Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day! Just in case all the free romance in the last two days wasn't enough for your TBR list, I've made sure to add a few to this roundup (but it isn't all romance, guys, so at least skim thru the titles).
You can probably find some of these at the same prices at
Barnes & Noble or
Kobo, but I'm posting just Amazon links below, since they have the best reviews and I think their previews work a bit smoother.
Driving Mr. Dead (
$1.99), by Molly Harper, is on sale once again. I happen to be reading this and am about 70% of the way thru, so was excited to see that her story from
The Undead In My Bed ($5.99) was included in the free Audible selections today. If you like urban fantasy, I'd recommend this title -- the heroine has issues, but not of the "helpless but still can defeat gods" variety that plagues some in this genre. The description at Amazon says this is a novella, but at 180 pages I'd put it more in the short novel category (it definitely is not a read it over coffee length).
Book Description
Miranda Puckett has failed at every job she’s ever had. Her mother just wants her to come home, join the family law firm, and settle down with Jason, the perfect lawyer boyfriend. But when Jason turns out to be a lying cheater, Miranda seizes on a job that gets her out of town: long-distance vampire transportation. Her first assignment is to drive vampire Collin Sutherland from Washington to sleepy Half Moon Hollow without incident—no small feat for a woman whom trouble seems to follow like a faithful hound dog! And she has to do it without letting her passenger—the most persnickety, stuffy, devastatingly handsome vamp she’s ever met—drive her crazy. As she and Collin find disaster on the roads, they also find an undeniable spark between them. Could Miranda have found the perfect job and the perfect guy for her?
Welcome to Your Brain (
$2.99), by Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt, published by Bloomsbury USA
Book Description
Does drinking really kill brain cells? Does listening to Mozart make your baby smarter? For all the mileage we've gotten from our own brains, most of us have essentially no idea how they work. We're easily susceptible to myths (like the "fact" that we use only 10% of our brains) and misconceptions (like the ones perpetrated by most Hollywood movies), probably because we've never known where to turn for the truth.
But neurologists Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang are glad to help. In this funny, accessible book, we get a guided tour of our own minds, what they're made of, how they work, and how they can go wrong. Along the way, we get a host of diagrams, quizzes, and "cocktail party tips" that shed light on the questions we nag each other about. (Can a head injury make you forget your own name? Are dolphins smarter than chimpanzees?)
Fun and surprisingly engrossing, Welcome to Your Brain shows you how your brain works, and how you can make it work better.
Once Burned (
$1.99), the first novel in Jeaniene Frost's new
Night Prince series, with the
companion audiobook $5.49.
Book Description
After a tragic accident scarred her body and destroyed her dreams, Leila never imagined that the worst was still to come: terrifying powers that let her channel electricity and learn a person's darkest secrets through a single touch. Leila is doomed to a life of solitude...until creatures of the night kidnap her, forcing her to reach out with a telepathic distress call to the world's most infamous vampire...
Vlad Tepesh inspired the greatest vampire legend of all--but whatever you do, don't call him Dracula. Vlad's ability to control fire makes him one of the most feared vampires in existence, but his enemies have found a new weapon against him - a beautiful mortal with powers to match his own. When Vlad and Leila meet, however, passion ignites between them, threatening to consume them both. It will take everything that they are to stop an enemy intent on bringing them down in flames.
It looks like I can replace my paper copy of
The Anderson Tapes (
$2.99), by Lawrence Sanders, with this new edition from Open Road.
Book Description
The explosive debut novel—told entirely through surveillance recordings, eyewitness reports, and other “official” documents—by New York Times bestselling author Lawrence Sanders
New York City. Summer 1968.
Newly sprung from prison, professional burglar John Anderson is preparing for the biggest heist of his criminal career. The mark is a Manhattan luxury apartment building with the tony address of 535 East Seventy-Third Street. Enlisting a crew of scouts, con artists, and a getaway driver, Anderson orchestrates what he believes to be a foolproof plan. To pull off the big score, he needs one last thing: the permission of the local mafia, who expect a piece of the action.
