If you haven't already bought The Way of Kings ($2.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), the first title in Brandon Sanderson Stormlight Archive fantasy series, then definitely grab it now. Tor Books has it discounted, while we wait for the second title in the series (Words of Radiance), along with a contest to win a copy of the paper edition on their blog.Book Description
Widely acclaimed for his work completing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time saga, Brandon Sanderson now begins a grand cycle of his own, one every bit as ambitious and immersive.
Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.
It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.
One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.
Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.
Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar’s niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan’s motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.
The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.
Speak again the ancient oaths,
Life before death.
Strength before weakness.
Journey before Destination.
and return to men the Shards they once bore.
The Knights Radiant must stand again.
At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.
Blues Highway Blues: A Crossroads Thriller ($2.00 Kindle), by Eyre Price [Thomas & Mercer]. This book also has an accompanying soundtrack, that you can pick up at Amazon, Six Feet of Peace: Songs from and Inspired by Blues Highway Blues, and a companion audiobook for $1.99.Book Description
Winner of the Best Book of the Year awarded by Blues411
Music mogul Daniel Erickson’s life has come to a perilous crossroads. Literally. He has a ruthless pair of killers on his tail and is chasing a million dollars that he owes a Russian mobster.
Standing along the same Mississippi highway where legend claims that bluesman Robert Johnson traded his immortal soul for matchless command of the guitar, Daniel finds himself on a path that parallels the evolution of American music from the Mississippi Delta to New Orleans and on to Memphis, Nashville, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, the Jersey Shore, New York, and Seattle.
At every stop, Daniel’s tour gets more dangerous with the hit men closing in, an FBI agent obsessed with his capture, and a rogue motorcycle gang hunting him down. Blues Highway Blues, Eyre Price’s debut novel, is a compelling and unique combination: part edge-of-your-seat road trip across America and part examination of the music that comprises its soundtrack.
Slash and Burn ($1.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), the third thriller in the Joe Hunter series by Matt Hilton [HarperCollins], is joined on sale by the second in the series, Judgment and Wrath ($3.79 Kindle).Book Description
Fans of Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, Robert Crais, John Sandford, and Michael Connelly have a new hero to root for: author Matt Hilton’s former military Special Forces operative-turned-problem solver, Joe Hunter. Slash and Burn is the third electrifying thriller in the Hunter series, as the emotional stakes are raised to the limit when he and his new lady love set out to find her missing sister and run head-first into a maniacal Texas millionaire sadist with shady allegiances, a serious bloodlust, and his own private army. Like Dead Men’s Dust and Judgment and Wrath, Hilton’s previous Joe Hunter page-turners, Slash and Burn provides action to the nth degree, and powerfully supports the contention of California’s Contra Costa Times that, “Hunter is one of the most exciting new tough guys to come along in years.”
Dalton's Undoing ($1.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo) and Light the Stars ($1.99 Kindle, B&N) are the first and third titles in RaeAnne Thayne's Cowboys of Cold Creek series [Harlequin Special Releases].Dalton's Undoing
He was known as a major player who'd left a swath of broken hearts across the Teton Valley. Yet when single mother Jenny Boyer saw the tenderness in Seth Dalton's eyes when he looked at her children — not to mention her — it was impossible for her to believe it was all a game.Light the Stars
She was new to this small town, a school principal who needed to be respected. The last man she should be getting involved with was the Hunk of Cold Creek! But every time Seth came near, Jenny could feel herself falling...like all of the women who'd come before her. So why did she hope that her story would have a different ending — as in, happily ever after?
Wade Dalton was having a very bad day.
His five-year-old had accidentally set the kitchen on fire. His daughter was surly, as usual. The baby hadn't been fed yet. And his mother--aka "The Childminder"--had eloped...with a scam artist. Could it get any worse?
Turned out it could. Because the annoyingly beautiful daughter of said scam artist was now at the door, batting her doe eyes at him and proposing that she be his temporary nanny while awaiting the newlyweds' return. Could he trust her to be under his roof? Could he trust himself with her under his roof?
