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Steph | Dark Lore Bindery

@darklorebindery

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📚 Fantasy Reader • Bookbinder • Fanfic Fiend 🇳🇿 NZ
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A closer look at my rebind of Kiss of the Black Flames by Helen Scheuerer❤️‍🔥There were far too many little details to fit into one reel, so here’s a proper look at the finished book 👉

I wanted this one to feel like Saige Grayson had a hand in making it herself, so every detail was chosen with her, her craft, and this story in mind 📚

📖 Bookbinding tools feature on the cover and custom endpapers, inspired by Saige’s studio, The Awl & Cradle. (I especially love the sewing needle details on the spine) 🪡

🌿Botanicals, stars, and flames are for our broody General, Archer🔥

✨An abundance of gold shimmer from the cover details to the endpapers (bc Saige would believe every beautiful book deserves gilding)

✂️handmade bookcloth in the most sinful shade of red, the colour of desire in my mind ♥️

🖤sprayed edges with black flames, obviously a must

I also had to include one of my favourite quotes from the book on the back. I love how it ties into some of the themes that made this story so special to me

A million thanks to @helenscheuerer and the teams at @waywardtxf and @atriabooks for an early copy to read and make this with! 🫶

#kissoftheblackflame #thebookbindersbargain #helenscheuerer #bookbinding by @darklorebindery

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9 days ago

📚 THE LAST BOOK - You know I love any excuse to talk about books, so when my friend @navarda.reads came up with this challenge, obviously I had to jump onboard. ☺️

So here’s the last book I…
 📖 read 🎧 listened to ⭐️ rated 5 stars 📚 added to my TBR 💸 bought myself 😂 made me laugh 😭 made me cry 😳 couldn’t put down 💬 recommended to a friend 🛒 preordered

What’s the last book you read / loved / sobbed over / impulse-purchased? Do we have any in common?

Consider this your sign to join the challenge. 😈
And thank you to Nav for the inspo! 🖤

#bookstagram #lastbookchallenge #bookish #bookstagrammer by @darklorebindery

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11 days ago

A little BTS magic for a book that deserves to be savoured. 🔥

Kiss of the Black Flames is officially out in stores TODAY, and I genuinely cannot recommend this book highly enough. ❤️‍🔥

I was incredibly lucky to receive an early copy thanks to @helenscheuerer and the wonderful team at @waywardtxf and @atriabooks . I knew immediately after reading that I wanted to bring this one to life in a way that felt worthy of Saige Grayson.

There is SO much heart in this story, especially in the way Helen celebrates the beauty and craftsmanship of things made slowly and by hand. So naturally, I had to channel my inner Saige and get to work. 🪡📚

I wanted the cover to scream desire, so I created my own bookcloth in the perfect shade of sinful red ❤️And because a beautiful bind always needs a little ✨extra✨, I paired that rich red with gold lustre paper and vinyl for a little added opulence.

The binding tool motifs make an appearance throughout as a little nod to Saige’s studio, The Awl & Cradle, featuring on bot cover and custom endpapers.

The botanical elements, stars, and flames are all for our broody MMC, Archer 🔥🌿 and I couldn’t resist adding a few black flames to the edges of this one, too.

The quote on the back was one of my favourite lines from the book. 🥹 The way Helen portrays chronic pain throughout the story is thoughtful, impactful, and adds such an important layer to Saige’s character and her journey.

So here’s the finished bind…with a little peek behind the scenes at how it came together. I had so much fun working on this project!

Happy release day, Helen! 🖤

Now everyone go read the book! Then come back and tell me you don’t want to live inside Saige’s bookbinding studio. 👀

#kissoftheblackflame #bookbinding #helenscheuerer #thebookbindersbargain by @darklorebindery

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13 days ago

A little sneak peek of what’s coming… 🔥🖤

Keep your eyes peeled for the full reveal + all the BTS of bringing this one to life! 👀

#rebind #bookbindersofinstagram #bookbinding by @darklorebindery

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20 days ago

🔥@helenscheuerer has outdone herself. This is her BEST book yet! 😍 It’s SO refreshing to follow a 35-year-old heroine who already knows who she is.
Saige is competent, resilient, emotionally intelligent, and carries the grief that comes from a life of experience. She runs her own business and is surrounded by a sisterhood of like-minded tradeswomen. (Can we collectively agree we all want more mature FMCs like this!? 🙏)
She’s a bookbinder drowning in debt when she finds herself sought by both sides of a war for her skills. Thrown into a prison next to an immortal Azkari warrior who promises he can get her out in return for finding a magical book and repairing it, she strikes a dangerous bargain sealed with a kiss.

