Wow, Really? Hard cover? Really?

I was digging through some journals here at work, looking at upcoming releases for this summer, when I ran across a mention of Fade To Midnight by Shannon McKenna. For those of you who have never read McKenna, let me give you the rundown. Her heroes tend to be very Alpha and her heroines get rescued a lot. I've enjoyed two of her books as pure guilty pleasures (Behind Closed Doors and Standing In The Shadows) while two other books (Return To Me and Hot Night) made me want to put my fist through a wall.

Fade To Midnight is the conclusion (uh, I think) of her McCloud (a name that should be banned from Romance Novel Land) Brothers series and it's the book that McKenna fangirls have been squee-ing for. Yep, it's Kev's book.

Well here I am to rain on your parade. Brace yourself ladies.

Fade To Midnight is going to be published in....

Hard cover.

Yes, hard cover. Retail price is $20.95 (cheap for hc), and Amazon currently has it available for pre-order at $14.25. Hey, which is technically cheaper than what her trade paperback releases sold for at retail.

This is....

Well, it's interesting.

McKenna is so not an author I saw making any kind of leap to hard cover. For one thing, I have only heard readers describe her books in one of two ways:

• It made my eyes bleed. Seriously. Bleed. Pouring out of my eyes. Blood everywhere.
  

• OMG, what a great guilty pleasure!
  

Kensington Brava must be banking on people being so desperate for their guilty pleasure fix that they'll be willing to go hard cover. And hey, they may not be wrong. I mean, people are buying J.R. Ward in hard cover. (Yeah, I went there. I'm bad.)

And while the discount is healthy enough that those readers willing to pay trade prices for McKenna, probably won't care - I have to wonder about all those romance readers who vehemently, as in frothing at the mouth, despise hard cover. I mean, they really dislike it as a format. Hmmmm....

Interesting all the way around. Really? McKenna in hard cover? Really?

So, who is going to buy it? Or have you turned green and are now storming around your home office Hulk-like angry? Reader mad! Reader smash!

Oh, and yeah - I'm ordering it for the library. Cuz that's how I roll. Not sure if I'll read it right away though, since I'm like three books behind on this series already.

Laydown date is May 25, 2010