Cover Art Gripe

I follow romance author Susan Elizabeth Phillips on facebook because she's a hoot. Her avatar recently changed to the cover art for a new edition of her book Nobody's Baby But Mine.

I am very fond of "Nobody's Baby." It's got a strange and off-putting initial premise: Socially inept yet brilliant astrophysicist Jane decides she'd like to be a mother and she wants to make sure her child has a normal IQ so that he or she can have a normal life unlike the one Jane herself had. She then proceeds to pretend to be a prostitute to seduce a famous quarterback she assumes is a dumb meathead for the express purpose of getting pregnant with his neanderthal sperm. She succeeds. He finds out and understandably loses his shit. Romance eventually ensues.

See? Whack-a-doodle.

That premise shouldn't work. It does. Phillips is a master at that. She's also a master at dialogue and whip smart banter. The fight scenes in this book kill me with how funny they are. "You're a goddamn cereal killer." gets me every time. And the groveling? Oh, the grovelling. This book has one of the best "proves his love" scenes in any novel I've ever read. So good.


Uh? I got off track there and started to gush and ramble, didn't I? Yup. Sure did.

Anyway, back to my original point (yes, there was one). Cover art!

I'm a bitch about cover art. There, I said it. I get very attached to the cover art I'm used to, especially with beloved books, and tend to universally hate change.




I don't like this cover at all. I know why it exists. It's a sweet and pretty cover designed to attract new readers. It's much softer and gentler than the previous covers this book has had.

But, for me, that's not "The Professor" on that cover. Jane, the brilliant absent-minded professor who scrawls equations on her kid's diaper when she's not paying attention, would never wear that sundress. That annoys me. I have said my piece.




This is the cover I own and think of as "the right one." That's Jane dressed like a somewhat old fashioned high-class call girl. That ribbon's a significant object in the story. I like it. It resonates with me.


Ugh, and then there's this one apparently...




Cherubs!?! Just ugh. That is all that needs to be said about that.


Cover rant (sorta?) done. I'm going to have to reread this damn book soon aren't I? Yeah, most definitely.