Image description: A square photo of a stack of Advance Reader Copies of a novel, Spear by Nicola Griffith, on a table. Superimposed on the image before the stack of books is the sepia-tinted drawing of a horse standing in shadow next to a manipulated photo of a blue and red enamel pin designed to look like a shield painted with forget-me-nots and a spear.

In exactly 50 days Spear will hit the shelves. Which means you have precisely seven weeks to take advantage of the publisher’s pre-order offer: preorder the hardcover, send in a copy of your receipt by 18 April, and win not only this marvellous enamel pin designed to look like a shield, but a free pony! Well, okay, no, not a real pony—but you get to read about one. Actually, you get to read about several, though there is one in particular, a bony gelding called, well, Bony, who teaches our hero to ride and becomes a bit of an equine hero.

And if you like animals there are hedgehogs, cats, a bittern, sparrowhawk, rabbits (yes, even though it’s sixth-century Wales), hares, lynx, ducks and ducklings and a whole variety of lambs, goats, cows, dogs, wolves…

But you’ll never know about them unless you read—or listen to—the book. So why not pre-order now and also get the free pin?

Although only hardcover pre-orders from folks living in the US and Canada* count for this offer, you can pre-order all three editions now from most book retailers:

IndieBound | Amazon.com | Bookshop.org | Barnes & Noble | Apple | Amazon.co.uk

Or see this enormous list of independent booksellers in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland.

Image description: Pre-order graphic for a novel, Spear by Nicola Griffith. Square, with a grey background, showing on the right the book cover next to an enamel pin designed to look like a red enamel shield painted with blue forget-me-nots and a spear. On the left, instruction to visit bit.ly/spearpreorder for more details.

*I don’t know why.