Stuff that should be banned from paranormal romance covers

If you’ve taken a stroll through the paranormal romance category on Amazon lately, you’ve probably noticed some disturbing trends among the covers there. I certainly have. So, without further ado, here are a few things I NEVER EVER want to see again on paranormal romance covers again. (Please and thanks in advance to all the cover designers out there)

And please note: This is not intended to bring shame to the authors of these books, and I’m not saying these books are bad. Some of them might be GREAT books. Some of them are even huge bestsellers, so the covers obviously aren’t hurting sales. These are just my personal opinions and you shouldn’t let them keep you from reading any or all of these books. There. End of PSA.

Guys about to jack off and/or staring at their junk

I don’t know what it is about dudes on paranormal romance covers, but a statistically significant portion of them seem willing to whip it out and jack off at a moment’s notice. And if they don’t appear to be ready to jack off, they at least seem like they’re staring at their junk longingly, thinking about jacking off. I just want to tell them to stop it. ​

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Headless dudes

There are SO many headless dudes on paranormal romance covers. Why is that? Are we as readers so shallow that we don’t even care if these guys have faces? Are we only interested in muscle-y torsos and abs? If the tables were turned, I can’t imagine women would be happy if a category of popular novels only featured headless, large-breasted women. Why the double-standard?

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Giant, ghost-like animal faces

Big, scary, ghost animal faces hovering over people. Sounds like the stuff of nightmares, right? Nope. Just paranormal romance. 

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THIS guy

Look, I know the stock photo world is small and authors don’t have a ton of models to choose from. And there’s no doubt that this guy is great looking. But I’m SO tired of seeing his smug, smirky face that I sort of want to nut-punch him. (In all fairness, THIS guy is on plenty of contemporary romances, too.)

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Guys flashing their man boobs or looking at their man boobs

The whole pulling-up-the-shirt-and-showing-one-man-boob thing has been done to death. Stop it. Same goes for the guys staring down contemplatively at their man boobs. 

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Odds and ends

via GIPHY

I’m pretty sure this is an unauthorized image of Ian Somerhalder from The Vampire Diaries that has been Photoshopped into this cover. That doesn’t seem like a wise idea. Unless Damon Salvatore himself gave the author permission to use his image. (And if he did...um...can you get me an autograph?)

And then there’s this guy who is being spooned by a jaguar. That doesn’t seem especially... safe. 

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What about y’all? See any paranormal romance novel cover atrocities you’d like to report? Let’s hear ‘em.

And for more cover weirdness, you won’t want to miss:

What's with all the WTF book covers in romance?​

WTF Romance novel covers, part 2​

WTF Romance novel covers, part 3​