Archer is our tortured, gentle, emotionally repressed sad boi of an MMC. Once a legendary General, he’s become a POW and shadow of himself for 200 years. 💔 He pretends he’s a grump, but is actually a cinnamon roll. ☺️ He sketches plants that thrive in darkness because they give him hope, wears slutty little reading glasses, remembers her food allergies AND braids her hair?! The touch-starved yearning in this man had me in a chokehold!!

The chronic pain rep was one of the biggest highlights for me. Helen captured the exhaustion, medical gaslighting, unpredictability, and invisible battles so many people experience with so much care 🫶

At its core, this is a story about being truly seen & finding people who don’t ask you to hide your pain, but instead hold space for all the parts of you that feel broken. 🖤

Also, the love letter this book is to craftsmanship!! 😍 The reverence for slow-made things made my bookbinding heart ridiculously happy! 📚 Plus there’s found family, a chaotic wolfhound, so many secrets, and a wonderful community of difficult women.💪

The ending was INSANE!! 🫨 I am already eagerly awaiting the next instalment!

🔥Mature FMC! (30+)
🔥Touch-starved MMC
🔥Chronic pain rep 🔥Slow-burn romance 🔥Grumpy x Sunshine 🔥Found Family 🔥Women in Trades

📚Releasing 22 September 2026

Thank you so much to @waywardtx for the ARC. 💕 by @darklorebindery

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a month ago

✨Curse of the Black Pharaoh by Jarmy225, my contribution to the #HotEgyptianSummer exchange, hosted by @ksnowbindery ✨

After a months-long binding hiatus, I couldn’t have asked for a more fun project to jump back into. I was a big archaeology nerd as a kid, so this project was an absolute delight, with pyramids, hieroglyphics, ancient gods, curses, and all the black-and-gold luxury my little magpie heart could desire. 🤩

This bind features: 𓂀 Black silk book cloth 𓂀 Gold foil HTV 𓂀 Custom foiled endpapers 𓂀 An Egyptian-inspired typeset made in Affinity
𓂀 Egyptian column gutter decoration 𓂀 Baby’s first sewn endbands (don’t look too closely)

I had so much fun bringing this bind together, and I’m honestly thrilled with how smoothly everything went after such a long break from binding.

This copy is off to its new home with @_obsessed_reader 🎁 I hope you love it as much as I loved making it!

Shoutout to my BTS support team! I may have hyperfocused on the design stage and overwhelmed myself with far too many options, as per usual. 🙈 Thank you for your endless patience and help narrowing everything down, @hmb8418 @sophhbeereads and @myneverendingtbrlist 🖤

✨ Fic: Curse of the Black Pharaoh by Jarmy225 ✨ This fic is free to read on AO3. ✨ This bind was created for personal use only. ✨ As always, keep fanfic free.

#curseoftheblackpharaoh #jarmy225 #dramione #keepfanfictionfree by @darklorebindery

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3 months ago

✨Curse of the Black Pharaoh by Jarmy225, my contribution to the #hotegyptiansummer exchange, hosted by @ksnowbindery ✨

After a months-long binding hiatus, I couldn’t have asked for a more fun project to jump back into. I was a big archaeology nerd as a kid, so this project was an absolute delight, with pyramids, hieroglyphics, ancient gods, curses, and all the black-and-gold luxury my little magpie heart could desire. 🤩

This bind features: 𓂀 Black silk book cloth 𓂀 Gold foil HTV 𓂀 Custom foiled endpapers 𓂀 An Egyptian-inspired typeset with themed gutter decorations 𓂀 Baby’s first sewn endbands (don’t look too closely)

Shoutout to my BTS support team! I may have hyperfocused on the design stage and overwhelmed myself with far too many options, as per usual. 🙈 Thank you for your endless patience and help narrowing everything down, @sophhbeereads , @hmb8418 and @myneverendingtbrlist 🖤

I had so much fun bringing this bind together, and I’m honestly thrilled with how smoothly everything went after such a long break from binding.

This copy is off to its new home with @_obsessed_reader 🎁 I hope you love it as much as I loved making it!

✨ Fic: Curse of the Black Pharaoh by Jarmy225 ✨ This fic is free to read on AO3. ✨ This bind was created for personal use only. ✨ As always, keep fanfic free.

#curseoftheblackpharaoh #jarmy225 #dramione #keepfanfictionfree by @darklorebindery

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3 months ago

You know when you finish a book but part of you never actually leaves? 💔 When you’re still emotionally attached and thinking about the characters at random moments months or years later, still haunted by the end and still hopelessly obsessed.

These are the stories I’m still sitting with. The ones that left a mark. The ones I can’t seem to move on from, no matter how many books I’ve read since. 🫶

Swipe through for the books that altered my brain chemistry 👉

I saw my friend @sophhbeereads do a similar post and loved this idea so much, i had to make my own version.

