Wednesday 9 February 2022

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Hardbacks with Special Cases

A stack of hardback books on a fluffy, dark grey duvet cover. The books from top to bottom are Sweet & Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley, The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin, Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith, and Ship It by Britta Lundin. The photo is taken at an angle from above, so the spines are on show. The spines face the bottom left corner of the photo.

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Hardbacks with Special Cases



I don't often buy hardbacks for several reasons. 1. Here in the UK, the majority of YA goes straight to paperback (though fantasy does seem to be published in hardback first more often than not). 2. I generally prefer reading paperbacks; they're kinder to my wrists, and not so heavy when in a bag. 3. For those that are published in hardback first, I can't afford to buy every book I want to read in that format, so I have to wait. But I do still occasionally buy hardbacks, when it's a book I can't wait for - and they tend to be US titles not published in the UK.

As I can't afford to buy a lot of hardbacks, you'll understand that I can't buy even more expensive hardbacks, like special editions, or subscribe to subscription boxes. So a lot of the time, the harbacks I get are just the normal, bog-standard hardbacks. But every now and then, the publishers sneak in a little surprise for us. I'm the type of person who only ever reads hardbacks after removing the dust jacket, because I will absolutely damage it either while reading or when taking it out and putting it in my bag. So it's always delightful to see the publishers have added something a little special to the case of the book when I remove them. And I thought I'd share with you the hardbacks with cool cases I have.

A flat lay photo of the hardbacks on a fluffy, dark grey duvet with their dust covers off. The books are arranged so that two are on top, two are at the bottom, and one is to the right of them all, half way down from the top of the first two books. At the top are Ship It, a multicoloured cover completely covered with illustrations of a crowd of people in costumes and normal clothes, and Sweet & Bitter Magic, black with has a silver, foil ribbon in the center of the top half of the book; at the bottom are Elatsoe, a dark grey cover which has three wolves of various shades of lighter grey running to the right on the bottom half of the cover, and The Witch Haven, a black cover which has a lot of little gold, foil stars in the shape of a crescent moon; and to the right is The Nature of Witches, a black cover which is covered in butterflies, ferns and flowers. The photo is taken at an angle so that the tops of the books face the top right corner of the photo, and the bottom of the books face the bottom left corner.


These are the only five I have with something special underneath; they are, in order they are shown in the photo above, Ship It by Britta Lundin, Sweet & Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley*, Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger* The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith*, and The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin*. Aren't they so cool?! I think the foil blocking is really gorgeous, but the casewrap of The Nature of Magic is my favourite, with Elatsoe at a close second. I don't personally really like the casewrap for Ship It; I'm not a big fan of the illustrations, and I think it's too busy, but it's still really cool!

A photo of three hardbacks arranged on top of each other. The Nature of Witches is at the bottom, Elatsoe is placed on top of it covering just the bottom right quarter of the book, and Ship It is placed on top of Elatsoe, at an angle so it's covering top right corner, but not covering The Nature of Witches.


A photo of two hardbacks arranged on top of each other. At the bottom is Sweet & Bitter Magic, and on top of it, covering the bottom right corner at a diagonal angle pointing bottom left, is The Witch Haven.


I just think they're awesome, and I love that publishers do this. I think I have some sprayed edged books, too, but I'm not as big of a fan of them, simply because the colour comes of on my hands, I don't think the block cover is particularly wow, unless it's in a photo of various hardbacks lined up in a rainbow. I follow the Production Controller for HarperVoyager and Avon Books, Robyn on Instagram, and she's always sharing gorgeous photos of various different editions, and here's one of her photos of rainbow sprayed edges that I think looks beautiful! I do love it when the sprayed edges have designs stenciled into them, though. I don't own any, but I would definitely buy them if they weren't more expensive special editions or from subscription boxes.

Do you own any hardbacks with very cool designs under the dust jackets? What are your favourites? Do you have any of the above? Let me know in the comments!

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