#1 The Full-Length Embrace Never Goes Out of Style:

#2 The Woman In A Dress is Still Going Strong:

#3 But the Brightly Colored Closeup of Our Couple from the Waist Up is Gaining Strength
(this trend is what inspired this post, btw — I just realized how many of these I’ve seen lately):

#4 And if a Reprint, You Are a Blurry Woman’s Head:

I think the Karen Ranney is particularly interesting, because she went from Woman in a Dress covers, to a Blurry Man Head cover, then a Couple’s Embrace, and now this ‘newer’ closeup trend. Anyway. I like trends #2 & #3 better than #1 & #4, although #3 will definitely be on a case-by-case basis. There’s the real opportunity for some fugly slipping in there.

…the Demon Blood cover? I didn’t think I’d ever love any cover as much as Demon Forged, but Oh My God…holy WOW. The cover artist, Cliff Nielsen, is the same — and once again, I’m blown away. There are a few changes to the font that will be made, but otherwise, I think it’s perfect for Rosalia and the book.

Also, today is Friday! Come give a shout-out to your favorite cover artists at Odd Shots.

This is for the BURNING UP anthology. My Iron Seas novella, “Here There Be Monsters,” will kick off the new series in August 2010. And look at that lineup!

And I didn’t post this cover, but I probably could have. Come see my shame.

First: I should have Gobsmacked winner announcement up soon! I am still getting my head on straight today.

Second: I was over at VampFanGirl’s Guardian extravaganza (today is Wild Thing!) and some Nathan Kamp love came up in the comments. I’ve had my share of pretty Kamp covers (and no one is sure if the Demon Angel cover is him or not), but I also realized that one thing readers don’t often see is the hi-res versions of these covers. The reason is simple: they just take too long to load on the web and too much file space on a site. But it also means that we miss some details.

I’ve got a couple of large images under the cut. My apologies to everyone on Google Reader and RSS feeds — it will probably load the images, because the cut never works, except here on my blog.

Monthly Contest: I’m giving away WILD THING and DEMON MOON, and the last day to enter is Aug 31st. Click on my contest page for the entry form.

Cover contest: Don’t forget to nominate your favorite 2009 covers at the Cover Cafe! They are also running polls on covers that have been nominated.

MUST LOVE HELLHOUNDS releases next week. Will I be back to regular blogging by then, or does the summer not officially end until Labor Day? Hmmmm….

Other news: I have a title for the 10th Guardian book: DEMON BLOOD. No details yet, because the description is kind of a spoiler for DEMON FORGED.

The first of the Iron Seas books will be a novella, “Here There Be Monsters,” (subject to change) in a not-yet-titled anthology releasing August 2010 in mass-market. The novella is a lightly-connected-but-standalone story, as will be all of the books in that series.

So, I spent part of the morning bitching about the lack of variety in the covers at the Cover Cafe contest (bitching aside, the ladies on the committee do an amazing job each year putting this contest together — it always looks fantastic, voting is easy, and reading the results a blast). Although a few stand out, for the most part, they all run into a “okay that’s pretty…and boring” blur, or a “how do I choose between one landscape and another” conundrum, followed by the “but…aren’t there any different *good* covers?” Was there not a single category featuring two prominent models that was good enough to make the final cut? A lot of readers buy those covers; isn’t there one that could be considered the best?

Then I thought: maybe enough people aren’t nominating their favorites? I nominated a few over the last year, but my taste is notoriously cheesy, so I can see why they didn’t show up (I’m probably just lucky they didn’t show up in the “worst” category.) So here’s what I’m going to do:

Every month (or as often as I remember) I’ll put up a post saying, “remember to nominate your favorite covers from this month!”

Here are the rules, stolen from Cover Cafe:

Nominations for romance covers issued in 2009 open!

You may nominate as many different covers as you like. However, nominating the same cover several times is not necessary. All nominated covers will receive the same consideration.

Readers, authors and artists are all welcome to nominate their covers.

International covers are acceptable but it must be a cover that is available for purchase by someone in the US. The cover image and necessary information must also be available.

The underlying novel could have been published previously, but the cover has to be new to 2009.
E-Book cover nominations must include the date of first publication in order to be eligible for consideration.

It says romance novel covers, but since women’s fiction with romantic elements like Kristin Hannah’s FIREFLY LANE was a finalist this year, along with Jeaniene Frost’s AT GRAVE’S END (urban fantasy with romantic elements) it looks like it actually just has to have a romantic element to be eligible.

So, it’s mid-May. Have there been any romance novel covers from books published this year that knocked your socks off?

If so, go forth and nominate.

ETA: I just nominated

Jory Strong’s GHOSTLAND
Alison Sinclair’s DARKBORN
Nora Roberts’s VISION IN WHITE
Larissa Ione’s DESIRE UNCHAINED
Merline Lovelace’s THE HELLO GIRL

and a Worst one, but *cough cough* the royal we aren’t going to say what it was

(Actually, I’ve read this. She isn’t as young as the title would indicate, and the book is unique in its hero and his pre-romance relationship with the heroine. He’s a writer who was deeply in love with his wife (now dead) and the heroine was friends with them both. Not one of my favorite books, but it is an unusual one.)

Hellhound cover is up at Ilona’s blog.

I am having massive internet issues lately, so checking my e-mail has been iffy … and so has going online. So I forgot to mention that I’m guest blogging today over at Urban Fantasy Land (and as soon as I hit a better wireless service that I’m not stealing from my neighbor, I’ll be responding there.)

And I found this in my inbox (I hope it uploads without timing out, or I’ll be back in a little while to fix it):

I have no words to express my love.