A field guide to peaches, cherries, and the illustrated fruit bowl currently doing a lot of emotional labor on your shelf.
Walk into any bookstore’s romance table and you’ll notice the produce aisle has moved in. Peaches split just so. Cherries paired suggestively. A fig, cut open, doing more narrative work than some prologues. None of this is subtle, and none of it is meant to be.
Mom remembers when a cover’s job was to show you the couple. Daughter points out that the fruit tells you everything about the heat level before you’ve read a single page, which is arguably more efficient.
Whatever you think of the trend, it’s not going anywhere. Get used to a produce section that blushes.