About Deborah Cooke

I write romance novels, including medieval romances as Claire Delacroix, and contemporary and paranormal romances as Deborah Cooke. I also am an avid knitter and sewist.

My Time Travel Romances are Available at Kickstarter!

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

Woo-hoo! I launched the Kickstarter campaign for the new editions of my time travel romances yesterday and it’s vastly exceeded my expectations! We’re off to a great start, so be sure you don’t miss out.

The campaign features the new edition of Love Potion #9, and you can also order the new ebook or trade paperback of Once Upon a Kiss, The Moonstone and The Last Highlander. The new editions are available for pre-order at retailers for October delivery, but backers of the campaign will get their copies early.

four new editions of my time travel and magical romances

In addition, each book ordered through the campaign has a coordinating tip sheet, which will be added to the front of the book, and a bookplate – the books will ship directly from the printer, and I’ll sign and mail the bookplates separately.

Here’s a digital mock-up of the tipsheet and bookplate for Love Potion #9:

Tipsheet and signed bookplate for the limited edition of Love Potion #9, coming to Kickstarter in January 2025

You can only get this addition through the Kickstarter campaign.

There are other rewards exclusive to the campaign, like a limited number of vellum inserts featuring the original cover art for Love Potion #9 by Judy York, and a downloadable tarot deck to print and color.

Here’s the tarot deck I created from the PDF file:

Tarot de Marseilles digital reward for backers of Deborah Cooke's Kickstarter campaign

You can see that I also created a box for the cards, which you can print and assemble.

There are more goodies in the works, too, including a bookmark.

Youc an also order the Kickstarter editions from previous campaigns in the Add-ons for this campaign, including the Dragonfire Novels omnibus editions, the Blood Brothers special editions and the Bride Quest special editions..

Click through to see the campaign. It runs through February 7.

Kickstarter campaign for the 25th anniversary of Love Potion #9 by Claire Delacroix writing as Claire Cross

The Beauty Bride in Spanish is a Fr33 Read

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

The Spanish edition of The Beauty Bride is called La bella novia, and it’s a free read through the end of June.

The Beauty Bride, book one of the Jewels of Kinfairlie series of medievla romances by Claire Delacroix, Spanish edition

Más apreciadas que el oro son las Joyas de Kinfairlie, y solo los más dignos pueden luchar por su amor… El señor de Kinfairlie tiene hermanas solteras, cada una de las cuales es una joya por derecho propio. Y él no tiene más remedio que verlas casarse a toda prisa.

El corazón de Lady Madeline no está a la venta… especialmente para un notorio forajido como Rhys FitzHenry. Sin embargo, la mano de Madeline se ha vendido, nada menos que a este guerrero cansado de la batalla con un precio por su cabeza. Una doncella más obediente podría ceder al mando del señor y aceptar dócilmente su destino, pero Madeline nunca ha sido obediente. Ella decide huir, aunque nunca cree que Rhys la perseguirá.

Ella no espera que este hombre reservado la corteje con historias fantásticas, y mucho menos que cada una de sus fascinantes historias revele una cicatriz en su alma protegida. Ella nunca imaginó que un hombre como Rhys podría poner en peligro su propio corazón al revelar tan poco de sus propios sentimientos. Cuando el pasado de Rhys amenaza su futuro, Madeline da un salto de fe. Ella se atreve a creerle inocente y arriesga su propia vida para perseguir una pasión más invaluable que la gema más rara.

Esta es una traducción al español neutral de América Latina.

La bella novia está también disponible en inglés como audiolibro.

Compre La bella novia ebook:

Compre La bella novia en tapa blanda:

The Tarot Deck with the New Editions of my Time Travel Romances

Posted on January 13, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

You know about the new covers for my time travel and magical romances, and also about my upcoming Kickstarter campaign to launch them. The books ordered through the campaign will have a special tipsheet inserted in the front and each backer will get a signed bookplate for each book to put on that page.

There’s also a digital reward of a downloadable copy of the Tarot de Marseilles deck, for backers to print and colour. This past weekend, I printed my deck from the PDF file, and thought I’d show you.

I printed my cards on 65lb parchment stock and trimmed them up on a paper cutter. There are six cards on each 8.5 x 11″ page. There’s also a page with images for the backs of the cards.

My inkjet printer wasn’t so very happy with the parchment paper, probably because of its weight. When I printed a test page on regular paper, it came out perfectly. The printer seemed to have some difficulty picking up the parchment, so a couple of pages printed slightly off-square. The image on the back isn’t perfectly centered on each page either, but I’m happy with it. You could probably take the PDF file to a copy shop to have it printed on heavier paper, or printed out on regular paper and copied onto heavier paper.

As you can see, there’s also a box to print, cut out and assemble. This is the final page in the PDF file, and you might want to print it on different paper stock. I used the same parchment. This one has just one tuck-flap on the front of the box lid, but I’ve added two side flaps to the lid for the final version to make it a little sturdier.

