Hi my lovely backers, I'm about to leave the country for a long-planned holiday. Lots will be happening in the background while I'm gone, but I'm not planning to update unless something big and exciting happens, so here's you're 'before I leave update':

We've just sent out the survey 'smoke test' - this goes out to 5% of our backers to make sure we haven't messed anything up. Once half of those backers fill in the survey and we confirm that we've got everything right, we'll be sending to everyone.

The survey will enable you to add-on additional items if there's anything you wanted during the campaign but didn't get. It will ALSO be where you choose the prints you want, supply your address, etc.

We will not be collecting shipping at this stage. This will come later, once the books have arrived.

I received funds last week and we've made a start:
- We had to place a tarot card order for a different Kickstarter so we have ordered the cards that are finished + the boxes.
- Kristi is hard at work on the remaining three cards. I'll have art to show you in a couple of weeks.
- All interior formatting has been completed, which means we have spine widths and...
- Holly is working on spines and back covers. I've chosen a quote for the back covers instead of a full blurb. The quotes are mostly funny ones :)
- Once the surveys come in, Holly will be able to pull all the raven prints we need and ship those to me along with the cover prints (she's already printed these - she has to print them as she makes the covers because the process of creating the covers with two colours destroyed the lino plates.)
- Art prints have been ordered.
- Samples of the stamp and stamp pad arrived and they're great!
- Books have been accurately priced by the printer and the tip-in sheets have been ordered.

I won't be signing the tip-in sheets until I return (I'd been hoping they'd arrive before I left and I could race through them and also show you how pretty they look, but alas, it was not to be. They'll probably arrive the day after I leave.) This means that we'll be into 2027 by the time books arrive, but this is why we give ourselves 1 year to do things. :)

I think that's everything!

I have a couple of fun things coming out:
My new cozy romance, You're So Vein, about a rivals-to-lovers set in a Stars Hollowesque small town where a vampire and a human are vying to be mayor while one of them hides a dark secret, is out September 29th!

I just released a super fun cozy fantasy romance called Honey & Hexes about a honey witch who opens an enchanted meadery with the help of a chaotic cat shifter she absolutely should not fall in love with. You can read it here, and I'm working on book 2 now.

If you'd like to follow along with my Viking, Halloween, and pasta adventures, follow me on Instagram - @steffanieholmeswrites.

Love, lust, and graveyard dust! 
Steff