Infinite Realms Book Box
Brought to you by Alban Lake Publishing
Infinite Realms is an online bookstore through Alban Lake Publishing House. They are proud supporters of independent authors.
Alban Lake Publishing House covers a variety of genres from action/adventure to poetry & steampunk to mystery. Infinite Realms Book Store even have a young adult section. If you are more into digital books lately, they have you covered! Let’s not forget their incredible magazines.
Infinite Realms Book Store is currently in the midst of changing the format of their boxes but I want to share with you the one I received from their previous style. I want to show the wonderful gifts I received and their great books!
My Boxes Arrival…
I just loved the dragon logo on the box. It sparked my imagination of all the magick that may lay inside.
First Look…
Upon opening the box I am hit with a dramatic first view. The red paper promises luxury and I spy another dragon!!!
Dragon Oil Warmer…
I immediately pick out the first thing to catch my eye from the Infinite Realms Book Store Box, the Dragon Oil Warmer and open it. This is a gorgeous gift for any dragon/fantasy lover! This delicate, resin & glass, oil warmer is stunning. A great, and lovely to look at, substitute for a plain old smelly candle to give warmth and scent to your space.
Lindt Chili Dark Chocolate…
Now this is something new! A Lindt Chile Chocolate Bar! I have never had spicy chocolate before and I have to admit, I was scared to try it. At first it taste like chocolate, but in the end, POW, omg SPICY at the end!!! It gets you with a kick, right in the tasters!! Wowzers!! Was not expecting that. Nor was I expecting being called a wuss by everyone else who had some!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!! That was a fun treat! Also, the brand of chocolate they included is a well known chocolate brand. Known for making some yummy chocolates.
Black & Red Mug…
First, I have to admit, the style of this Black & Red Mug is right up my alley. Second, it is HUGE. The perfect giant cup for tea, or coffee, while snuggling up to read a good book. What a brilliant item to include in a Book Box!! Who does not love a cup of tea or coffee with a good book. This is now a fought over mug in my household. I would say it is about 16 ounces.
Castle Statue…
This is so simple and so adorable. It goes wonderful with the fantasy theme of the entire box. I enjoy this statue. It is not so big as to take up so too much room and fits nicely on my bookshelf. I do have a nephew, however, who keeps insisting on painting it…LOL.
Japanese Cherry Blossom Oil…
Very generous 1.86 oz bottle of Japanese Cherry Blossom Oil to go with your new Dragon Oil Burner. They did not cheap out on us. Beautiful, strong scent. Relaxing when burned.
From Their Collection…
Wonderous Web Worlds 7 – The very best science fiction, fantasy, & horror.
Illumen – The mission of Illumen is to publish speculative poetry that even readers who do not care for poetry will want to read.
Sounds of the Night – Short Stories & poetry.
Two of the publications, Sounds of the Night and Wondrous Web Worlds, are a mix of prose fiction and poetry, while Illumen is an anthology of poetry. All three are printed on a satisfying weight of paper with glossy color covers.
Sounds of the Night is magazine-sized in its dimensions, so there is plenty of content to it even at only 43 pages from cover to cover. It is a biannual publication, coming out in February and August. I received the February 2008 issue. I quite literally mean from cover to cover: no space is wasted in those 43 pages, though the poems are used well to create breaks between the prose. Also keeping the rhythm is a couple of pieces of artwork and a few advertisements for the publisher’s other offerings, though these are minimal and not distracting. A story by Lawrence R. Dagstine was quite good and a poem by Aurelio Rico Lopez III was excellent.
Illumen is a small biannual poetry anthology edited by Tyree Campbell, published every April and October. My edition to review was from Autumn 2015. The size of a paperback, Illumen runs around seventy pages, with only a couple of pieces of artwork in the mix. Unexpectedly, it also has almost half-a-dozen advertisement pages for fiction books from the publisher, though I didn’t find this distracting. Annay Sykora and Will H. Blackwell Jr. were featured poets in this particular issue. I was impressed by many of the works in the collection. I especially liked a piece by Anne Babson called “Brunch with Lord Tennyson”. A number of poems by Rizwan Akhtar were excellent as well.
