Every year, Michael and Rhianna release a holiday themed bookmark that they send out to friends, families, and fans.
As new years come and go, we don’t want to forget our earlier stories. This page will be the place to go if you ever want to see the adventures from the past, as well as the awesome bookmark art to go with it!
And now, you can join the mailing list, and get a DeAngelo Christmas bookmark every year! Click here to move down to the sign-up section of this screen. Just don’t forget to come back here and see how the journey started!
We begin with a magical wedding…
2015: Marriage, the Adventure Begins
These were given out as party favors for Michael and Rhianna’s wedding. Since they met because of Michael’s writing and Rhianna’s art, a bookmark sounded like a perfect idea. They worked with Leonardo Borazio to design a truly adventurous-looking scene.
There was no story tie-in with this bookmark.
2016: Christmas Wishes
The first official holiday bookmark, this one was put together with even more care and foresight than the wedding favors. Michael and Rhianna came up with a concept, sent it over to Leo, and had him refine it into the spectacular thing you see above.
2016 was also the first year that there was a tie-in story to go along with the holiday art. In Christmas Wishes, the DeAngelo family make a wish at the sight of the first snow, and are surprised later when they’re whisked away to Tellest, where they meet the one-and-only Santa Claus. He sends them on an adventure to help him save Christmas that year, and they get into a whole mess of trouble!
The back of the bookmark was put together by Michael.
2017: First Christmas
The second annual holiday bookmark. The tradition continued, with Leo developing the front of the bookmark to the specifications determined by Michael and Rhianna.
2017 also continued the tie-in story elements of the Christmas tradition. In First Christmas, the DeAngelo family return to visit Santa, but are surprised that they not only traveled through space, but also in time, and requested to help save Santa’s very first Christmas!
The back of the bookmark was put together by Hozure.
2018: Little Christmas
The third annual holiday bookmark. Once more, the DeAngelo family produced a holiday bookmark with some help from Leo Borazio.
A big change happened in 2018: Rhianna wrote the story that year! Little Christmas is a rare treat from Rhianna (who Michael has begged to write more for Tellest). In the story, the DeAngelo family learn about magic in the smallest of places, and get some interesting gifts at the end of the tale.
The back of the bookmark was put together by Paul Davies.
2019: Christmas Feast
The fourth annual holiday bookmark. In 2019, a new member of the family began going on adventures to the North Pole in Tellest. This was Maisie’s first time on the bookmark, which was once again illustrated by Leo Borazio.
Michael returned to writing the 2019 Christmas story, but the outline was created by Rhianna. With Maisie added to the family in late 2018, it was time to give her a lovely story debut. Christmas Feast is filled with just as much love and adventure as previous tales, but it focuses a bit more on the newest member of the DeAngelo family. It’s also a slightly less dangerous foray into the land of Christmas magic, though shenanigans are sure to occur.
The back of the bookmark was put together by Cristiano Reina.
2020: Christmas Escape
The fifth annual holiday bookmark. 2020 was a strange year, and we immortalized it in our Christmas story by making it one we had to escape, hence the name. Everyone still had a wonderful time, even though there were some scary moments. At the end of the day though, we wanted this Christmas tale to be one filled with levity, considering everything that went on this year. As is tradition, the front image was illustrated by Leo Borazio. But for the first time, the back was as well!
Michael continued writing the Christmas story in 2020, delivering the longest Christmas Chronicle to date. All that time practicing getting up the word count for Quantum Quest and Wild Magic really paid off! Christmas Escape is a fun and joy-filled adventure that hints at the stories to come.
2021: Christmas Revelations
The sixth annual holiday bookmark. 2021 saw the culmination of years of storycraft, as threads that were introduced in the very first Christmas story came to fruition. This Viking-themed Christmas Revelations was a lot of fun, but it was also the longest Christmas story to date, and required a good amount of time after Christmas in order to wrap it up. Still, it felt well worth it, and it helped to wrap a nice ribbon around the first big story beats of the DeAngelo Christmas Chronicles. Once again, the front image was illustrated by Leo Borazio.
The back of the bookmark was put together by Wern Szuen Lee, who had begun working with Michael on character art throughout the year.
2022: Christmas Comet
The seventh annual holiday bookmark took place in 2022, and it was the first story that saw Luna with the family. She played a big role in it, and her little pew pew barks may have had some contribution as to why it was a more sci-fi story than fantasy for the first time in a while. Christmas Comet sees the DeAngelo family join Santa on his special workshop on the moon. As always the front of the bookmark was illustrated by Leonardo Borazio.
It was once again Wern Szuen Lee’s time to shine, as he worked on the back of the bookmark for 2022.
2023: Christmas Misfits
The eighty annual holiday bookmark took place in 2023, and it was, unfortunately, the first time that the DeAngelo family found real tragedy in their group. Peanut passed away earlier in the year, and as such, we wanted to focus on grief, and how we move past it. There were a lot of tears shed while writing the story. Peanut was my little writing buddy, and was so integral to my process that I even dedicated earlier books to her. 2023 and part of 2024 ended up bring forth some challenge to me, because I couldn’t get my mind wrapped around writing without her. In a lot of ways, this story was my self-therapy, and I would like to hope that I did justice to a cat who was such a big part of our lives. You can read Christmas Misfits, which clocked in at just over 27,000 words. Once again, the wonderful Leo Borazio created the front of the bookmark for us.
In 2023, we had Steven Bellshaw work on the back of the bookmark.
Great news! We are now taking sign-ups for anyone in the continental US to be added to our mailing list. If you fill in the below information, we’ll have you on our “Nice” list, and we’ll send you our newest Christmas bookmark every year. We’ll also only send you two emails as part of this segment: one to verify your mailing information before we send your bookmark, and one to let you know how things went on the corresponding year. If you want to sign up for the rest of the Tellest mailing list to get our weekly news, you can do that too.
One last thing: this sign-up was added years into our tradition, but if you want to get your collection of the earlier bookmarks, we’ll be working to make those available to you as well. That’ll be coming soon!