Cover Snark: Who is this sex object and what did you do with my heroine?

So we look at a lot of the covers of our books and this question keeps arising. Who is this sex object and what did you do with my heroine?

See, this is more than the characters on the cover being sexual (and in ridiculous sexual poses with leg cramps, random squats and twisted spines). Sometimes those characters are very sexual in the book as well. No these are characters who would never do this, who wouldn’t dress this way, who would scream in fury or mortification about being portrayed like this.

In short, these are characters who have had their character removed in favour of having some eye candy.

Really, who is this person on the cover of these books?  I know that the publisher is telling me that this is an image of Jayné Heller, but these images look nothing like her descriptions in the various books.  Who is this woman who walks around in a bra and long coat in the dead of winter in ski country no less?  The person who chose the image for Killing Rites could not have read he book. How is she not suffering from exposure and frost bite? We cannot even blame her demon, The Black Sun’s Daughter because she only comes out when Jayné is in physical danger.  Nope, I am not seeing a whole bunch of sense there.

They took everything away from Jayné in order to have a sexay cover.   Even if this was a true representation, who exactly goes out to fight demons in a bra? These covers don’t even represent even a modicum of common sense.

Paige is my favourite of the protagonists in the Otherworld Series. She’s sassy and strong, she’s intelligent and independent and determined and driven. What she isn’t is naked. In fact, she’s very very scathing of naked dancing in her garden. This is not Paige Matthews. Where’s my heroine?

And Merit. English Lit Major, not over concerned with her appearance or clothes (in fact, finds them rather dull). Now she does wear leather for its use as armour this is true. This? This is not armour. what is this to protect? Dangerous nipple tweaking? She could wear a couple of pasties and be as well protected.

I not only can’t see Merit going to battle wearing this - but I can’t see her going anywhere wearing this. In fact, if she did see someone wearing this, I think she would snark them cruelly.

All in all? These are not our heroines. These are not the characters we cheer. We are not the characters we celebrate and love. Bring back our arse-kicking heroines - these half naked women are strangers to us