Any avid reader has seen the plethora of clichéd cover art while roaming the bookstore aisles...especially the romance section. The shiny metallic pastel shades glinting under the fluorescent lights, the man boobies, the airbrushed six pack abs, the ethereal beauties with hair streaming down their backs like they haven't a care in the world (in some cases, HIS hair.) It's one continuous near-copulation after another, lined up like wanton little hussies strolling the red light district. Hey baby, looking for a good time?

You would think someone somewhere would have developed an antidote for this plague, but you'd be wrong. This noxious affliction has spread to (gasp!) the paranormal genre. Same manly men and ethereal beauties but with one exception: the cliché has changed to a badass bitch in spike heeled boots, sporting tattoos, navel piercings and hip-hugging jeans (usually black.) And usually wielding a sexy-yet-lethal weapon.

Or worse: there is some sort of animal involved. Lions and tigers and...wolves!...and dragons! Oh my!

When we get an advance reading copy from a publisher, they are mostly plain ol' cheap covers -- name of the book, author's name, maybe a little blurb from another author that we automatically ignore, flip to the back for the vital stats. We dig in with relish when it's one of our favorite authors, blasting through them in record time while keyboards stand at the ready. And then we go looking for the cover art to add with the review only to find....yep, you guessed it. Chances are high we will get the finished product in mass market version, and we must make the decision whether to keep the ugly-ass ARC or the one we wouldn't be caught dead reading in public.

Do not get the impression I am lumping everyone into the same category. We get quite a number of books through here with absolutely stunning cover art, truly doing justice to the author's work. For instance, check out Juno's offerings. I don't even want to read my copies for fear I'll mess up the cover. Chelsea Cain's HEARTSICK is amazing with its grunged-up, gouged feel. Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series has an almost comic book quality that I fell in love with from the beginning. Midnight Ink's THE BLACK WIDOW AGENCY is very high on my list with its faded collage. And while you're over there, take a look at Tim Maleeny's BEATING THE BABUSHKA and STEALING THE DRAGON and try to tell me that someone didn't put a lot of thought into those designs.

As a dabbling artist, I can appreciate the difficulty in coming up with new, fresh ideas. It's not like you can squeeze your eyes shut, click your heels three times, and wham! An original idea appears like magic. It takes work and imagination and some undefinable quality that exists just out of reach of us mere mortals. It takes true talent to pull off these gems.

So who, pray tell, is responsible for the scourge? The author? The publishers? The publicists? They should be hunted down and beaten senseless with a very large paintbrush.

All I'm asking for is one little thing: TRY to come up with something new. Stop stinking up my bookshelves with pink, purple, and odd shades of aqua blue. While you're at it, stop with the nine billion shades of red. I get there may be a demon involved. You don't have to conjure up Hell's palette to make that point.

And don't get me started on the wonderful cover art that is worth far more than the pages inside...