No, this isn’t a continuation of my last blog or even a review. I have no real intention of beginning to do ‘proper’ reviews of books, although the reviewing of reviews is very tempting indeed! (What a minefield that would be and likely to end up getting someone – namely me – lynched. *cough* That is, of course, if anyone was reading my blog to begin with. *sigh* Oh well…)

Anyway, today I want to talk about book covers.

Things I am going to take as givens:

Given 1~Whether any reader admits it or not, at some stage we have all come across a book and judged it – good or bad – by its cover. Call me a liar? Okay then how many of you have seen a book, liked the cover and turned it over to read the blurb? Ha! I rest my case.

Given 2~After reading the first chapter or two, you turn back to the front cover and think to yourself ‘isn’t he meant to be a blonde and she a redhead’ or ‘her hair is meant to be curly’ or ‘his description says he has the build of a runner not of The Rock!’ My personal experience is that historical romance book covers are the worst offenders of this. I realise that this has more to do with the publishing/marketing team than the author, but still… *gasp*… maybe they should have tried reading the book first?! Unrealistic of me, I know.

As I said, I think these are the givens. What I really want to chat about is the artwork on ebook covers in particular. Check this out:

Any clues yet as to what I might be referring to?? Besides the fact that one was published in about April and the other in October, they are from different publishers and by different artists. No? Let me give you another hint:

Now I can understand similar designs, using the same models, etc, but the exact same image?!? I can think of several covers where I’ve seen the same image 3 or more times.

The thing that most freaks me out though is when the same image is used for both m/m and m/f covers. Go on back up and take a look at those covers again. It’s just plain weird.

Now tell me this little tidbit about books doesn’t put you off from now on!