Brave New World ($2.99 Kindle), by Aldous Huxley, also has a deal on the companion audiobook for $4.95 (but is $8-$10 in other stores I checked). This is a "classic" that everyone should read (if only to be able to understand some of Apple's old SuperBowl ads).Book Description
Huxley's bleak future prophesized in Brave New World was a capitalist civilization which had been reconstituted through scientific and psychological engineering, a world in which people are genetically designed to be passive and useful to the ruling class. Satirical and disturbing, Brave New World is set some 600 years ahead, in "this year of stability, A.F. 632"--the A.F. standing for After Ford, meaning the godlike Henry Ford. "Community, Identity, Stability," is the motto. Reproduction is controlled through genetic engineering, and people are bred into a rigid class system. As they mature, they are conditioned to be happy with the roles that society has created for them. The rest of their lives are devoted to the pursuit of pleasure through sex, recreational sports, the getting and having of material possessions, and taking a drug called Soma. Concepts such as family, freedom, love, and culture are considered grotesque.
Against this backdrop, a young man known as John the Savage is brought to London from the remote desert of New Mexico. What he sees in the new civilization a "brave new world" (quoting Shakespeare’s The Tempest). However, ultimately, John challenges the basic premise of this society in an act that threatens and fascinates its citizens.
Huxley uses his entire prowess to throw the idea of utopia into reverse, presenting us what is known as the "dystopian" novel. When Brave New World was written (1931), neither Hitler nor Stalin had risen to power. Huxley saw the enduring threat to society from the dark side of scientific and social progress, and mankind's increasing appetite for simple amusement. Brave New World is a work that indicts the idea of progress for progress sake and is backed up with force and reason.
Slow Way Home ($2.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Michael Morris [HarperCollins].Book Description
On the surface, Brandon Willard seems like your average eight-year-old boy. He loves his mama, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and G. I. Joe. But Brandon's life is anything but typical.
Wise beyond his years, Brandon understands he's the only one in this world he can count on. It's an outlook that serves him well the day his mama leaves him behind at the Raleigh bus station and sets off to Canada with "her destiny" -- the latest man that she hopes will bring her happiness. The day his mother leaves, Brandon takes the first step toward shaping his own destiny. Soon he sends himself spending pleasant days playing with his cousins on his grandparents' farm and trying to forget the past. In the safety of that place, Brandon finally is able to trust the love of an adult to help iron out the wiry places until his nerves are as steady as any other boy's.
But when Sophie Willard shows up a year later with a determined look in her eye and a new man in tow, Brandon's grandparents ignore a judge's ruling and flee the state with Brandon. Creating a new life and identity in a small Florida town, Brandon meets the people who will fill him with self-worth and self-respect. He slowly becomes involved with "God's Hospital," a church run by the gregarious Sister Delores, a woman who is committed to a life of service for all members of the community, black and white, regardless of some townsfolk's disapproval.
Resonance ($0.99 Kindle), by Chris Dolley, is currently self-published (via Book View Cafe, which does some editing services), but was at one time available from Baen Books.Book Description
Graham Smith is a 33 year old office messenger. To the outside world he's an obsessive compulsive mute - weird but harmless. But to Graham Smith, it's the world that's weird. And far from harmless. He sees things other can't...or won't. He knows that roads can change course, people disappear, office blocks migrate across town - all at night when no one's looking.
Only by following a rigid routine can he lessen these effects. If he walks the same route to work every morning and catches the same train, and keeps himself to himself, then there's a good chance his house will still be where he left it when he returns home in the evening.
Then he meets Annalise Mercado.
Annalise Mercado hears voices. Sometimes she thinks they're spirit guides, sometimes she thinks she's crazy. But then they start telling her about Graham Smith, the danger he's in, and how only she can save him. So begins the story of two people whose lives appear fragmented across alternate realities. And how, together, they hold the key to the future of a billion planets...
