Hair is supposedly a woman’s crowing glory and so these covers have chosen to highlight this and of course since we can only focus on one part of a woman’s body at a time, there is no need to focus on her face. It’s like a shampoo commercial coming to a book cover. I bet if they could find a way to include copious amounts of moaning, culminating in and orgasmic moment they would. (Please note, book designers. Do not try to incorporate moaning in Urban Fantasy book covers. Please please do not).
It’s, sadly, not the first time we’ve seen it - the deliberate focus on just one or two body parts is prevalent in Urban Fantasy - and the face is never the focus. With the face covered (or absent from the cover) we lose a lot of the personality of the protagonist - there are few things more objectifying than leaving a person faceless.
And of course, all this glorious flowing locks? Is all long and straight with nary a kink or curl or frizz in sight. I suppose that it’s a good thing that urban fantasy has a habit of erasing women of colour because there would be no way that these covers could celebrate long Euro-centric hair in this fashion. And we all know how important it is to remind women of colour that they can never fit the idealized version of femininity without that long shiny hair. What better way is there to enforce the hegemonic role White female protagonists play in urban fantasy than to celebrate the symbol of White womanhood - long flowing shiny hair.
