Romance novels thrive on familiarity and the promise of a happily ever after (or a happy for now), and their covers likewise play to readers’ expectations. A mystical object surrounded by vining flowers, for instance, telegraphs a romantasy. An icy blue background and a title that uses the word puck suggestively? Hockey romance.
In the same way that subgenres wax and wane in popularity, the look of the books is continually evolving. PW spoke with art and editorial pros about new trends on and under the covers.
Retro ranchers
Until recently, the archetypal western romance cover featured a photo of a solo, brooding stud in a 10-gallon hat, shirt optional. But when Lyla Sage self-published Done and Dusted in 2023, the cover cowboy was lonesome no more: artist Austin Drake illustrated a kissing couple in a style inspired by romance comics of the 1950s–1970s. Dial picked up Sage’s Rebel Blue Ranch series and its cover artist; when the fourth and final installment, Wild and Wrangled, pubbed in April, it debuted at the top of PW’s trade paperback list.
Alexandra Sunshine, senior editor at Kensington, credits Drake’s Rebel Blue Ranch artwork with kick-starting a trend for “pop art nostalgia” in western romance visuals. She acquired Elliott Rose’s self-published Crimson Ridge series and says that, given Rose’s success as an indie author, it made sense “not to reinvent the wheel” when it came to the cover.
Sunshine worked with designer Sandra Maldo to enhance Maldo’s original cover illustrations, which foreground a longhorn skull adorned with blossoms in a “moody, muted design.” For the special edition of series opener Chasing the Wild (Sept.), Sunshine says, “we pumped up all the colors to a fun neon pink and added lots of purples and sprayed edges. It evokes adventure and danger, and certainly a western atmosphere, but it doesn’t scream that it’s a smutty BookTok book.”
Jessica Peterson’s self-published Lucky River Ranch series will get its traditional publishing makeover in June, when Bloom releases book one, Cash. Julie Schrader, associate creative director at Bloom parent company Sourcebooks, says her team wanted a “retro, spaghetti western” design that still felt contemporary. They did a lot of research around comic book art and retro art in general and found Jenny Richardson, whose vintage-inspired, horror-themed illustrations had the fresh feel they were looking for. Instead of the solitary pensive cowboy from the self-pub editions, the new cover shows a passionate couple on equal footing.
Interspecies embraces
The surge of interest in romances that feature at least one nonhuman partner speaks to a desire for escapism, according to Schrader. “Your limitations are kind of gone when you’re talking about aliens—anything goes.” The trick to making an interspecies cover appealing rather than off-putting, she says, is “finding the thing that people can still relate to.”
In developing the look of Ann Aguirre’s I Think I’m in Love with an Alien (Sourcebooks, June), Schrader and her team researched a variety of interspecies covers, including The Dragon’s Bride by Katee Robert (human x dragon), Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree (orc x succubus), Bride by Ali Hazelwood (vampire x alpha werewolf), and Ruby Dixon’s Ice Planet Barbarians series (human x alien). They went with the throwback pulp style of Michael Koelsch, whose cover illustration depicts the heroine snuggling her reptilian lover. “It harkens to monster movie posters,” Schrader says, “but we also wanted to touch on the mass-market clinch cover.”
Koelsch’s portfolio includes work for the Fallout gaming franchise, and he’s not the only monster romance cover artist with RPG connections. Fantasy illustrator Mike Pape, whose clients include gaming company Wizards of the Coast, illustrates Kimberly Lemming’s book covers, including the recently released I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com (Berkley). Thea Guanzon’s Tusk Love (Random House Worlds, July) is based on a story within the story of the Dungeons & Dragons webseries Critical Role. The jacket is reversible: Failbetter Games senior artist Erion Makuo created the outer jacket, meant to appeal to romantasy readers; Joanna Johnen, who has illustrated assets for Critical Role in the past, did the inner jacket, designed to resemble an in-world object for fans of the series.
Modern lovers
Picture the cover of the average contemporary romance, particularly a rom-com, and it might look something like this: cartoonlike figures with only the suggestion of facial features against a solid, flat, brightly hued background. “Just a few years ago, silhouettes, not too much detail, were the big trend,” says Daniela Medina, who joined Forever as senior art director in 2019.
Illustrating a book’s characters using minimal distinguishing physical traits allows a reader to imagine herself in the love-interest role, the thinking goes. At the same time, character specifics can convey inclusivity, whether in terms of ethnicity, disability, sexuality, or body size. The cover of Kiss Me, Maybe by Gabriella Gamez (Forever, May), which Medina art directed and Leni Kauffman illustrated, has distinct Latinx character representation that emphasizes a queer couple in a real place expressing their love. “We’re starting to see the different ways that characters can come to life on the cover, and the different ways we can represent them artistically,” Medina says.
At Bramble, the cover of Danielle Allen’s Plus Size Player (June), illustrated in a painterly style by Keosha Lipsey, spotlights a Black couple: she’s a plus-size fashion influencer and wears accessorized Bantu knots, and he’s a suit-sporting CEO. Vi-An Nguyen’s illustration and design for Here for a Good Time by Pyae Moe Thet War (Griffin, Aug.) foregrounds main character Poe Myat Sabei peeking out wide-eyed from behind her fingers, hinting at a good time gone awry.
Joanne O’Neill, an art director at HarperCollins, sought a “slightly edgy” look for the cover of Michael Chessler’s Mess (Harper Perennial, July), one that wouldn’t alienate a romance readership. In illustrator Debs Lim’s portfolio, she found an image of “a figure floating in a sea of clothes and bags and shoes.” That evolved into an image of an exhausted woman collapsed in front of a cluttered closet, perfect for a narrative about a personal organizer whose romantic life is in disarray.
The bold type
Whether it’s the sensual cursive used for dreamy historicals or the no-nonsense font of an Emily Henry title, typography is as essential to a cover as the images. On some of the newest romance covers, it practically steals the spotlight.
Jill De Haan’s artwork for Cosmic Love at the Multiverse Hair Salon (Ace, June), Annie Mare’s sci-fi inflected fantasy romance debut, is distinguished by its prominent, retro-groovy lettering. “The science fiction genre has some of the most creative covers in the marketplace,” says Emily Osborne, the PRH art director who oversaw the cover’s design. “The final cover is lush, retro, surreal, and so curious—I hope people will see it and wonder, What on earth is that book about?”
The bright color-blocking and bold graphics on Sounds Like Love (Berkley, June) mark it as an Ashley Poston novel, says Penguin Publishing Group art director Vi-An Nguyen, who did the design and illustration. “The music notes on the cover are pulled from a real song the author wrote for the book. Ashley Poston’s brand has been consistent since her debut, The Dead Romantics.”
That brand has been influential, says Random House senior designer Cassie Vu, who traces the emergence of big type energy to Poston’s covers as well as designer Sandra Chiu’s covers for Emily Henry. Vu collaborated with illustrator Kasi Turpin on the design of Elissa Sussman’s Totally and Completely Fine (Dell, July): striking yellow and blue lettering, both flat and 3D, dominates the miniature city and landscape graphics.
Even within a genre whose covers tend to blend in rather than stand out, Vu and others interviewed for this piece say, ingenuity is possible and, in fact, desirable.
“Romance has a very particular look,” Vu says. “Readers expect a certain thing, and they know that they’re going to get it if they have a cover that looks like other romance covers. But we’re going to get to a breaking point where we can’t make everything the same anymore. Innovation comes when the editors and authors are willing to let the designers play and have fun.”
DW McKinney is a writer and editor in Nevada.
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