When the devil said “the details are where I dwell,” he apparently meant in this cover’s Photoshop folder, because Only the Devil by Isabel Jolie is a masterclass in visual chaos—and not the intentional kind. This isn’t just bad. This is the literary equivalent of throwing a shirtless man, a moon, a sports car, and some circuit board light dots into a blender and hitting “print.”
Let’s start with the floating torso, because how could we not? A headless, shirtless man hovers ominously over the entire design like he’s either about to sell you protein powder or audition for a supernatural role in a low-budget CW pilot. His pecs are framed dead center with all the subtlety of a freight train. And the title? Positioned just right to serve as a modesty bib, because why give the man a shirt when you can give him a strategically-placed sans-serif?
Now let’s take a drive—that car in the bottom left corner appears to be mid-escape from whatever narrative disaster is unfolding above it. It’s nestled on a road that looks pasted in at the last minute, like a forgotten layer someone accidentally left visible. Beneath the road? A chaotic tangle of trees that clearly don’t belong, sitting like the cover artist tried a matte painting effect, then gave up halfway through to go watch a YouTube tutorial and never returned.
The entire background is flooded with digital red haze and random glowing dots, which could be stars, lights, or maybe just visual confetti. The swirl of light near the series title is trying to whisper “mystical” but mostly screams “PowerPoint transition effect circa 2004.”
And what is with the circuit-board-meets-sensuality theme? It’s unclear if this is a romance, a tech thriller, or the marketing campaign for a futuristic dating app where shirtless avatars fight for your affection.
Let’s be clear: this cover didn’t fall from grace—it skydived into a vat of genre clichés, bounced off a stock photo pile, and landed right on the reject pile of a design contest. Only the Devil? Honestly, we’re starting to suspect he designed it.
Better luck next novella.