For Audible subscription members with credits, Audible has their bi-annual
Buy One Get One Free Sale going on right now (valid thru June 26).
A few I missed earlier from the
HarperCollins 99 cent sale.
Romance/Women's Fiction:
Plus, a couple of repeat bargains (prices noted):
The Meryl Streep Movie Club (
$3.79 Kindle), by Mia March [Simon and Schuster]
Book Description
In the bestselling tradition of The Friday Night Knitting Club and The Jane Austen Book Club, three women find unexpected answers, happiness, and one another with Meryl Streep movies as their inspiration.
Two sisters and the cousin they grew up with after a tragedy are summoned home to their family matriarch's inn on the coast of Maine for a shocking announcement. Suddenly, Isabel, June, and Kat are sharing the attic bedroom--and barely speaking. But when innkeeper Lolly asks them to join her and the guests in the parlor for weekly Movie Night--it's Meryl Streep month--they find themselves sharing secrets, talking long into the night--and questioning everything they thought they knew about life, love, and one another.
Each woman sees her complicated life reflected through the magic of cinema: Isabel's husband is having an affair, and an old pact may keep her from what she wants most . . . June has promised her seven-year-old son that she'll somehow find his father, who he's never known . . . and Kat is ambivalent about accepting her lifelong best friend's marriage proposal. Through everything, Lolly has always been there for them, and now Isabel, June, Kat--and Meryl--must be there for her. Finding themselves. Finding each other. Finding a happy ending.
This Man (
$0.99 Kindle) and
Beneath This Man (
$1.99 Kindle), the first two novels in the
This Man Trilogy by Jodi Ellen Malpas [Hachette]
This Man
Young interior designer Ava O'Shea has no idea what awaits her at the Manor. A run-of-the-mill consultation with a stodgy country gent seems likely, but what Ava finds instead is Jesse Ward--a devastatingly handsome, utterly confident, pleasure-seeking playboy who knows no boundaries. Ava doesn't want to be attracted to this man, and yet she can't control the overwhelming desire that he stirs in her. She knows that her heart will never survive him and her instinct is telling her to run, but Jesse is not willing to let her go. He wants her and is determined to have her.
Beneath This Man
Jesse Ward drowned her with his intensity and blindsided her with his passion, but he kept her away from his dark secrets and broken soul. Leaving him was the only way Ava O'Shea could survive. She should have known that Jesse Ward is impossible to escape--and now he's back in her life, determined to remind her of the sensual pleasures they had shared. Ava is equally determined to get at the truth beneath this man's steely exterior. That means letting herself get close to the Lord of the Manor once more. And it's exactly where Jesse wants her--within touching distance...
Confessions of a Scary Mommy: An Honest and Irreverent Look at Motherhood: The Good, The Bad, and the Scary (
$2.99 Kindle; $4.49
companion audiobook), by Jill Smokler [Simon and Schuster]
Book Description
Sometimes I just let my children fall asleep in front of the TV.
In a culture that idealizes motherhood, it’s scary to confess that, in your house, being a mother is beautiful and dirty and joyful and frustrating all at once. Admitting that it’s not easy doesn’t make you a bad mom; at least, it shouldn’t.
If I can’t survive my daughter as a toddler, how the hell am I going to get through the teenage years?
When Jill Smokler was first home with her small children, she thought her blog would be something to keep friends and family updated. To her surprise, she hit a chord in the hearts of mothers everywhere.
I end up doing my son’s homework. It’s wrong, but so much easier.
Total strangers were contributing their views on that strange reality called motherhood. As other women shared their stories, Jill realized she wasn’t alone in her feelings of exhaustion and imperfection.
My eighteen month old still can’t say “Mommy” but used the word “shit” in perfect context.
But she sensed her readers were still holding back, so decided to start an anonymous confessional, a place where real moms could leave their most honest thoughts without fearing condemnation.
I pretend to be happy but I cry every night in the shower.
The reactions were amazing: some sad, some pee-in-your-pants funny, some brutally honest. But they were real, not a commercial glamorization.
I clock out of motherhood at 8 P.M. and hide in the basement with my laptop and a beer.
If you’re already a fan, lock the bathroom door on your whining kids, run a bubble bath, and settle in. If you’ve not encountered Scary Mommy before, break out a glass of champagne as well, because you’ll be toasting your initiation into a select club.
I know why some animals eat their young.
In chapters that cover husbands (The Biggest Baby of Them All) to homework (Didn’t I Already Graduate?), Confessions of a Scary Mommy combines all-new essays from Jill with the best of the anonymous confessions.
Sometimes I wish my son was still little—then I hear kids screaming at the store.
As Jill says, “We like to paint motherhood as picture perfect. A newborn peacefully resting on his mother’s chest. A toddler taking tentative first steps into his mother’s loving arms. A mother fluffing her daughter’s prom dress. These moments are indeed miraculous and joyful; they can also be few and far between.” Of course you adore your kids. Of course you would lay down your life for them. But be honest now: Have you ever wondered what possessed you to sign up for the job of motherhood?
STOP! DO NOT OPEN THIS BOOK UNTIL YOU RECITE THESE VOWS!
I shall remember that no mother is perfect and my children will thrive because, and sometimes even in spite, of me.
I shall not preach to a fellow mother who has not asked my opinion. It’s none of my damn business.
I shall maintain a sense of humor about all things motherhood.
