First, things first, I’m only hating on covers from major publishers. They have budgets and should know better. Independent publishers and self-published books gets points for trying, so I almost never point them out (unless it’s really egregious).

Secondly, I liked the content BETWEEN the covers of both of these books, so I recommend the words themselves, I just HATE these covers.

This year, I only have two covers I really hated, both (coming as no surprise to me) were from Avon.

Sapphire Flames (2019) Ilona Andrews

Avon

I don’t understand how Ilona Andrews consistently get such awful covers. This isn’t the worst they’ve ever gotten, but it’s not good either.

Positives are that I love all the purple. I actually love all the colors in the cover. In fact, if this cover were just the swirly stuff and colors, I’d love it!

But no, it has people. And that is always where Avon screws them over.

One of the characters has a reputation for flitting around the world, and constantly posting beauty shots on social media.

The other character helps to run a detective agency, including going out on investigations.

Can you guess which character runs the detective agency?

I really really hate how weak and secondary the women on these covers always look. Yes, the guy ends up being a super secret agent, but all we know at the start of the story is that he’s a playboy. While she looks like she exists only to be arm candy.

I admit this cover is nowhere near as awful as the one for Burn for Me, but since I despite that cover with the burning hatred of the sun, that’s not saying much.

I just want covers where the heroines look competent and capable of standing on their own two feet and fighting their own battles.

This is not that cover.

The Wallflower Wager (2019) Tessa Dare

Avon

This is nowhere near as egregious as the Sapphire Flames, but I really dislike it. It’s all really bad Photoshop, where the couple obviously were not originally on that bed, and they’ve instead just been roughly pasted into some really bland background.

Then to hide the bad photoshop job, they fill everything in with swirly colors.

And boosted the outer glow on the guy, because he kinda looks like he’s on fire.

And the less said about that facial hair, the better, because that that level of manscaping did not exist in Ye Olde Historical Times.

I’ll also note that there is no way you’d guess from this cover that the heroine is a spunky spinster who has dedicated her life to saving animals. But that’s kinda par for the course with these kinds of covers, so it’s mostly just disappointing, and a reminder of why I love the existence of eBooks.

The Books of 2019