But no one inside Anderson’s operation knows that the police have recorded their conversations. The New York Police Department has hatched a plot of its own—but even its task force may not be enough to stop such a cunningly planned robbery.
The Eighth Dwarf (
$2.99), by Ross Thomas, is another Open Road edition.
Book Description
Searching for a killer of Nazi war criminals, an ex-spy finds an unlikely ally
Nicolae Polscaru, a three-and-a-half-foot-tall dwarf, is tossed into a Hollywood swimming pool by four drunken screenwriters, who take bets on how long he can tread water. Minor Jackson, his OSS training still fresh a year after World War II’s end, beats the bullies senseless and pulls Nicolae from the water. A friendship is born.
Jackson is broke, his spying days over, and Nicolae offers him a job. A former spy himself, the globetrotting Romanian has a commission to find Kurt Oppenheimer, an expert assassin of high-ranking Nazis. Kurt won’t stop killing, no matter what the bloodshed will do to the fragile world peace, and the Soviets, the British, and the remains of the Nazi High Command all want his head. Jackson will beat them all to finding Kurt—unless his new friend betrays him first.
HarperCollins has three romances from Liz Carlyle on sale for
$0.99 apiece, the first three novels in her
Fraternitas Aureae Crucis series, so you can get ready for the release of
A Bride by Moonlight ($6.64) at the end of the month.
One Touch of Scandal
Against the glamorous backdrop of Victorian high society, Liz Carlyle paints a dramatic tale of dangerous desire, the first in her sizzling new trilogy.
All Grace Gauthier ever wanted was the security of a good marriage, family, and home. Instead, despised by her aristocratic father’s family because of her mother’s foreign birth, she’s taken a “safe” position as a governess. Now, unprotected and alone in London, accused of the shocking murder of her employer, she has no one to turn to except the mysterious—and possibly dangerous—Lord Ruthveyn.
A dark-eyed Lucifer, Ruthveyn guards his secrets carefully. His shadowed past is a source of pain and rumors—only whispered. Grace’s plight—which echoes his own—moves him, as does her quiet beauty. Ruthveyn is determined to save Grace by unmasking a killer. But his growing passion places his own heart at risk and threatens to expose his dark gifts to the world.
The Bride Wore Scarlet
Passion and secrets simmer behind the elegant façade of Victorian London in another deliciously intriguing novel featuring the mysterious men of the St. James Society.
Anaïs de Rohan has faced danger in her past, but never anything so great as posing as the new bride to one of the St. James Society's most magnetic—and ruthless—leaders. But Lord Bessett's bold challenge to prove herself worthy of joining his secret all-male society is impossible to resist. So she daringly agrees to travel with the enigmatic nobleman on a dangerous mission to save one of their own—a little girl with a frightening gift.
Soon intrigue swirls about them, drawing them ever closer. And Anaïs quickly realizes that the intimacy of sharing Lord Bessett's bedroom is proving a temptation impossible to resist. As for Bessett himself—well, he might be a soldier sworn to the Society, but he certainly isn't anyone's saint. . . .
The Bride Wore Pearls
Beneath the elegant façade of Victorian high society, the mysterious men of the St. James Society play only by rules of danger and desire.
Rance Welham, the Earl of Lazonby, has survived scandal and disgrace, even evading the Queen’s justice at the end of a hangman’s rope. Now he’s about to gamble everything on something far more dangerous—desire.
An exotic and elegant beauty, Lady Anisha Stafford fled her native India to seek refuge within London’s secretive St. James Society. But accepting protection from someone called a cold-hearted killer is a double-edged sword . . . especially when he’s the most intriguing man Anisha has ever laid eyes upon.
In a world where treachery abounds, no one can be trusted—and no true passion can be denied. Together, these two tempestuous souls will risk their lives for a love that could redeem them . . . or destroy everything they hold dear.
