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At first glance, The Crown of Moonlight looks like it might pass as a proper fantasy cover—moody lighting, glowing sword, mystical crows. But look closer, and the illusion collapses faster than a villain monologuing under a collapsing castle. Let’s begin with the...
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Somewhere in a desert dreamscape, a designer shouted “Yeehaw!” and slapped together every vaguely Western element they could find, like a Pinterest board in crisis. Enter Deputy Brand Gets Her Man, a cover that answers the question: “What if a romance novel was...
This cover may say The Gold Standard, but it looks more like the “PowerPoint Presentation Standard”, and even that might be generous. If design were currency, this one would be trading below the peso in a crisis. First, we’re confronted by a title layout that screams...
If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when five PowerPoint slides and a necktie get into a fistfight, look no further than Men Talk — a cover that doesn’t just miss the design mark, it obliterates it in five fonts and six angles. Let’s start with what we’re...
If romance covers are meant to be fantasies, then V.I.M. OREDUX #7 is a fever dream inside a design software meltdown. This isn’t just a bad cover — it’s a celestial calamity, a digital tribute to abs, angel wings, and wildly misguided graphic design choices. Let’s...
If forgiveness is divine, then this cover is definitely testing your patience. The Keeper of Forgiveness arrives bearing emotional weight, deep introspection... and a visual identity crisis so severe that even the turtle in the corner looks like it’s trying to leave....
Saddle up and cinch your design sensibilities, because Her Grumpy Cowboy just rode in bare-chested and blizzard-ready — and it brought every digital design crime from the Wild West and beyond. This isn’t just a bad book cover. It’s a Yeehaw Apocalypse in snowflake...
If Elsa joined a fantasy MMORPG, got trapped in a glitter filter, and tried to fight her way out with snowflake clip art, she’d probably look something like Battling Bright. This cover is less “epic magical saga” and more “Photoshop snow globe that cracked under...
When the title promised “The Scot’s Perfect Match,” we didn’t realize it meant a perfect match for Photoshop's "Gaussian Blur" filter. This cover is less romance and more romance simulation — like someone whispered “Highlands” into a design app and then fell asleep...
Ladies and gentlemen, sharpen your claws and prepare your Photoshop layers — because Champion of the Alpha just burst through the arena gates like a badly cropped gladiator romance fever dream. This is Book 16 of The Alpha King’s Breeder saga, and it looks like by...
From a distance, Grave Intentions looks like it’s ready to strut onto the shelves of your local paranormal fantasy section and whisper darkly seductive promises of necromancy and eyeliner. But zoom in, and this thing falls apart faster than a summoned skeleton in high...
A Note to Authors Featured Here
The purpose of Horrible Covers is not only to critique but also to highlight how much cover design matters to a book’s success. Many authors set out with the best intentions but end up with covers that don’t reflect the quality of their writing — sometimes because they tried to do it themselves, sometimes because they relied on someone who wasn’t a professional cover designer.
We understand how frustrating that can be.
Our aim is simple: to help writers put their best work forward with cover art that does justice to the story inside. If you’ve been featured here and are ready to level up your presentation, reach out through our contact form and mention “Horrible Covers Author.”