Welcome to this week’s edition of Tinsel, Tattoos, and Tragedy, where we unwrap book covers that deserve a lump of coal in every design software’s stocking. Today’s victim of festive failure: Sleighing the Motorcycle Man by Morgan Jane Mitchell. Buckle up—this sleigh ride is going straight off a cliff.
Let’s begin with our leading man. There he stands—or rather, hovers—in all his airbrushed glory, oiled up like a Butterball turkey on Christmas Eve, arms crossed in a way that says “bad boy,” but expression that says, “Did I leave the oven on?” His pose screams brooding alpha, but the Photoshop work whispers “cut-and-paste 101.” He casts no shadow. His lighting matches nothing. And that wall behind him? It might as well be a backdrop at a mall Santa photo booth, except darker and more depressing.
The border is decorated with pine branches, berries, and ornaments—because what’s more romantic than associating your shirtless motorcycle fantasy with Grandma’s centerpiece? It’s like someone raided a holiday stock image folder and thought, “Yes. Let’s make this manly.” Spoiler: they didn’t.
Now let’s talk fonts, because oh, we must. “Sleighing the” is written in a flirty script font, clearly trying to sleigh us with sass. It fails. Spectacularly. The script is festive-romcom, while “MOTORCYCLE MAN” is a cyan-glowing, bold, all-caps block font better suited for a 2011 Xbox racing game. It’s as if the title can’t decide whether this is a Christmas romance or a Fast & Furious: North Pole Drift spin-off.
And just when you think it’s safe, there’s a glowing tribal tattoo design under the title, because of course there is. Nothing says “Yuletide romance” like biker bar clip art drenched in cyan LED lighting.
This cover is a genre identity crisis in real time: one part Hallmark, two parts Sons of Anarchy, blended with all the subtlety of a chainsaw through tinsel. If Sleighing the Motorcycle Man teaches us anything, it’s that not everything needs to be a holiday pun. And certainly not this.
So to whoever designed this: next time, maybe sleigh it… a little less literally.