The Collected Novels of Jose Saramago (
$6.60), with an introduction by Ursula K. Le Guin and translated by Margaret Jull and Giovanni Costa Pontiero, is a great bargain, even though the current edition is missing the novella
All the Names that was included in the earlier edition (which sold for $20).
Book Description
This collection, available exclusively in e-book form, brings together the twelve novels (and one novella) of the great Portuguese writer José Saramago, with an introductory essay by Ursula Le Guin. From Saramago's early work, like the enchanting Baltasar & Blimunda and the controversial Gospel According to Jesus Christ, through his masterpiece Blindness and its sequel Seeing, to his later fables of politics, chance, history, and love, like All the Names and Death with Interruptions, this volume showcases the range and depth of Saramago’s career, his inimitable narrative voice, and his vast reserves of invention, humor, and understanding.
Parker: Movie Tie-in Edition, Originally Published as "Flashfire" (
$1.99), the nineteenth title in Richard Stark's
Parker series. The University of Chicago Press has a number of
Stark's titles on sale, in fact, with over a dozen in this series for $3.99 apiece.
Book Description
There have been many film adaptations of Richard Stark’s novels over the years, but none of them actually featured a protagonist named Parker—and none of them fully captured Parker’s chilling tenacity and laconic anticharm. Here for the first time is the real Parker, played by Jason Statham. Adapted by Black Swan screenwriter John J. McLaughlin, and directed by Taylor Hackford, Parker is sure to both satisfy Stark fans and action-movie lovers. And there couldn’t be a better Parker novel to bring to the silver screen than the fast-paced and stylish Flashfire.
When Flashfire opens, Parker isn’t happy. Three associates have borrowed his money for a job without permission, and he isn’t satisfied to wait and see if they make good. Instead, he vows to kill them all. Tearing across America to take their job out from under them, Parker finds himself in West Palm Beach. There things go sour. While attempting to trick the denizens of Palm Beach into accepting him for one of their own, Parker is gut-shot and forced to rely on a beautiful civilian, played in the film by Jennifer Lopez, for help. But even injured and exhausted, Parker still has his killer instinct, and he shows how unwise—and deadly—it is to cross him.
Part heist movie, part unexpected romance, and mostly explosions, Parker brings to life Stark’s hero with verve and violence, while taking viewers on an action-packed adventure they won’t soon forget. Also starring Michael Chiklis, Nick Nolte, Patti Lupone, and Wendell Pierce, Parker is hitting theaters near you this January. Hard.
The Last Good Man (
$1.99), by Kathleen Eagle; a good price if you missed it when Bell Bridge Books offered it for free last May.
Book Description
Gorgeous, famous Savannah Stephens is back, and no one in her hometown, Sunbonnet, Wyoming, really knows why. Especially not Clay Keogh, the good-hearted rancher who has loved her from afar since they were kids. Savannah's young daughter looks just like Savannah's first love: local bad boy Kole Kills Crow, Clay's half-brother. Has Savannah come home to start a new relationship with Kole?Whatever her secrets, it's clear that she's deeply troubled and needs a shoulder to lean on. Clay is there for her, and she soon realizes that he's a very special man. But until she can bring herself to share the painful truth about her fall from stardom, the emotional distance between her and Clay may separate them forever.
You Never Can Tell (
$1.99), by Kathleen Eagle (this one is also at
Kobo for $1.99).
Book Description
She tracks him until he catches her . . .
Some say Native American activist Kole Kills Crow is an outlaw; others say he's a hero. To reporter Heather Reardon, he's a must-have story. Her friend Savannah, who's married to Kole's half-brother, Clay, can vouch that Kole won't hurt Heather, even though a brush with the law has turned him into a fugitive.
When Heather locates Kole in an isolated Minnesota cabin, she quickly learns that he's a loner with no interest in sharing his side of the story with the world. Yet neither Kole nor Heather can resist the attraction that complicates their relationship, along with Heather's persuasive arguments. Years ago Kole gave up a daughter for adoption because he couldn't raise her on the run. His daughter is now seven and deserves to know what kind of man her father really is.
