Blood Brothers Hard Cover Special Editions

A bit belatedly, I realized that I hadn’t shown you the hard cover special editions of the Blood Brothers books. We’ll fix that today. 🙂

New hardcover edition of The Wolf & the Witch by Claire Delacroix, with dust jacket and illustration on case laminate

These editions have the new illustrations by Dar Albert. I showed off the trade paperbacks with their duplex covers (which have the illustrations on the inside of the cover) in this post. For the hard cover, there’s a dust jacket with the type and the illustration appears on the case laminate, like this digital mock-up to the right. Both have a matte finish that feels really luxe to me.

Let’s look at the actual books now that I have a few on my shelf. Here are the four books with their dust jackets:

Blood Brothers series of medieval romances by Claire Delacroix - special hardcover editions

Here are the fronts of the case laminates:

Blood Brothers series of medieval romances by Claire Delacroix - special hardcover editions

And the backs of the case laminates:

Blood Brothers series of medieval romances by Claire Delacroix - special hardcover editions

These special edition interiors include some different typographic elements, but also include the Blood Brothers map and family trees. The family tree for Jean Le Beau is in all four books, then each book has a family tree for the hero and for the heroine. Those elements are included in all of the special editions – ebook, trade paperback and hardcover.

Blood Brothers series of medieval romances by Claire Delacroix - special hardcover editions with family trees

The Blood Brothers map is included in these editions, too, and we split it so details wouldn’t vanish into the gutter.

Blood Brothers series of medieval romances by Claire Delacroix - special hardcover editions with map

Finally, there’s a list of acknowledgements in these editions to thank all the Kickstarter backers who helped bring these editions to life. There are more on the other side of the page.

Blood Brothers series of medieval romances by Claire Delacroix - special hardcover editions with acknowledgements

You can pre-order signed copies of the print books in my online store – that will be for the first fulfillment after the Kickstarter campaign, and I’ll place that order in June. I’ll include the Blood Brothers bookmarks with these orders, too.

The spiral notebooks that are left are also available in the store now. They won’t be restocked, so once they’re gone, that’s that. You’ll find them in New Arrivals there, as well as the discounted sample copies of The Hunter & the Heiress that I ordered in advance of the campaign. Those two sample books have the illustration on the cover, but don’t have the map or family trees inside.

Books and More!

One of the fun things about running a Kickstarter campaign for new editions is when all the goodies come in. Let’s have a look at most of the goodies and books for the Blood Brothers special editions campaign.

Last week, the first lot of books arrived. These were the trade paperbacks, and I’m so pleased with them. The matte finish is so velvety!

Blood Brothers special edition trade paperbacks with duplexed covers

These editions have the new illustrations by Dar Albert. For the trade paperback, the covers are duplexed, which means the illustration is printed on the inside of the cover, like this:

Blood Brothers special edition trade paperbacks with duplexed covers

The part of the illustration with the sword is on the inside back cover but I didn’t take pix ot it.

These special edition interiors include some different typographic elements, but also include the Blood Brothers map and family trees. The family tree for Jean Le Beau is in all four books, then each book has a family tree for the hero and for the heroine. Those elements are included in all of the special editions – ebook, trade paperback and hardcover.

The spiral notebooks featuring the new illustrations have also arrived.

Blood Brothers spiral notebooks

And there are postcards. There’s a set of four of the new illustrations, and a set of four of the original cover art (with the guys alone). They all have the same reverse side which is shown at the bottom right.

Blood Brothers postcards

Plus those big bookmarks have arrived. There’s a set of four of these: they all have the same reverse side with the original covers.

Blood Brothers bookmarks

I’ve been packing boxes for the fulfillment of the Kickstarter. The hardcover editions have shipped to me, so I’ll show them to you once they arrive. I’ll pack the rest of the Kickstarter pledges then and the campaign will be done. I’ve also been making book charms with these new covers and will show you those with the hardcovers.

You can pre-order signed copies of the print books in my online store – that will be for the first fulfillment after the Kickstarter campaign, and I’ll place that order in June.

The spiral notebooks that are left are available in the store now. They won’t be restocked, so once they’re gone, that’s that. You’ll find them in New Arrivals there, as well as the discounted sample copies of The Hunter & the Heiress that I ordered in advance of the campaign. Those books have the illustration on the cover, but don’t have the map or family trees inside.

The Hunter & the Heiress Sample Special Editions – and Spiral Notebooks

I’m slowly getting organized after the completion of the Blood Brothers Kickstarter campaign for the new special editions. Yesterday, I realized I had two sample copies of The Hunter & the Heiress in need of homes.

These are the copies I ordered for the video. They have the new cover illustrations – on the case laminate of the hardcover, and duplexed on the inside of the cover for the trade paperback – but don’t have the other content added to the book interiors during the campaign. There is no map and there are no family trees. Still, they’re very pretty books and should be on someone’s shelf. 🙂

You can find them in the store under New Arrivals. There’s only one of each, so once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Also, I added spiral notebooks to the campaign. There’s a set of four, each one featuring one illustration. I ordered some of The Hunter & the Heiress and am really pleased with how well they came out.

