fuzzy universe (e.g. DERIK’S BANE) also have names like “Wolfton” or “Wolfbauer”. But nobody believes in werewolves in that world, so it never occurs to anybody that “Senor Wolf de Fuzzball” actually IS a werewolf. Two cents from a paranormal author’s perspective, anyway.

  8. Bam
    Posted: May 8th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
    8

    MJD, if I were named Senor Wolf de Fuzzball, I think I would actually kill my parents, then myself.

  9. E.Anderson
    Posted: Jun 14th, 2006 at 10:17 am
    9

    Ah, the old bait and switch. The author writes a funny book but the editor wants to appeal to a market that is leaning towards dark and heavy at the time. Hence the cover. It can happen the other way too. My editor took my fairly serious book and slapped a corny cover on it and got MaryJanice Davidson to give me a cover quote. Now, don’t get me wrong–I adore MJ–she is a doll and I love her books. But I hope her readers aren’t gonna be pissed when they see her name and pick up my book and don’t laugh their asses off cause it’s not meant to be funny.
    OK-rant over. Evangeline

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