The clinch cover is the name for a style of romance book

cover art Cover art is a type of artwork presented as an illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product, such as a book (often on a dust jacket), magazine, newspaper ( tabloid), comic book, video game ( box art), music album ( album ar ...

. It generally features two people touching or in close proximity, and the art style has its roots in pulp art.

Origin and development

The 1949 creation of

Harlequin Enterprises Harlequin Enterprises ULC (known simply as Harlequin) is a publisher of romance novel, romance, women's fiction and various other genres under multiple publishing imprints. Founded in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1949, from the 1960s, it grew into the l ...

is partially credited with the rise of the clinch cover in the 1970s for directly marketing to women through the use of the cover and for placing the books in areas they specifically saw women interacting with. The rise of the modern romance genre itself is attributed to Avon through the publication of the mass-produced and initially paperback 1972 bodice ripper ''

The Flame and the Flower ''The Flame and the Flower'' (published 1972) is the debut work of romance novelist Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. The first modern "bodice ripper" romance novel, the book revolutionized the historical romance genre. It was also the first full-length ...

''. The clinch cover style became popular through the 1970s and 1980s, and originally usually was done by taking a photograph and then painting a scene, but in the modern day it is sometimes done with just photography. The posing, state of dress, and appearance of the people on the clinch cover is informed by the politics of the era, such as the

women's liberation movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism. It emerged in the late 1960s and continued till the 1980s, primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which resulted in g ...

. Though the clinch cover usually features a white, heterosexual couple, the style has been used for other book pairings as well. Author Ann Allen Shockley utilized a clinch cover for her 1974 interracial lesbian romance novel '' Loving Her'', and author Beverly Jenkins frequently uses clinch covers for her black romance novels. Since the 1990s, romance book covers have shifted slowly away from clinch covers, with less focus on or a lack of people on the cover (such as the trend towards landscapes observed in 2001), to cartoon covers in the 21st century.

Prominent clinch cover artists

* Elaine Duillo, credited with the addition of men to the clinch cover with her cover art for Laura Black's 1978 novel ''Glendraco''. Also credited with the rise of

Fabio Fabio is a given name descended from Latin ''Fabius'' and very popular in Italy and Latin America (due to Italian migration). The name is written without an accent in Italian and Spanish, but is usually accented in Portuguese as ''Fábio'' (with t ...

due to her use of him as a model for her clinch cover art for '' Hearts Aflame'' (1987). *

Robert McGinnis Robert Edward McGinnis (February 3, 1926 – March 10, 2025) was an American artist and illustrator. McGinnis is known for his illustrations of more than 1,200 paperback book covers,BiographyMcGinnis, Robert− Cavalier Galleries and over 40 ...

, who made the first clinch cover with a fully naked man for '' Fires of Winter'' (1980).

References

{{reflist Romance book cover images Romantic fiction Romance novels