This was featured earlier under a different book cover, which should have prompted a less lousy replacement. Does this one better show an Orange County CA mystery of murder, adultery, business intrigue, involving two sisters, in love with a detective, who turns out to be a time traveling werewolf — spoiler alert? (And what happened to the C and S? Is the Red Queen on an “Off with their heads” rampage again?)
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(OK that last plot bit was a hideous negativity snark.)
You know, there’s an OBVIOUS problem with a time-travelling detective. DUH. Shifter or otherwise. For cryin’ out loud…
And PLEASE, somebody, tell me that this isn’t what it looks like and hints at. (Yes, I was one of those that found the whole idea of that book on CC.com just ICKY. He thought it was evocative and provocative, you can tell, but…it was just bloody icky. I don’t CARE if it’s adult brains in there–what about the KID brains in the ADULT bodies? Either way, it’s got a serious bloody YUCK factor.)
Ah, Hitch. Watching you get squicked out fills my days with laughter.
While I didn’t feel like wasting the money to buy this book, it does seem to me from reading the sample chapters that whether that’s a boy or a girl silhouetted on the cover (definitely a girl on the previous cover, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything for this cover), that kid’s not the sister mentioned in the title. The only sisters mentioned in the sample, Mina and her half-sister Paola (from the same mother but a different father), are both full-grown adults. Anyway, I don’t think she’s “loving” that kid in that way in this book, whatever the cover might have you thinking.
So you can put your mind at ease about that, anyway. Now what I’d like to know is, if that’s not her sister, who is that kid? The time traveling werewolf detective in younger form in some kind of rip-off from The Time Traveler’s Wife? Some long-lost half-niece Paola neglected to mention before now? A murder victim’s kid that Mina has to keep entertained and out of the authorities’ hair while personally investigating the case on her own time?
Intriguing possibilities, I’ll admit, but they’re still not enough to get me to buy the book.
Oh, glad to be of service, RK. I try really hard not to get judgmental about what pinks someone’s kink, but the kids thing…NYET. Me no can go there. I don’t care if it’s 2 8-y.o.’s, or transplanted brains in 8-9 y.o.’s, whatev. The squueeeeecckckc factor is just too strong in this one…
And, yes; WHO is that kid? (And does time-travelling imply that it’s not time-travelling, per se, but time..what would you call it? sending one’s brain back to a younger body, a la the last X-Men Movie with Wolverine? We need another phrase for that. Time Displacement? No, that’s already used for other fictive things related to space/time continuum “stuff.” Hmph….must think.)
I’m thinking “temporal regression” would be the technical term. Orson Scott Card’s science fiction short story “Clap Hands And Sing” is another example of a piece that uses this idea.
Speaking of covers that make you question the designer’s sexuality (and the book’s legality), some of the book covers you’ve shown on here are real doozies, but you should see what some album cover designers have gotten away with doing. The Afghan Whigs’ Gentleman, for instance, had a “getting out of bed” image on its cover that had Linda Ronstadt, of all people, comparing it to child pornography.
(For the record, by the way, and for those of you wondering whether you dare to click on my links at work, that album cover doesn’t show any actual naughty parts in it, just a very suggestive situation with a guilty-looking shirtless boy looking back at a fully-clothed smirking little girl in bed.)
Another thought about this cover: is the whole sister-“loving” thing reminding anyone else here of a certain admission in Lena Dunham’s scandalous autobiography that landed her in a bit of hot water?
![cover[1]](https://lousybookcovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/cover15.jpg)
This was featured earlier under a different book cover, which should have prompted a less lousy replacement. Does this one better show an Orange County CA mystery of murder, adultery, business intrigue, involving two sisters, in love with a detective, who turns out to be a time traveling werewolf — spoiler alert? (And what happened to the C and S? Is the Red Queen on an “Off with their heads” rampage again?)
.
.
.
.
.
(OK that last plot bit was a hideous negativity snark.)
