This season's hottest book trend? The special edition
The book you'll see everywhere this summer isn't a particular author or genre – it's a work of art. Here are some of our recent favourite special editions. Grab them while you still can. . .
Whether you’re buying multiple editions of the same title to demonstrate your ardour, or investing in a covetable and aesthetically-pleasing keepsake of the novel you loved on ebook or audio, collectable books are becoming a category all of their own. But for those coming to a book afresh, you want its good looks to be backed up on the inside too – and these are special editions that deliver on both fronts. With bespoke sprayed edges which offer a hint of the stories within, luxury foil cover lettering, or dreamy illustrated endpapers, each of these special editions is a work of art – inside and out. Whether they’re beloved classics, science-fiction epics or dreamy romantasy novels, these beautiful books deserve pride of place on your bookshelf, your grid, and also at the top of your TBR this summer.
West of Wicked
by Nikki St. Crowe
From bestselling romantasy author Nikki St.Crowe comes West of Wicked. A retelling of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, this hardback first print edition comes complete with Oz-green sprayed edges, illustrated map endpapers, and shiny foiled cover lettering. When a cyclone hits her Kansas farmhouse, Dorothy Gale and her dog are whisked away to the wild, wonderful land of Oz. Taking the Witch of the North’s advice to find her way home, Dorothy meets Rook, a handsome and charming but battered and bloodied scarecrow tied to a post. As the pair’s connection grows, and the mysterious Tinman joins them on the journey, Dorothy realises that Rook is hiding a secret, and that nothing in Oz is as it seems.
The Faraway Inn
by Sarah Beth Durst
Take a magical summer trip with this limited-edition, floral-sprayed-edge hardback edition of The Faraway Inn, the new YA fantasy novel from bestselling author Sarah Beth Durst. Reeling after breaking up with her high school sweetheart, Calisa jumps at the chance to leave Brooklyn for the summer and help her great-aunt run her cosy Vermont bed and breakfast. That is, until she arrives and realises that Great-Aunt Zee does not need or want her help. As Calisa and the groundskeeper’s dreamy son work together to fix up the inn, she realises that the building holds a magical secret, one she must uncover to keep her aunt and the inn’s residents safe from harm.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold
by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Proving that it’s not just fantasy that gets the special edition treatment, this piece of translated literary sci-fi will break your heart and look beautiful doing it. If you were given the chance to travel back in time, what would you change? With just one chance and only a few minutes before their coffee cools and they must return to the present, each of the visitors to one very special Tokyo back-alley cafe has a different reason for travelling back in time. The first in the best-loved, multi-million-copy-selling series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, this special edition hardback of Before the Coffee Gets Cold comes complete with foiled lettering and blue sprayed edges.
Seek the Traitor's Son
by Veronica Roth
Elegy Ahn has always been a fighter. Born to a bounty hunter, she’s grown up fighting the Talusar, an enemy who worships a mysterious Fever that kills or transforms everyone who encounters it. When Elegy meets ruthless Taulsar general Rava, the pair discovers that one of them will be the woman to lead their people to victory, and that the man who can help them could also be the one who destroys them. A new high-stakes story from the bestselling author of the Divergent series, this beautiful hardback edition of Seek the Traitor's Son has ethereal sprayed edges and full-colour illustrated endpapers.
Macmillan Collector’s Library Jane Austen hardbacks
Jane Austen’s classic novels are a must-read for any discerning booklover, and these stunning pocket hardbacks from the Macmillan Collector’s Library make the perfect addition to any shelf. Each of these special editions of Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, Emma, Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey have vibrant, contrasting foil cover artwork, sprayed edges and illustrations by Hugh Thomson. Each book also offers a bonus behind-the-scenes peek at how the cover was designed and made.
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
by V. E. Schwab
Between the pages of this paperback edition of V. E. Schwab’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is a tale of queer love, freedom and power. This lyrical, mesmerising gothic horror will transport you across centuries and continents through the interconnected stories of beautiful, free-spirited Maria in conservative sixteenth-century Spain, sheltered but filled with longing Charlotte in Victorian London and Boston-based college student Alice.
Hemlock & Silver
by T. Kingfisher
Starring an introverted, poison-obsessed healer, her one-eyed narcissistic cat companion, a princess in need of a cure and a father who is desperate to save her, in Hemlock & Silver, a twisted and witty retelling of the story of Snow White, bestselling author T. Kingfisher imagines what would happen if the secret to saving Snow lay not with true love’s kiss but instead within the shadowy world of the magic mirror. This special first paperback edition features poisoned-apple-red sprayed edges.
One Yellow Eye
by Leigh Radford
With its toxic yellow jacket and matching sprayed edges, the cover of One Yellow Eye hints at the darkly humorous story within. Scientist Kesta has a secret. A secret with the potential to quite literally eat her alive. Spending her days in the lab pretending everything is normal, at night Kesta returns to her beloved husband Tim. Except Tim is a zombie whom she keeps tied to her bed, and she’s running out of the antidote which keeps his virus at bay. Will she find a cure before Tim is discovered by the government or causes another zombie pandemic?
The Secret World of Briar Rose
by Cindy Pham
A century after the beautiful Princess Amelia was cursed into an eternal slumber and forced to live in the realm of her dreams, the kingdom of Gyldan has fallen into poverty and ruin. Thief Corin has no time for stories of sleeping princesses. She’s too busy looking for her missing sister Elly and trying to survive. But when she realises that Elly has gone to search for the princess in her dreamscape, Corin follows her and discovers a world a million miles from the horrors of home. Should she stay in the princess’s comfortable and whimsical world or go home and fight to save Gyldan? The bestselling debut novel from BookTuber Cindy Pham, this stunning paperback limited edition has dreamy sprayed edges.
