Cover Snark: Glowing Boots – What Do They Mean?

Welcome back to Cover Snark!

Betrothed to the Beast by Elina Emerald. A shirtless and headless man holding a sword between his legs. He has on a teeny little leather caplet. His nips and abs are making a face.

From Shirley: At first glance the proportions of the cover warrior looked all wrong, shoulders too much and abs to waist too little.

Sarah: That looks like a barber’s drape cut into a wee caplet. Did he rip off the barber shop?

Amanda: It’s a Peter Pan collar for exotic dancers.

Sarah: Also, another abdomen is looking at me. This one seems rather unimpressed.

A Dress for the Wicked by Autumn Krause. An illustrated cover of a woman in a blue ball gown that fades into black. The shape of people in dark blue are in front of her. Behind her back, she's holding a drawing of a dress, but the length of her arms make it uncertain which way is the front of her body and perhaps her head is on backwards.

Elyse: I can’t make visual sense of this. Is her head on backwards?

Amanda: Yeah, those are some hyper flexible arms.

Sarah: I love the swirly skirt and the way it looks like water, but my shoulders hurt just looking at this.

The Halloween Haunting by Cate Lawley. An illustrated cover. A woman with dark hair in a blue dress with white polka dotes is holding a bunch of spinach. She has red lips and fangs. A bloodhound dog is peeking out behind her. On the left side is the image of house and on the right side is a headstone with glowing blue boots stomping around.

From Pam G: This series–Vegan Vamp Mysteries–has apparently gone through several cover iterations with these being the most recent. They have a very rigid set of elements: fanged female with a thousand yard stare and something wounded from the produce aisle in her right hand, gigantic full moon, identical red doggy silhouette, and various spooky odds and ends floating around in the ether, e.g. random ectoplasmic booties.

Sarah: I do NOT understand the boots.

Lara: That vampire is a robot and I won’t be told otherwise.

Sarah: VampAIre?

Seriously. The glowing boots honestly baffle me. I figure they’re part of the story but it’s such a strange and intriguing detail to put on the cover AND CLEARLY IT’S WORKING BC I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT.

Also from Pam G: This cover is so, so, so. . . fecund. So bountiful. And is that a young Martin Mull in the purple fright wig and sparse purple stache? Also, did one of them go to Jared? And finally, what is that flying around off to her left? A spaceborne bi-plane? An interdimensional turkey baster?

Sarah: Now every time I get a weird one, I’m looking at it like, IS THIS AI.

Also his forearm hair pattern is ALARMING but I absolutely love his commitment to adding piercings to his horn. Gorgeous ear jewelry.

I think that might be Pacey from Dawson’s Creek.

Amanda: I feel like Tasha Black’s books are Cover Snark royalty at this point. We should send her a fruit basket.

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