Kathleen Eagle expertly mingles passion, suspense and Native American political issues into an unforgettable story of love and healing.
This Time Forever (
$7.99 Kindle), the RITA Award Winner for
Best Single Title Contemporary Novel by Kathleen Eagle and Eve Gaddy is only $1.99 at
Barnes & Noble.
Book Description
She’d helped convict him of a crime he didn’t commit.
Now she wants his help adopting the son he never knew he had.
Seeking refuge in a world not her own, Susan Ellison follows her conscience to the reservation of the Lakota Sioux, hoping to heal the wounds of her ravaged heart.
Sentenced to life in prison, former rodeo champion Cleve Black Horse seeks freedom and justice.
Two lonely outcasts separated by culture, stubborn pride and prison bars, their destinies are joined by a shared duty to a helpless child — and by the blossoming of a bold and magnificent love that a cruel, intolerant society forbids.
A Home of Her Own (
$1.99), by Brenda Novak (Dundee, Idaho #4)
Book Description
When Lucky Caldwell was ten, her mother, Red—the best-known hooker in Dundee, Idaho—married Morris Caldwell, a wealthy and much older man. It didn't last, of course, but Morris's kindness was the highlight of Lucky's life.
Mike Hill, Morris's grandson, doesn't feel too well-disposed toward Red or her kids. He believes they alienated Morris from his family. Even Morris's Victorian mansion, on the property next to the Hill ranch, wasn't inherited by one of his grandchildren. Instead the house went to Lucky, who left it sitting empty for years.
Now that Red and Morris are both dead, Lucky has finally come back to Dundee. She plans to restore the derelict place—and to look for her real father, who has to be one of three men named in her mother's diary.
That means Mike has a new neighbor.
One he doesn't want to like…
Look for all eight books in Brenda Novak's Dundee, Idaho series, available now. And don't miss her new romantic Whiskey Creek trilogy, available from Harlequin MIRA!
Stranger in Town (
$1.99), by Brenda Novak (Dundee, Idaho #5)
Book Description
The car accident was Hannah Price's fault—a few seconds of inattention that changed Gabe Holbrook's life forever, destroying everything he'd been or ever wanted to be.
He was a man who'd had it all. Intelligent, handsome, talented, rich, he'd been one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. Now he's come home to Dundee, the small town where he was raised, but he's a stranger to the people who once knew him. Folks think he's bitter and withdrawn; he knows he's just focused on recovering. But thanks to Hannah Price, there are some things that can't be fixed.
Hannah has been struggling to recover from that fateful night, too. Unlike Gabe, she sustained only minor injuries. But she's not sure she'll ever be able to forgive herself for making a mistake with such far-reaching consequences. Especially when Gabe becomes her older son's football coach, and she begins to fall in love with the man she nearly destroyed…
The One That Got Away (
$1.99), by Kelly Hunter
Book Description
The man who's always left her wanting more!
Good job? Check. Newly purchased apartment? Tick. Evie's life is on a pretty even keel at the moment. The only thing missing? A man with an edge to keep things interesting.
Enter Logan Black. Tortured, distant and sexy, Logan has edge written all over him. He's also the man who tipped Evie over the edge a few years back - she gave him everything, but he didn't know when to stop taking.
Leaving Logan was the hardest thing Evie's ever done. Until now. Because Logan's back, the chemistry is as blistering as ever and this time he's not going anywhere...
Hit Man ($0.99), the first title in the Lawrence Block's John Keller Mysteries series. The companion audiobook is $2.99. The next three titles in the series are also on sale, at $3.99 apiece (50% off).
Final Appeal ($0.99), by Lisa Scottoline. Despite the title info shown at Amazon, this is a standalone title and not a part of the Rosato & Associates series.
Last up, the entire Sign of the Zodiac series by Vicki Pettersson is on sale for $0.99 per volume. I had the first four in the series, so quickly snapped up the two I need to complete it. Essentially, you get this entire Urban Fantasy series for less than the cost of a single paperback!.
