Unboxing the 25th Anniversary Edition Bride Quest Series

Back in May or June one of my favourite medieval authors, Claire Delacroix, launched a Kickstarter to produce 25th anniversary hard cover editions of her Bride Quest series. She had announced it earlier in her Facebook group and I had been looking forward to the launch. I was so excited that I think the first thing I did the morning it started was to log in and make my pledge.

When I received the email last week saying that my package was in the mail, I was more excited than I can say!

I was sitting at my desk working, first thing in the morning, when the delivery arrived at my apartment door. It was a struggle not to stop everything right then and there, and tear into the package to see the books.

As it was I held out for a couple of hours, but then I had to at least open the box and pull everything out. The books were so well protected with bubble wrap that there was no chance of any of them being damaged PLUS they were all individually wrapped in tissue paper, as you can see from the stack below.

This is as far as I allowed myself to go until the end of the workday. But I couldn’t help but smile every time I looked at that stack of purple waiting for me. And yes, the cute little moose was also in the box.

Even after work, I dragged out the anticipation by waiting until I had fed the dogs and eaten my own dinner. Then the fun began! I was so excited to see what was in the purple wrappings!

And these are the books! Aren’t those covers gorgeous? They were so worth the wait! But having followed all her updates, I knew that the books had a hidden secret! Under those gorgeous dust jackets are amazing illustrations on the book covers themselves!

Aren’t those covers fabulous, even without the dust jackets? I’m amazed by the amount of detail the author went to when getting these editions printed, and the quality is fantastic.

As a special treat, the author was experimenting with printing overlays and offered to include one if backers requested them. I’m so glad I asked for one! It was tucked away in the first book, so I had to go looking for it. I was so pleased with it. Sorry, but I couldn’t get it to stay flat for the photo.

And then there were all the other goodies! I can hardly believe the quality of all the postcards and bookmarks! They are all printed on a nice heavy weight card-stock. I’m undecided if I’ll actually use the bookmarks or scrapbook them.

And finally, one of the bonuses that I was really looking forward to. The author had some fabric printed with the illustration from the first book, and she sewed book covers for each of the backers who pledged at a certain level. It’s so fantastic and fits all of the books, so that none of them will get damaged while reading them.

Not shown are all the digital copies that were also included, as well as bonus printable bookmarks, postcards, and colouring pages.

It was really a wonderful campaign, I’m glad it was successful for her.

She has said that she hopes to do a Kickstarter for hardcover editions of her Blood Brothers series for which the final book was published last week. I’m really looking forward to that and hope she is able to make it happen in 2024.