I fear this is becoming an epidemic

Normally, when it comes to romance novels, I’m pretty loyal to historicals, most often Regency or Victorian.I pretty much devour historicals. 

There are a few other romance genres I’ll read just because I’m loyal to the author. I always read Sherrill Quinn/Cynthia Garner because she’s a friend and a great paranormal writer. I always read Gini Koch because she’s a hysterical lady in person and her Sci Fi/romance books are always a hoot.

I also read Rachel Gibson’s books as soon as I can get my hot little hands on them because I love, love, love her contemporary romances.

When my agent asked me to write a contemporary romance, I knew I wanted to write something comparable to Rachel – her style and mine are very similar. I also figured that I’d better read some more of this particular genre because the secret to writing is reading.

I read another of my agent’s authors stuff over at Entangled.com and another book from that publisher that caught my eye. Both of which I liked and would recommend.

And then I took a trip to Target to see what was going on in the romance section. There are eight million historicals in that aisle – which explains why the hell I can’t get mine published. But, surprisingly, there weren’t that many romances that weren’t also slipping over into “women’s fiction” at the same time.

I bought one that appealed to me – the back cover blurb, the cover art, etc. Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. So far I’m really enjoying it.

But while I was sitting on the couch I glanced at the cover art again. Then I looked harder. I went to the lamp and looked really hard.

Holy Cow.

Take a look at it here and see if you can see what I saw.

Give up? I’ll give you a hint. Look specifically at the bottom third – under the title. It’s dark there so peer at it. Yep, that’s it.

The hero has no feet. None. Odd, right?

I know he’s wearing a cowboy hat and that the story takes place in Texas, but I really, really think that perhaps the model is Canadian.

 So what do you think the deal is with these missing feet all over the place? What are the Canadians doing with all these feet?