I also noticed that some of the pip cards don’t have a clear up side. Since the meaning of the cards varies – the interpretation is reversed when the card is upside down – you might want to create a convention when you colour them. I’m going to colour something red at the top of each card.

The other change is to the dates of the campaign. I was going to launch on January 28th and run through February 14, but as the campaign is part of Kickstarter’s Make-100 feature for January, it makes sense to launch sooner and take advantage of any additional visibility from that. We launch on January 15 and the campaign will run through February 7.

Click through to follow the campaign and follow it to be notified at launch.

A Bit About Translations

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

As you probably know, a number of my books are available in translated editions. Some of these translations were done through a website called Babelcube, which has a five-year license on the translation. Although it’s hard for me to believe the time has passed so quickly, they are starting to reach the end of their contract term. That means the translations are reverting to me – much the way the rights to an English book revert after some period of time – and that I’m republishing them in new editions.

This gives me more control over the books and their metadata – like series information – and also more control over pricing. At Babelcube, for example, I can only set the price in USD, then it’s converted for other territories. This means that the prices aren’t pretty. A book priced at 99cents USD might be 1.09 in euros, and since the primary market for these translations is outside the US, that’s not ideal. It’s also not possible to make a book free through Babelcube, which makes it harder to promote the books. First-in-series-free is a really good promotional technique.

Die schon Braut, The Beauty Bride book one of the Jewels of Kinfairlie series of medieval romances by Claire Delacroix in its German edition

As these books come back to me and are republished, I’ll be offering some free series starters. For example, The Jewels of Kinfairlie series is available in German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

Right now, the German edition of The Beauty Bride is a free read. That book came back to me in the fall and now I publish the entire series myself. (Click through on the cover for more details on the book and links to the retail portals.)

As of January 1, I’ve made the Spanish edition of the Beauty Bride free at the portals. I’ve asked Amazon to match the free price and will let you know when they do.

I’ve republished the Italian editions of both The Rose Red Bride and The Snow Write Bride, but won’t have the rest of the series back until the spring. Then I’ll make The Beauty Bride in Italian a free read, too.

I’ve also republished The Beauty Bride in Portuguese recently. The rest of the series in Portuguese will come back to me later this year, and I’ll republish them, then make The Beauty Bride in Portuguese a free read.

One thing that seems to be happening at AMZ, which is new, is that the new edition isn’t linking with the older edition, which means the reviews are being lost. If you reviewed any of these books, it would be lovely if you could post your review again on the new edition. 🙂

The Beauty Bride in German is a Fr33 read

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

The German edition of The Beauty Bride is called Die schöne Braut and it’s a free series starter through the end of June. It’s book #1 of the Jewels of Kinfairlie series of medieval Scottish romances, and the series is complete in German. The books are also available in trade paperback editions.

Höhergeschätzt als Gold sind die Juwelen von Kinfairlie und nur die Würdigsten dürfen um ihre Liebe kämpfen … Der Laird von Kinfairlie hat fünf unverheiratete Schwestern – jede für sich ein Kleinod. Und er hat keine andere Wahl, als sie in aller Eile zu verheiraten.

Lady Madelines Herz ist nicht käuflich zu erwerben … vor allem nicht durch einen verrufenen Geächteten wie Rhys FitzHenry. Und doch wurde Madelines Hand verkauft, an keinen anderen als an diesen kampfesmüden Krieger, auf den ein Kopfgeld ausgesetzt ist. Eine pflichtgetreuere Maid würde dem Befehl des Lairds vielleicht Folge leisten und ihr Schicksal widerspruchslos annehmen, doch Madeline war noch nie gehorsam. Sie beschließt, fortzulaufen, und denkt nicht im Traum daran, dass Rhys sie verfolgen könnte.

Sie erwartet nicht, dass dieser wortkarge Mann ihr den Hof macht, indem er ihr fantasievolle Geschichten erzählt, und noch viel weniger, dass jeder seiner packenden Berichte eine Narbe auf seiner Seele enthüllt, die er hinter einem Schutzschild verborgen hält. Es ist für sie unvorstellbar, dass ein Mann wie Rhys ihr Herz in Gefahr bringen könnte, während er selbst so wenig von seinen eigenen Gefühlen verrät. Als Rhys’ Vergangenheit seine Zukunft bedroht, fasst Madeline den Entschluss, ihm blind zu vertrauen. Sie geht das Wagnis ein, zu glauben, dass er unschuldig ist – und riskiert ihr Leben für eine Leidenschaft, die wertvoller ist als das kostbarste Juwel.

„Ein gefühlvoller historischer Liebesroman, der im Mittelalter spielt.“—Publishers Weekly

Die schöne Braut ist auch als Hörbuch in englischer Sprache erhältlich.

Die schöne Braut, E-book: