All these goddamn good covers are making me lose my edge. I’ve spent a good ten minutes just staring at this cover–I’m supposed to be studying for my finals, I know–trying to figure out why the hell it looks so familiar. It’s the pose, you see, with the woman baring her neck to the man showing 1) submission 2) that she trusts him implicitly. Anyway, I couldn’t quite remember where I’ve seen it before, so I went through all of my posts and then I found it. Check it out, the women are even wearing the same top, except this one is in black and it’s less skanky. Also, this woman is not as skinny. It looks like she eats more than two Tic-tacs a day.

Oh, and this woman has better hair. I just love this woman’s pretty, pretty hair. It’s like a Pantene Pro-V commercial. My ruler-straight, stick-thin Asian hair is very jealous of it. I covet this hair. I want to wrap myself in it like it’s a Pashmina shawl and roll around in it and sniff it. Eww. I just grossed myself out. I’m more attracted to this woman’s hair than I am to the man’s nipple. I was just so fascinated by this woman that I didn’t even notice the man at first. She just looks like she smells good. Like sunshine and flowers and springtime. Aw, crap… I think I’m liking chicks more than boys again. Ha-ha. Just kidding. Don’t tell Tim.

Oddly enough, she looks a lot more angelic than the man holding hair her who has BIG FUCKING WINGS, by the way. I wonder if the angel character was at all inspired by Warren Kenneth Worthington III. That’d be awesome. I love that guy.

Oh man, I can’t wait for this book. I just sent another email begging Meljean to send me an ARC as soon as it’s available. I think she’s thisclose to slapping me with a restraining order.

This cover is hot. I think it’s the linked hands that really do it for me. We see no man-titty, no girl-cleavage, nothing too suggestive, but that’s okay because the linked hands do it. For all we know the guy could be gnawing on the girl’s neck and draining her blood, but the linked hands tell us that she’s okay and she’s a willing participant and she implicitly trusts the man on top of her. There is something sensual in the cover’s simplicity. The fact that it’s sepia-toned, for example, means there’s no blinding colors to distract the eye like… umm, neon pink, orange, and um… sparkles. Dear God, I even like the font. It’s all girly and cursive and… pretty. Just look at the way those fingers are intwined. They are gripping each other so tightly that I can’t even tell where her fingers begin or end. What I can see is that she’s wearing a ring on her ring finger. Is she married? To him? Heh. I also like that they seem to be laying on a table. Did he sweep the dishes to the floor, so he could lay her on it? Yep… it’s definitely better sometimes when you let your imagination do the work for you. Man, this cover is hawt!

By the way, this is a cover that Maili designed for the out of print book, All Night Long that Moxie Press is re-releasing. This is hot shit, Maili. Keep up the good work!

Grade: A

The first thing I have to say about this delightful little ebook is “Wow!” The second is “Hawt!” Seriously, I haven’t read anything this original and this erotic in months years. First of all, the story is set in 1946. How many romance novels have you read lately that’s set in that time period? Secondly, it’s about a war widow who falls in love with a tattooed carnival freak. It speaks volumes for this book that I set aside studying for my finals, squeezed this book in front of all of the books on my queue as well as the reviews that I still haven’t written, and immediately began working on this review only minutes after I finished reading the book. I had meant to read this e-book later–after I finished writing my 10,000,000 word paper on the works of Homer–and had only planned on scanning the first fifteen pages of it, but I realized I was in trouble the second I read the first paragraph and kept on reading… until it was over. Just check out this first paragraph and tell me it doesn’t suck you in:

Discordant carnival music and the smell of burnt sugar, popcorn and axle grease drifted through the crisp fall air. In the dusk, the colored lights of the rusty rides shone in broken lines where bulbs were missing. Faded canvas tents housed games of chance, a fortune-teller, a fun house and freaks. Sarah walked the trash-strewn paths between booths and rides and wondered why she had come. She hated carnivals.

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Okay, there’s definitely something wrong with me that I cannot come up with “the funny” for this cover. Maybe it’s because I’m about to get my period (hormones raging about and stuff), but I think this cover is really frickin’ hot. Sure, it’s hot in an 80’s hair band kind of way, the way that Sebastian Bach from Skid Row used to be really hot (forget Vh1, he REALLY used to be hot), but wow… this is… this is something. Can’t you just imagine him wailing into a mic, banging his head out of sync with the music, and whipping his hair all over place? So… so pretty… His muscles aren’t too big, his man-titty is substantial but not out of control, and the dragon tattoo on his torso is also really well done. His beautiful, lickable, lean torso. No, I’m not kidding. SHUT UP, I said I’m not kidding. Just look at this cover for a moment and tell me that you’re not feeling a little tingly in your girly parts. Tell me that you wouldn’t kill a fellow groupie standing in your way in your desperation to get backstage to meet him! Tell me that you don’t think this man is hot and I’ll call you a goddamn liar LIAR pants on fire! Speaking of pants, what’s with the title and the author’s name covering the good parts, huh? We can’t even see if he’s got a nice, drool-worthy bulge in them black leather pants that he’s wearing… the black leather pants that are cradling his boy goodies like a mother’s love…

Dear God, what am I saying? This isn’t the 80’s! But ohhh… he’s so pretty… so pretty… come ‘ere, my precious… myyyyyyy pressssssssssciousssssss… [slapping self] man, other ebook authors should be so lucky to get a cover like this. Yeah, this is definitely one gift I wouldn’t be able to wait to unwrap… eww, I just made a pun from the title. Somebody shoot me!

Thanks for directing me to this salty goodness, Lyn!

Grade: A

The first time I read this book, I cried so much that I was depressed for an entire week. I put it in my keeper shelf because I liked it so much, but I couldn’t get myself to pick it up again. This is just my most favorite “falling in love with a man on his deathbed” ever, but it broke my heart each time I read it. The hero is wonderful and kind, while the heroine is just so wise, practical, and selfless without being an annoying martyr. Everyone in this book is just so likeable–I love the heroine’s family–that I couldn’t help but want to shake my fists at the sky, wailing, “Why God why would you do this to these nice people? They are just starting to live!” The story is sincere and engaging and the writing is just exquisite. Man, there just isn’t anything that I didn’t like about this book. I even liked the aha! “brilliant doctor who saves the say” moment and the villain who is not really a villain, but a misguided soul looking for love. There is one eye-rolling moment that almost ruins the entire book for me, but everything else is just good stuff. Goooood stuff.
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