February's box was a lot of fun to put together. It was also the first time we had any supplier letdowns or other issues and it was definitely an interesting experience. As always, however, the fun of trying to put together something awesome surrounding a great book won out!
In all of the ensuing madness though we completely forgot to take any pictures of the complete box so massive thanks to subscribers for allowing us to use their excellent photos!
Photo by Ellie
In case you're new to Ninja Book Box, each quarter's box contains a book published by an independent publisher. These can be from any genre - our aim is to help you discover books you wouldn't normally pick up and find some of the UK's wonderful indies in the process!
The Book - The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett, a brilliant historical mystery set across three different time periods. It's got a bit of mystery, a bit of romance, a bit of Shakespeare and his cronies and a lot of books! Published by Alma Books, who publish a huge variety of books and have a great range of translated literature. They also published Desire for Chocolate, one of our Kickstarter rewards.
Shakespeare Flowers playing cards - from The Heritage Playing Card Company these cards feature a beautiful flower along with a quote from a Shakespeare play.
Shakespearean Card Games card - we also included a card detailing a couple of Elizabethan card games to play. We've tried them both - they're fun!
Exclusive Notebook - Made for the box by HeyKatie Designs this little notebook features one of our favourite Shakespeare quotations and is the perfect size to put in your bag when you're out and about! We also included a pencil for all your sketching and scribbling needs.
Shakespeare Tea - We were really excited to be able to include these individual packets of loose leaf tea from our favourite tea company, Rosie Lea Tea. There were eight different types of tea (Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Hamlet) spread across the boxes so everyone got different ones, and they were a variety of black, green and herbal tea blends, all of which smelled amazing!
Quill & Ink Charm and a book box - each box contains a charm specifically related to the theme in a quirky box or bag. Personally, we're making a charm bracelet with all of ours, but for non bracelet things you can do with your charm check out our post
Recipe Card - We're thinking this will be a feature of every box too as we do love an excuse to do a bit of baking! This months' recipe was for mini apple pies.
The box as usual also contained 'the Ninja review' - our thoughts on the book, and a list of recommended reading/watching to go along with the book. Mini boxes contained the book, tea and the charm as well as the review & reading list.
We hope you've all been enjoying your boxes, we'll be discussing The Bookman's Tale in our Facebook book group towards the end of the month and will be announcing a date for that soon!
If you've not yet taken the plunge with Ninja Book Box, we just announced our May box's theme (it's amazing) and you get a free gift if you get a subscription (for the full or mini box, annual or quarterly) before April 1st. There are also a very limited number of May boxes with signed books and extra bits in them which will be guaranteed for subscribers first. If there are any of these left they'll go on sale as individual boxes on April 1st. If you don't want a subscription right now but would like to be reminded when the May box goes on sale, sign up to our newsletter to be reminded when they're available as well as to get exclusive discount codes and all the indie news!
Happy March!