Today, we look at a masterclass in WTF design: The Fifth Wife by Morgan Blayde. It’s not just a book cover—it’s a cry for help wrapped in Photoshop smoke effects.
Let’s begin with the title: The Fifth Wife. Bold. Direct. So direct, in fact, it bypasses nuance and parks itself squarely in the driveway of your local strip mall tarot reader. Is she the fifth wife of a space warlord? A ghost-wolf trainer? The only graduate of Amazon Star Academy to major in Applied Chainmail Bras? We may never know, because the cover is as helpful as a GPS set to “confused shriek.”
Front and center is our heroine, who appears to have lost a contact lens while mid-summoning a vape-powered wolf spirit. Her outfit was clearly designed by someone whose only exposure to armor was a Halloween aisle at Spencer’s. The boob armor—if we can call it that—looks like it was inspired by a melted beer can, and those loose chains? We assume they’re either fashion or metaphors. Possibly both.
Now to the background. Or, as we call it, Teal Apocalypse. It’s like someone opened a bag of Wintergreen Lifesavers and asked, “What if this was a vibe?” There’s a lot of smoky swirling going on, perhaps to symbolize mystery, danger, or the illustrator’s over-reliance on one Photoshop brush. Either way, it screams, “We had five minutes and a dream.”
And of course: “An Amazon Star Academy novel.” Bold move tossing in a franchise subtitle with absolutely zero visual or narrative context. It’s as if someone said, “What if Hogwarts… but lingerie Spartans… in space?”
Final Verdict:
A baffling, bewitched blender of genres wrapped in an aesthetic that screams “Fantasy Erotica: Windows XP Edition.”