They’re 5.5″ x 8.5″ with 80 lined pages inside. The cover has a nice velvety finish.

Spiral bound notebook with the cover illustration for The Hunter & the Heiress
Spiral bound notebook with the cover illustration for The Hunter & the Heiress
Spiral bound notebook with the cover illustration for The Hunter & the Heiress

As is so often the way with printing, it made sense to round up my order quantities, a little above the actual quantity needed for the KS fulfillment. So, I’ll be adding these to the online store, too. The notebooks for The Hunter & the Heiress have already been added to the New Arrivals there.

Blood Brothers Special Editions – and Kindle Unlimited

The Wolf & the Witch, book one of the Blood Brothers series of medieval Scottish romances by Claire Delacroix, special hardcover edition
The Wolf & the Witch special hardcover edition dust jacket

The Kickstarter campaign for the new special editions of my Blood Brothers series ended on Saturday night. It not only funded but we reached stretch goals to add the Blood Brothers map and nine family trees into the new editions, as well as two sets of postcards and one set of bookmarks, printed for backers of signed books and as digital downloads for all backers. I also added some pretty spiral bound notebooks this time and will be doing that in future campaigns, too.

What happens next is the fulfillment, which will be all behind the scenes (pretty much in my dining room.)

Two other things are happening now that the campaign is completed. First, there’s a pre-order available in my online store for these new print editions. The Kickstarter fulfillment will be completed first, then the books ordered through this pre-order. If you pre-order before June 1, your books will be ordered in June and ship to you in July. These editions are signed, so they will ship from Canada.

See the Blood Brothers pre-order at Deborah Cooke’s Books.

The Dragon & the Damsel, book three of the Blood Brothers series of medieval Scottish romances by Claire Delacroix, special hardcover edition
The Dragon & the Damsel special hardcover edition dust jacket

You might notice that the special edition e-books aren’t listed there. That’s because Blood Brothers will be enrolled for a 90-day term in Kindle Unlimited. The first two books have been in KU before, but not the last two, so you’ll be able to binge the series there. The plan is for the books to be enrolled by the beginning of April, which will take their 90-day term through the end of June, but that will depend upon how promptly the other portals remove the books from sale. They have to be available exclusively at Amazon for their KU term.

Yesterday, I began to unpublish the four books from portals with long distribution chains, so depending where you shop, they may be vanishing. The last place I’ll unpublish them is my own online store, since it updates immediately.

My next Kickstarter campaign will be for a new hardcover omnibus edition of my fantasy YA Dragon Diaries trilogy. Watch the blog on my Deborah Cooke site for more details about that.

The Hunter & the Heiress Now Available in Italian

The Hunter & the Heiress, book two of my Blood Brothers series of medieval romances, is now available in an Italian edition. Amaury and Elizabeth’s story is called Il cacciatore e l’ereditiera in Italian.

Il cacciatore e l’ereditiera is the Italian edition of The Hunter & the Heiress, book two of the Blood Brothers series of medieval romances by Claire Delacroix

Niente di più lontano dalle aspettative di Amaury de Vries che unirsi alla compagnia di mercenari del fratellastro nelle terre selvagge della Scozia. Cavaliere e campione di giostre e tornei, si aspetta di ereditare un castello, finché l’uomo che ha sempre conosciuto come suo padre non rivela una terribile verità e lo rinnega. Rimasto senza nulla, Amaury cavalca verso Kilderrick, dove perde il cuore per una bella nobildonna nella foresta. Da uomo pragmatico, sa di non avere il diritto di corteggiare la dama, ma quando lei viene rapita Amaury la segue, deciso a compiere il suo dovere di cavaliere e aiutare una damigella in pericolo.

Elizabeth d’Acron è stata una pedina e un premio, ambita per il ricco patrimonio del padre, ma vuole essere desiderata solo per quello che è. Di nuovo rapita, giura che non si arrenderà a nessun uomo, nemmeno al bel cavaliere che la soccorre. In effetti, non c’è nessuno di più fastidioso di quell’uomo sicuro di sé ma imperscrutabile, così ligio al dovere da poter essere fatto di pietra, ma Elizabeth impara presto a fidarsi di Amaury, che la difenderà ad ogni costo. Non si aspettava di essere sedotta dal suo tocco e tanto meno che lui conquistasse il suo cuore diffidente, ma si è forse innamorata di un uomo il cui affetto appartiene già a un’altra?

Intrappolato tra dovere e passione, Amaury si ritrova ammaliato dalla donna che sfida ogni sua aspettativa, ma sa di avere poco da offrirle. E quando Elizabeth viene minacciata da un ex pretendente che non accetta un rifiuto, Amaury rischia tutto per difenderla, sperando che sia sufficiente. Ma riuscirà a intervenire in tempo? E basterà l’amore per convincere Elizabeth a mettere la sua mano nella sua per sempre?