What is Illumicrate?

Modified on Mon, 3 Nov at 11:14 AM

Illumicrate launched in the summer of 2015, as the UK's first book subscription box. Our first box was November 2015, featuring Ryan Graudin's dystopian shapeshifter novel, Wolf by Wolf!

Over the years, we continued to grow our subscriber base, providing beautiful and exclusive editions of much-loved books to customers all over the world, and now have a number of different subscriptions across multiple genres.

We now offer two options for the Illumicrate Fantasy monthly subscription: a book-only option, and a full box option, both of which include our featured fantasy book for the month. The full box option also includes a number of items associated with the theme of the month, and linked to different fandoms.

In 2021, we launched Afterlight Romance, which was initially a quarterly book-only subscription featuring contemporary romance titles; our first pick was The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang! Afterlight later became a monthly subscription due to its popularity.

In July 2023, we launched Evernight Horror, our quarterly book-only subscription, with Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia leading the way.

Our latest addition, launched in February 2025, is our Starbright Science Fiction quarterly book-only subscription. The first featured book was Nnedi Okorafor's Death of the Author.

In November 2025, we launched our Illumicrate + Afterlight Book Combo Subscription, which combines both the Illumicrate Fantasy book-only and Afterlight Romance in one monthly box.

You can read more about our story on our website.

Our Exclusive Editions

As well as our subscriptions, we also offer Exclusive Editions of both individual books and book series, each with unique customisations and beautiful artwork, all of which is exclusive to ourselves.

In 2025, we announced our 10th Anniversary Exclusive Editions: ten book series most loved by the Illumicrate staff, and produced in stunning editions. The list included The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce, The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb, The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, and more.

You can see more of our previous Exclusive Editions over here.

Please contact us if you have any issues, or you can also email us directly at support@illumicrate.com!