Well, well, well, look what arrived in the mail last Friday… behold, the first look at the Red Litten World trade paperback! (Okay, technically, it’s the second look, since subscribers to my newsletter got the first look on Tuesday. You can join their illustrious ranks and get access to content early, just sign up here.)

Watch the Periscope capture above (apologies for the quiet-ish sound) or just check out the images with my commentary below. I’m so excited for everyone to see this. I couldn’t be more pleased with how well the trade paperback turned out. It feels so good in hand.

Red Litten World - Trade Paperback
Red Litten World trade paperback

I’m super proud how well this turned out. Every time I start the arduous process of laying out a novel, I feel like I get better and better. Red Litten World is my biggest book yet, each tome is 400 pages on the dot. (For a comparison, Old Broken Road (the smallest) is 356 pages long and The Stars Were Right comes in at 364 pages.)

The Bell Forging Cycle series
The three books in the Bell Forging Cycle

The series is looking incredible, and I really have Jon Contino to thank for that. The consistency between covers is stunning, and as you can tell the three look absolutely wonderful sitting next to one another on the shelf. Jon’s lettering has a lot to do with that. As always the work is fabulous.

Just like in the interior of Old Broken Road there are stars illustrations breaking up paragraph breaks. These are the same hand-drawn stars done by Illustrator Sean Cumiskey for the Bell Caravans patch. They look great in the book, I love seeing them in print. Returning to form, the glyph atop the chapter titles was drawn by Lovecraft himself, just like the elder sign we saw on The Stars Were Right. Like the titles themselves, this will be a motif that will continue through the rest of the series.

Red Litten World interior
Left – title page, Right Top – chapter titles, Right Bottom – paragraph breaks

There’s a special surprise inside for paperback owners only, but I’m not going to go into details about it here. I’m going to keep that under wrap for now, that said, I’m sure it’ll leak eventually. As with everything in the Bell Forging Cycle it’s always layers upon layers, often the biggest secrets are hidden in the background.

I can’t wait for this to get into everyone’s hands! Red Litten World arrives Tuesday, October 6th, 2015. EBook readers, you can pre-order it today for Kindle, Kobo, or Apple iBooks and have it delivered on launch day!

Hold onto your butts. We’re getting close!