Subscription box: Illumicrate
Theme/Month: Knightcore, September 2025
Ownership: Subscribed on their 6 boxes option. If you are interested in purchasing an Illumicrate subscription, you can do it on their website.
Illumicrate is a book subscription box that usually features fantasy and sci-fi, and curates a wide range of books, including both young adult and adult fiction. It usually contains a new release and several bookish goodies.
I love the increase in knights and medieval themes so this sounded very much up my street as a theme, but did this do it justice or what do we think?
Let's go through the contents starting from far left and going towards the right:
The main book, The Second Death of Locke by Tori Bovalino which I have had recommended to me a few times and is still high on my list to read.
A knight themed makeup (or similar) bag, whcih I like though it feels less knightcore and just knight themed, like it isn’t as knightly/medieval enough in itself, but the artwork is pretty knightcore and cute.
Underneath it is a garland of moths from the Knight and the Moth which was a good reference even if it doesn’t visually seem to fit as much with the theme.
Gideon the Ninth and Harrow bookmarks which are like modern futuristic knights? I am never big on paper items that are just prints of bookmarks, particularly of characters faces, so this is a miss in that it is not very knightlike and that it was not a good item for me even if I do love the series.
The theme leaflet.
And one of the collection replicas though I do not remember which sword this was but it is definitely cool.
Overall I think this actually missed the mark on the theme a bit, I didn't feel particularly into knightcore and just like it was knight-ish, but the items where half and half on the wins and misses. The garland and makeup bag are cool, but not so keen on bookmarks (look I love cool bookmarks, funny bookmarks, pretty ones, but why does Illumicrate keep sending portraits of characters as bookmarks, it's so boring and meh, do something more interesting for the bookmarks that actually makes me go "oh this is fun, this is quirky, this is cute". Like their metal ones that are super cool!)And the replica daggers/swrods are cool but bulky and don't feel like real replicas so I am still a bit meh on them. But the book was stunning. So not a superb box but not the worst of the year.
