Evil Lurks in Glitter

“Look at all these books; what should I buy to read? Hm, ‘Higher Jinx’. Oooo, look at all that glitter on the cover. And such bright colors. What’s the back say? ‘Lady X has a new secondhand shop and a secondhand new man – he’s the ghost of the former owner and he wants Lady X & revenge’ well, this’ll be a cute, quick little light read. Right?”

Wrong!

Beware, oh book lovers, for one of the latest fads in cover design is giving boldly colored covers accented with glitter to grimmer paranormal fiction. Lure in the woo-woo crowd with a pretty circus poster and, before they know where they are, you’ve got them reading one of horror’s latest mild-mannered red-haired stepchildren.

Melodramatic? Where?

Case In Point

I was lazing about with my sister this past weekend, bobbing in our folks’ jacuzzi and reading mystery novels on a blustery Winter day. She laughed at something in the book she was reading, one of those with boldly colored graphic cover art and punny titles, and I said that it must be a nice, light little book.

She looked at me like I’d claimed the State Tax Code is an exciting read.

Apparently, the book’s main character was possessed by an old ghost of a Portuguese man who wanted to return to eating the flesh of the living as was his ancestral right. And the Protagonist had to stop and banish the ghost while finding out why it was around in the first place.

Talk about looks being deceiving.

Then, I remembered another book she’d read that she had bought thinking it was a light read for the same reason I’d thought the flesh-eating-ghost novel was a cozy mystery – that sneaky cover. Only that cover had the added camouflage of innocence only glitter can provide.

I suddenly began to remember other dark and creepy paranormal novels that had brightly colored covers be-sparkled with glitter. And I realized something…

Glitter is evil in disguise.

Example I: True Blood

HBO’s True Blood TV series is based on Charlene Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse books. Anyone who’s seen this show, which has, among other things, a sinister Pan cult, would never describe it as sunshine and butterflies.

Even with leeway for flights of fanciful Hollywood deviations, logic must indicate that the books can’t possibly be an outbreak of The Happy Mouse Family Goes On A Picnic.

So, are the book covers decorated with fields of black with a beautiful woman with pouting lips peering over her shoulder at you while a fanged rouge lurks in the shadows while a bloody red moon glares down?

Well, let’s take a look. At right are some of the covers for the books True Blood is based on. Note the bright, happy yellows, candy-apple reds, bold and friendly blues and greens. Gaze on the merrily twinkling glitter. “Oooo” and “ah, how cute” at the little cartoon people floating around casually like bored goth cherubs.

Such a cherry, safe cover. This is surely a fluffy work of harmless paranormal romance. Rosy sigh.

*Cue peals of derisive laughter

Example II: Second Hand Spirits

“Hey, a glittery paperback with stylishly graphic cover art and bold colors. ‘Secondhand Spirits’, how cute. And the blurb on the back’s so innocuous. Definitely safe, unlike that Sookie stuff. I’ll buy it.”

Hear that? It’s the sound of a marketing department chortling with glee.

The ‘I’ in the above example is my sister. We both thought this would be a light piece of paranormal-ey fluff.

It creeped the hell out of my sister.

Example III: Metaphorical Glitter

Usually these types of books have a more figurative ‘glitter’ on their covers. Namely (no pun intended) cutsie, fun-filled titles. Titles like Ghouls Just Haunt to Have Fun and Demons Are A Ghoul’s Best Friend. Nothing ‘shimmers’ out of a bookstore selection like a punny little title on the spine.

My sister got both of the books mentioned above from the Library. These are the ones I’d made my “those look like light reads” comment about that I mentioned at the start of all this. Ghouls Just Haunt To Have Fun is the one with the cannibalistic Portuguese ghost. Demons Are A Ghoul’s Best Friend scared my sister.

What cheery plot did that be-punned cover hide? The main character was hunting down the ghost of a deranged vet who’d slaughtered his girlfriend’s children with an axe after coming back from ‘Nam. Now the hatchet-wielding spook was hunting down live children, but it turned out he was really still harassing the ghosts of his original victims who were hiding in the bodies of the live kids.

Conclusion

Don’t go into the glitter. Resist it’s cheerful shimmer; the brightest lights always cast the darkest shadows.

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