“When Your Romance Novel Looks Like a Witness Protection Brochure”
Let’s gather around the fireplace and talk about Kindling—a cover so wildly misguided that even the flames in the background seem to be trying to escape the scene.
Right off the bat, we’re met with two women intensely staring at each other in front of a fireplace. Are they having a meaningful conversation? Telepathic debate? Contemplating who left the Photoshop filter on “1998”? We’ll never know, because the visual storytelling here is as murky as a Hallmark movie shot through a sock.
Let’s start with the obvious: the lighting mismatch. One woman is lit like she’s in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, while the other looks like she wandered out of an Avon catalog. There’s no shared light source, no attempt at cohesion—just two women pasted onto a background like a kindergarten collage project.
And that background? We’ve got a fireplace that looks like it was pulled from a mid-range Airbnb listing, completely ignoring perspective, color matching, or the basic physics of interior lighting. The flames flicker in a digital void, casting zero warmth and less believability. It’s less cozy and more “witness deposition in front of a fake hearth.”
The title treatment deserves a roast of its own. “Kindling” is rendered in a heavily beveled chrome font that screams “prom night limo service” more than literary fiction. The decorative hearts flanking the typography suggest romance, but the cold metallic treatment suggests a cyberpunk car dealership. It’s a branding crisis in real-time.
Above the title, the author’s name looms in a white serif font, stark and unstyled, as if to say: “Please don’t associate me with the design decisions made below.”
And what about genre? Romance? Friendship drama? Time-traveling interior decorators? The cover gives absolutely no clue. What emotion is this supposed to evoke? Confusion? Alarm? Regret?
If this cover is kindling, then it’s the damp, smoky kind that refuses to catch—just sits there making everyone uncomfortable while you pretend the fire’s fine.
In conclusion, Kindling is what happens when you ignore genre conventions, graphic design fundamentals, and the subtle art of telling a story through visuals. It’s not just a bad cover—it’s an unintentional comedy sketch dressed up as a book jacket.