One thing I always look forward to, is finding my Fairyloot box in the mail. Their team never fails to amaze me with the wonderful items they pick! The only problem is that I have to keep my mouth shut about the contents until about a week into the following month, when their photo challenge start and it’s okay to post pictures. So let’s open up our Fairyloot December 2018 box and see what’s inside!
As always, we start with the spoiler card! The theme for December was “Dragons”, and I mean, yes please! Once again, the artwork on the spoiler card (which you can see in the big picture at the top) is by the amazing Taratjah and on the other side we have a description of all the items (duh, that’s what spoiler cards are for).
Reading journal and pin flag
The first item is a reading journal for the first half of the year. It matches the one we got last year on the outside, but this one has dragon-inspired illustrations. It was designed by FictionTea Designs and features artwork by Blanca Montiel. Unfortunately, I’m bad at remembering things and I ended up forgetting to use the previous journal… But I’m putting this one on my nightstand with my books, so hopefully I’ll actually use it now!
As you might know, Fairyloot often put pins and badges in their boxes. And as you might know, I’m not the biggest fan of those. I just don’t have anywhere to put them. But leave it to Fairyloot to come up with a solution! Because the second item in this box is a pin flag. It’s a really simple design, but it’s super useful! When I re-decorate my shelves, I’ll definitely find a place to hang this!
Necklace and book sleeve
Next up, we have what is maybe my favourite item in this box. A necklace! I would love to have more bookish jewelry, so you can imagine how happy I was. It’s shaped like a dragon and looks amazing. At first, I thought those white wings were a bit strange, but then I realized they’re glow-in-the-dark! HOW FREAKING COOL IS THAT?????!!!!! I just can’t wait to show it off!
So far, these items weren’t related to specific fandoms. But now we’re into fandom territory. And we start with Harry Potter with this book sleeve! It’s designed by Sweet Sequels and is inspired by the scene where our Golden Trio escape from Gringotts on the back of a dragon. If you look closely, you can also see a quote along the tops of the buildings. It reads: “Enter, stranger, but take heed of what awaits the sin of greed…” Warning noted! I don’t often take my books outside, but even indoors I sometimes put them in a sleeve to keep them safe. So this comes in handy!
Art prints and magnetic bookmarks
I don’t know about you, but one of my favourite dragons is Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. And another favourite is Abraxos from Throne of Glass. So you can imagine my happy grin when I pulled this art print out of the box! On one side, it features our adorable Night Fury, on the other side it has Manon Blackbeak and her loyal wyvern. Both of these illustrations were done by Diana Worak. But I have one major problem: how am I going to display both of these sides at the same time?!
There was supposed to be one more item, but something went wrong with the packing of the boxes. So the Fairyloot team will send this missing item to us as soon as possible. I can already tell you what it is, but unfortunately, there’s no picture at the moment. I will update this post when I receive the item (if I don’t forget…). So what is this mysterious item? A set of magnetic bookmarks inspired by the one and only Mother of Dragons, aka Daenerys from A Song of Ice and Fire! They were designed by Taratjah and I can’t wait to see them!
UPDATE: The magnetic bookmarks are here and they are gorgeous! Look at Daenerys and Drogon!
Trading cards and an ARC
The Fairyloot December 2018 box is the first one that includes their new trading cards. The team first announced they would start including these cards a few months ago and then did a few polls to determine the fandom. The first fandom that was chosen, was A Court of Thorns and Roses (which will surprise exactly zero people, I imagine). I found Cassian and Amren in my box. Not my favourite members of the Inner Circle, but they’re still such fun characters! I do seem to remember it would be one card per box, though? So I’m not sure if that changed or if I accidentally got two?
Anyway, let’s move on to the first book. Yes, the first! This isn’t the featured book of the month yet, but an ARC for The Storm Crow. For those of you not familiar with the lingo, an ARC is an Advance Reader’s Copy of a book that hasn’t been published yet. The Storm Crow by Kalyn Josephon is coming to your local bookstore in July, but thanks to Fairyloot, we can already read this one! It’s about two princesses whose kingdom (and the elemental crows that were part of every aspect of life) was destroyed by an evil empire. When one of them discovers a crow egg, they devise a plan to hatch the egg in secret and win back what was taken from them. It’s described as “Eragon meets And I Darken”, and I’m so here for it!
The book!
And finally, we have the real book of the month… a signed copy of Fire & Heist by Sarah Beth Durst! It has dragons, or more precisely WERE-DRAGONS! The main character is a human who can shapeshift into a dragon, like asgjkjklmkjlkjmlkjs! Leading your first heist is a major milestone in Sky’s family. She has her handpicked crew ready, but along the way, she discovers a dark truth about were-dragon society. This book was on my list of December releases I was excited about, so yeah, it’s going very high on my TBR pile!
Fire & Heist comes with exclusive character art of Sky by Taratjah. And on the back of this print, there’s the traditional author letter. Furthermore, there’s also the Fairyscoop newsletter featuring an interview with the author, and a bookmark with this month’s artwork (not pictured here).
And that was everything that came in the Fairyloot December 2018 box. It was such a fun box and I can’t wait to read these two books! I’m also already counting down the days until the January box appears on my doorstep, because I’m impatient like that.