Now it’s your turn:

What’s a book you’re still at the restaurant for?
Drop your answer below and let’s compare👇

#bookstagram #bookrecs #fantasybookrecs #bookstagrammer #fantasyreads by @darklorebindery

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3 months ago

I can’t believe I haven’t bound anything since February 🙈 This has been sitting in my drafts ever since, so it felt like time to finally let it see the light of day.

I stumbled across this pretty floral fabric while hunting for another project and immediately thought of it for a rebind of Little Women. It wasn’t planned at all, but I couldn’t pass up the inspiration when it struck.

There’s something about this story by Louisa May Alcott that will always feel like home to me, softly nostalgic and deeply comforting.

This rebound copy features:

🌹 homemade bookcloth
🪻 floral print endpapers
🌸 white pearlescent HTV

With life feeling a little less chaotic these days, I’m slowly finding my way back to bookbinding. I have a long list of projects waiting in the wings and plenty of ARC reads to catch up on, and I’m excited to be making space for the things I love again. ✨

#bookbinding #bookbindersofinstagram #littlewomen #littlewomenrebind #rebind by @darklorebindery

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3 months ago

2026 is LOOKING GOOD 🤩 Upcoming releases that I already know will either ruin me or completely consume my personality, there’s no in between 🖤

There’s so many more on my radar, but these are just a few of my MOST ANTICIPATED!! 😍

Tell me which upcoming book release you’re counting down for because I’m always ready to add a few more my TBR.

#bookstagram #2026bookreleases #upcomingbooks #newreleasebooks by @darklorebindery

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5 months ago

✨ARC REVIEW✨The ANGST! 💔 The YEARNING!!!😍This was nothing short of magical! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Molly Graham wakes up in the hospital with no memory of the past six years to find she’s somehow married to Aster Bishop, the arrogant & insufferable prick who was once her academic rival. Feeling unmoored and struggling to reconcile the past with her present reality, Molly is forced to take things slowly as she adjusts to being a stranger in her own life. Aster Bishop doesn’t seem remotely the same as the boy she went to boarding school with. When & how did things change so drastically? Will she fall back into old patterns of wariness and animosity, or learn to trust the choices an unfamiliar version of herself made, waiting and hoping to bridge the gap?

Once, Again, Always is truly a phenomenal debut! I rarely venture into contemporary romance, but I would do it again & again for books like this that make me FEEL so deeply. I was an absolute mess of emotions while reading. The grief of grappling with circumstances beyond your control. The desperation to hold onto something solid. The fragile, tenuous nature of hope. The steadfastness of friendship and the unwavering devotion of love. 🥹

Every single character had a grip on me, but especially Aster. A true king of pining, the yearning in this man is unmatched! 😍

It’s heartbreaking and hopeful, brimming with emotional depth and agonisingly tender. This was my first experience with @amandagaylewrites beautiful writing, and I will now be devouring everything she writes!

Outstanding and unforgettable, FIVE STAR READ!⭐️ HIGHLY recommend for lovers of books that hurt so good! 💔

Tropes & Themes:
☕️Memory Loss
🍬Angst
☕️ Forced Proximity
🍬 Second Chance Romance
☕️ Found Family
🍬 Men who YEARN

✨Releasing 6 October 2026✨

Thanks to @avonbooks and @netgalley for the advanced copy, you spoil me!🫶 Can’t wait to get my hands on a physical copy and enjoy more @ivmaruva art on my shelves 😍

#bookstagram #onceagainalways #amandagayle #bookreview #contemporaryromance by @darklorebindery

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5 months ago

To celebrate the UK paperback release of Silvercloak by @laurasteven on April 23, let me convince you to pick it up with the aesthetic and a few quotes I loved 👉

What you can expect:

🪄 everyone has wands & cloaks 🏳️‍🌈 queernorm world where every mage is pansexual
🩸 intense enemies-to-lovers (“hurt me, then”)
🌙 alchemised narcotics & gang warfare
🐉 dragon lore & in-world fantasy novels
🔮 ancient prophecies & feverish religions
⏳ rare branches of forbidden magic

The trilogy follows an undercover detective as she infiltrates the arcane criminal organisation that slaughtered her parents—only to find she’s prophesied to kill the kingpin’s tortured son (who she may or may not catch feelings for) 👀 the tension!!!!

The world-building and magic system were easily my favourite part. Every spell has a cost, and it’s not just physical; it’s tied to pleasure and pain, to how much you can feel and endure. It gives the whole world this dark yet decadent edge that feels intoxicating.

If you like your fantasy a little darker and more morally tangled, this will absolutely hit. No one feels entirely good or entirely evil, which made this hard to put down.

I am eagerly & impatiently counting down the days until I can get my hands on the next book!

#silvercloak #silvercloaksaga #lksteven #bookstagram #fantasy by @darklorebindery

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5 months ago