berry gworl

The first inkling of this post came when the Alpha cover was leaked, showcasing a truly breathtaking unwillingness to do almost anything to distinguish itself from Choices’ other werewolf romance, Wolf Bride.

My first thought on seeing the Alpha cover was, why? Why would you use a practically identical composition as your other omegaverse book? Why wouldn’t you want to give this book its own identity? Does it have its own identity? Are the two books connected narratively? Because as far as we know, no, they’re not.

And then I truly thought about what an obvious missed opportunity this was. Why didn’t they make the obvious decision to distinguish this book by making it a gay cover? Alpha is confirmed to be a gender of choice book, and making it a gay cover would kind nod to the fact that a truly significant portion of the omegaverse sub-genre of fiction is dedicated to male x male pairings.

Later, I was thinking about how I’d really want to see one of these bodice ripper style covers with an m/m pairing, and I remembered that Choices only has a single gay cover with Foreign Affairs, and it is the picture of chaste. At that point it hit me—probably not for the first time—that none of these adult romance covers have been queer.

PB giving pittance to the mlm audience is honestly expected at this point, but it is genuinely weird that we haven’t gotten a lesbian cover in what, years? And that’s not even just for these adult romance covers. But if we’re talking adult covers; while only some of them have been GoC and so had the feasible option for a gay cover, all of them had the ability to play as a female MC, and all of them had a female love interest optional. They have had every opportunity to do at least one. Why have none of the bodice ripper style covers been queer?

How come the straight covers get to be this:

But the queer covers have only ever been this?

The obvious counter-argument to this is to say that the majority of Choices players are straight women and so they’re going to market their books with the straight female audience in mind.

And to that I say, I do not care. I truly, unequivocally do not care. Words cannot express how little I care about this argument, especially because there’s this, straight from PB via the Choices Insiders email in March this year:

So actually though, why no queer covers for their adult romance books? All I can say is that I do think it is in part influenced by the homophobic standard in media that queer desire isn’t marketable, and that image isn’t something they necessarily want to market themselves with. Not because PB themselves are homophobic, but perhaps because they don’t want the perception of a cover like that to potentially turn away their largely straight female audience. And that if true, to put it simply, is cowardice.

So, conclusions: With the growing number of Choices’ adult romance book covers using the bodice ripper aesthetic, the lack of any queer covers in this style—despite all opportunities to do so—leaves one with the impression that PB, intentionally or not; are both being informed by and feeding into the homophobic standard that queer desire is not something to be showcased or celebrated on the same level as heterosexual desire.

Basically, not only do PB need to start doing more queer covers; but they also need to start showing them being horny on their covers too.