The third book I received for review was Wondrous Web Worlds Volume 7, an anthology from 2006, edited by J Alan Erwine. It runs at 153 pages and features science fiction, fantasy and horror in both prose and poetry. I am still taking my time getting through this book, but not for lack of enjoyment. Even if I haven’t liked every piece it is certainly a fun read, with the generous mix of genres you never really know where each new story is likely to take you. Stories may range from mail brides on Mars, an apocalyptic asteroid encounter that turns out to harbor extra-terrestrial life, to comedians performing for robots – and this is not even getting to the other genres. I find this kind of mix makes a nice change of rhythm from longer prose and helps to reset the mind after a long day at work.
Hard Candies…
Scattered throughout the box are little, clear wrapped, red hard candies. After the box was reviewed, we finally had some of them. Red hot cinnamon candies. Red hot, Like the box!
Final Thoughts…
Infinite Realms Book Store brings fantasy to life and helps you enjoy your time reading by not only making the atmosphere soothing & relaxing, but by giving you enjoyable, great, quality reading material! They fill your room with warm scent, a mug for that hot cuppa, pretty things to stare at while you contemplate the wonderful passage you just read from one of the myriad of topics covered in the three books they have included. Then you can have a nice piece of some spicy chocolate to begin the next poem or chapter! This box is sooo Worth the Witch.
We got to talk to the lovely Karen Otto at Infinite Realms Book Store about their Book Boxes, company, and upcoming changes. Here is what she had to say…
PaganPagesOrg (PPO): What brought the idea of your box to you?
Karen Otto (KO): I love subscription boxes and in looking through what was available I saw that while there were a few book boxes, they (mostly) all contained popular or classical books. My company is all about helping independent authors and I thought a book box would be a great way to introduce readers to new authors.
PPO: How did you begin them?
KO: I started the boxes at first as a giveaway to grab a little attention for them. I posted a few on eBay before moving on to Cratejoy and now to our bookstore.
PPO: How do you choose what you include inside them?
KO: The very first few boxes were just a mishmash of cool things but after getting that first bit of feedback I started curating more carefully. I gave each type of box a theme. For example, Horror boxes were themed after famous horror writers like Lovecraft. For the fantasy boxes, I themed them after mythical creatures and magic.
PPO: Is your’s a recurring monthly box?
KO: They are not anymore. We ran into a slew of problems on Cratejoy (still love the site but it doesn’t work for us). Now, they are personalizable on our bookstore.
KO: The new book boxes are fully customizable. You can chose the book(s) included or chose a genre, choose a snack type, an item type, make it a gift, send a special message along with the box, we’ve done everything we can to make it fun.
KO: The new boxes are still under construction but will be available by the end of the December.
PPO: What types of interests do you have?
KO: I absolutely love plants and have a whole bunch of them, including a 10-year-old aloe vera plant and six of its off-shoots. I’m also about to try growing black roses for the first time. I am also a writer with two books out at the moment and more to come.
PPO: Did you feel the pagan world was missing something to make you create your Box?
KO: I wasn’t entirely sure what the pagan world needed in the beginning, honestly, but I did use it as inspiration and included things like sage bundles and crystals along with information about their properties in an effort to learn more about paganism myself and to promote the quiet and relaxation the scents and books combined could bring.
PPO: Do you have a site and sell other types of products?
KO: I run a bookstore – www.infiniterealmsbookstore.com
We’re mainly a publishing company, Alban Lake Publishing, and focus on helping new authors find their footing.
My books are available here:
Bugs in the System by Karen Otto
Shattered: The Story of Ashque by Karen Otto
Our bookstore – www.infiniterealmsbookstore.com
Our publishing website – www.albanlakepublishing.com
Social Media Sites:
Twitter – @albanlake
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/albanlakepublishing/
Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz9Fs6i4qMLcf_gozhIKzCQ
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/albanlakepub/
Thank you Karen Otto, for all you do for new and upcoming authors, as well as us readers! Thank you, also, for taking some time out for our readers!!!
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About the Author:
Jennifer Wright is a witch on a path of change that is always winding. She founded PaganPagesOrg in the hopes of giving those a platform to share and learn without judgment. There are too many important things to her and not enough room to mention them. You are one of them.