You know, there’s an OBVIOUS problem with a time-travelling detective. DUH. Shifter or otherwise. For cryin’ out loud…
And PLEASE, somebody, tell me that this isn’t what it looks like and hints at. (Yes, I was one of those that found the whole idea of that book on CC.com just ICKY. He thought it was evocative and provocative, you can tell, but…it was just bloody icky. I don’t CARE if it’s adult brains in there–what about the KID brains in the ADULT bodies? Either way, it’s got a serious bloody YUCK factor.)
Ah, Hitch. Watching you get squicked out fills my days with laughter.
While I didn’t feel like wasting the money to buy this book, it does seem to me from reading the sample chapters that whether that’s a boy or a girl silhouetted on the cover (definitely a girl on the previous cover, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything for this cover), that kid’s not the sister mentioned in the title. The only sisters mentioned in the sample, Mina and her half-sister Paola (from the same mother but a different father), are both full-grown adults. Anyway, I don’t think she’s “loving” that kid in that way in this book, whatever the cover might have you thinking.
So you can put your mind at ease about that, anyway. Now what I’d like to know is, if that’s not her sister, who is that kid? The time traveling werewolf detective in younger form in some kind of rip-off from The Time Traveler’s Wife? Some long-lost half-niece Paola neglected to mention before now? A murder victim’s kid that Mina has to keep entertained and out of the authorities’ hair while personally investigating the case on her own time?
Intriguing possibilities, I’ll admit, but they’re still not enough to get me to buy the book.
Oh, glad to be of service, RK. I try really hard not to get judgmental about what pinks someone’s kink, but the kids thing…NYET. Me no can go there. I don’t care if it’s 2 8-y.o.’s, or transplanted brains in 8-9 y.o.’s, whatev. The squueeeeecckckc factor is just too strong in this one…
And, yes; WHO is that kid? (And does time-travelling imply that it’s not time-travelling, per se, but time..what would you call it? sending one’s brain back to a younger body, a la the last X-Men Movie with Wolverine? We need another phrase for that. Time Displacement? No, that’s already used for other fictive things related to space/time continuum “stuff.” Hmph….must think.)
I’m thinking “temporal regression” would be the technical term. Orson Scott Card’s science fiction short story “Clap Hands And Sing” is another example of a piece that uses this idea.
Hey! I was snarking about the time traveling werewolf detective: “(OK that last plot bit was a hideous negativity snark.)”
The last cover had people wondering if it was erotica. https://lousybookcovers.com/?p=255642
(misterfweem decided it was not.)
Does this cover better imply the content of the book? I don’t think it does.
Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaah, sorry. “Mina’s FIRST adventure?” That doesn’t imply a little creepy sumpin-sumpin? Does to yours truly.
Someone stole the license plate of the Mystery Machine and pasted it onto this cover.
And the picture + title just make me feel icky.
Not a good icky, either.
Didn’t we already have another cover for this very book on here? Why, yes; yes we did! Incidentally, shouldn’t this get the “wink wink nudge nudge” tag too? As I recall, a silhouetted pair of children embracing on one of your Cover Critics submissions had many critics declaring it a nigh-pornographic “foreplay shot” for less than this.
Speaking of covers that make you question the designer’s sexuality (and the book’s legality), some of the book covers you’ve shown on here are real doozies, but you should see what some album cover designers have gotten away with doing. The Afghan Whigs’ Gentleman, for instance, had a “getting out of bed” image on its cover that had Linda Ronstadt, of all people, comparing it to child pornography.
(For the record, by the way, and for those of you wondering whether you dare to click on my links at work, that album cover doesn’t show any actual naughty parts in it, just a very suggestive situation with a guilty-looking shirtless boy looking back at a fully-clothed smirking little girl in bed.)
Another thought about this cover: is the whole sister-“loving” thing reminding anyone else here of a certain admission in Lena Dunham’s scandalous autobiography that landed her in a bit of hot water?