Irish Portraits (
$2.99 Kindle), by Liam O'Flaherty [Bloomsbury Reader]
Book Description
From vicious rival brothers to desperate single mothers, frisky newlyweds to frigid life partners, Patrick McGinley covers all kinds of Irish (or simply human) relationship in this collection of short stories. In fourteen stories, some brief glimpses of an hour in the life, some longer explorations of years of growing animosity, McGinley explores the ties that bind us: the bond of family, unbreakable even when we wish it severed; the financial and emotional connections we make with our neighbours and colleagues; even the brief and tenuous link between a con artist and his prey. In turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, sweet and savage, Irish Portraits gives the reader a first-hand look at the lives of its characters, a handful of countrymen with one thing in common: their humanity.
Great Meadow (
$2.51 Kindle), by Dirk Bogarde [Bloomsbury Reader]
Book Description
From 1927 to 1934 the young Dirk Bogarde lived in a remote cottage in the Sussex Downs with his sister Elizabeth and their strict nanny, Lally.For the children it was an idyllic time of joy and adventure: of gleaning at the end of summer, of oil lamps and wells, of harvests and harvest mice in the Great Meadow.This lost world, visited fleetingly in A Postillion Struck by Lightning, the first volume of Dirk Bogarde's autobiography, is seen here through the eyes of an innocent but shrewd eleven-year-old. With great sensitivity and poignancy it captures the sounds and scents, the love and gentleness that surrounded the young boy as the world outside prepared to go to war.
There are a number of titles in the
Gideon Oliver and
Chris Norgren series by Aaron Elkins [E-Reads] on sale for $3.03 right now:
Big in China: My Unlikely Adventure Raising a Family, Playing the Blues, and Reinventing Myself in Beijing (
$1.99 Kindle), by Alan Paul [HarperCollins]
Book Description
Alan Paul, award–winning author of the Wall Street Journal’s online column “The Expat Life,” gives his engaging, inspiring, and unforgettable memoir of blues and new beginnings in Beijing. Paul’s three-and-a-half-year journey reinventing himself as an American expat—while raising a family and starting the revolutionary blues band Woodie Alan, voted Beijing Band of the Year in the 2008—is a must-read adventure for anyone who has lived abroad, and for everyone who dreams of rewriting the story of their own future.
Silent Tears: A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage (
$3.00 Kindle), by Kay Bratt [AmazonEncore]
Book Description
Irrepressible memories. Vacant eyes. A child being dangled from a third story window. A boy tied to a chair. Children sleeping in layers of clothing to fight off the bitter cold. An infant dying from starvation. Some things your mind will never allow you to forget.
Silent Tears is the true story of the adversity and triumphs one woman faced as she fought against the Chinese bureaucracy to help that country’s orphaned children.
In 2003, Kay Bratt’s life changed dramatically. A wife and mother of two girls in South Carolina, Bratt relocated her family to rural China to support her husband as he took on a new management position for his American employer. Seeking a way to fill her days and overcome the isolation she experienced upon arriving in a foreign country, Bratt began volunteering at the local orphanage. Within months, her simple desire to make use of her time transformed into a heroic crusade to improve the living conditions and minimize the unnecessary deaths of Chinese orphans.
Silent Tears traces the emotional hurdles and daily frustrations faced by Ms. Bratt as she tried to change the social conditions for these marginalized children. The memoir vividly illustrates how she was able to pull from reservoirs of inner strength to pursue her mission day after day, leaving the reader with the resounding message that everyone really can make a difference.
Ghost Wave (
$3.03 Kindle), by Chris Dixon [Chronicle Books]
Book Description
Rising from the depths of the North Pacific lies a fabled island, now submerged just 15 feet below the surface of the ocean. Rumors and warnings about Cortes Bank abound, but among big wave surfers, this legendary rock is famous for one simple (and massive) reason: this is the home of the biggest rideable wave on the face of the earth. In this dramatic work of narrative non-fiction, journalist Chris Dixon unlocks the secrets of Cortes Bank and pulls readers into the harrowing world of big wave surfing and high seas adventure above the most enigmatic and dangerous rock in the sea. The true story of this Everest of the sea will thrill anyone with an abiding curiosity of and respect for mother ocean.
The Bleiberg Project (
$0.99 Kindle), by David Khara (Author), Simon John (Translator), winner of the Blue Moon Award for Best Thriller [Le French Book].
Book Description
An adrenaline-packed ride to save the world from a horrific conspiracy straight out of the darkest hours of history.
Are Hitler’s atrocities really over? For depressive Wall Street trader Jeremy Corbin, absolute truths become undeniable lies overnight. He finds out his long-lost father is dead, he discovers his boss's real identity, and he ends up boarding a plane to Zurich. He has a Nazi medallion in his pocket, a hot CIA bodyguard next to him, and a clearly dangerous Mossad agent on his tail. What was his father investigating? Why was his mother assassinated? Why are unknown sides fighting over him with automatic weapons? Can the conspiracy be stopped? This fast-paced thriller full of humor and humanity was an instant sensation in France. Think a dash of Robin Cook, a splash of John Grisham, and pinch of Clive Cussler with a very distinctive voice all it's own.
1984 (
$2.99 Kindle; $3.99
companion audiobook), by George Orwell [Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]; definitely recommended if you haven't read it (or read it in a while), it's one of the books I picked up the first time I saw it marked down (back at Fictionwise).
Book Description
In 1984, London is a grim city where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.
Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Trinity Game ($1.99), the 2013 International Thriller Award Nominee by Sean Chercover [Thomas & Mercer], with the companion audiobook for $1.99.
Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is To Whisper Her Name ($1.99), the first novel in Tamera Alexander's new Belle Meade Plantation series [HarperCollins].
Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is The Fallen Blade ($1.99), the first novel in the Vampire Assassin Trilogy by Jon Courtenay Grimwood [Orbit/Hachette]. Orbit always has some of the best books on the SF/Fantasy shelves and I haven't read this series, so will be checking the sample on it today.
Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is I Love the Rain ($0.99), by Margaret Park Bridges [Chronicle Books].
