Free (Smashwords) A Feral Darkness by Doranna Durgin [Celtic Fantasy w/Romance] + KDP

[ATDrake]

The KDP Select exclusive-or-else slushpile gets a late not-so-much-start-as-finish today, since I wasn't able to use my break time to post earlier as I'd planned to.

There is, however, some rather nice sf/fantasy offerings and mystery/thriller repubs and established author self-pubs, and the horror fans should be happy again, as it seems that more writers with at least a few published short stories under their belts have come out of the woodwork to offer free stuff.

I apologize in advance if you are picking this up past midnight and whatever you wanted has expired, although a decent number of the authors I recognize are ones that have done multi-day freebies. And I expect the ones who haven't will probably repeat at some point as they realize "hey, I haven't used up all 5 of my free days that get in exchange for renting out my soul being locked into one store for 90 days!"

Anyway, a minor change in format in the posting, as I thought I'd start with a medium-significant backlist fantasy work which should still be free for a couple more days, and to everyone, not just those fortunate enough to live in areas where Amazon doesn't charge them an extra $2 even for the $0.00 books even if they never use any 3G which may or may not have come with any Kindle they might actually own (i.e., India, as of late last year, according to an unfortunate poster in the Amazon forum who found that the PG-cribbed free classics were not-so-free for him).

This popped up late yesterday, but I thought I'd re-feature it for the benefit of those who'd be interested but would never normally look inside a Kindle-marked thread on the assumption that the stuff inside wouldn't apply to them.

A Feral Darkness by Doranna Durgin, is her backlist self-pub re-pub of a Celtic contemporary fantasy which she says borders on paranormal romance, originally published by Baen Books in 2001.

This has a mildly interesting history, as it actually was available as an e-book directly from Baen for over a decade as part of their Webscriptions, but was yanked from their store late last year by the author, leaving a nasty gap in that Webscription bundle month, which did not have its price adjusted to compensate, along with all her other books, with similar outcomes for their corresponding Webscription months.

Oh well, I guess I'm willing to give Baen a few extra bucks here and there.

Anyway, although the author seems to have set the new regular prices of her old e-books slightly above what Baen used to charge in the non-bundled version, she has generously made this one free to all via Smashwords, for a limited time, and she does do sporadic sales where she drops the price of her backlist to 99 cents, as well as selling novellas and tie-in short stories for that price.

And you can probably find it in a couple of other Smashwords-price-matching outlets, but not necessarily free in all regions. It's available to Canadians at Amazon, but still full price at Amazon UK, for example.

This, incidentally, is why I always link to a Smashwords version of a freebie if possible (notwithstanding the extra $2 surcharge for the disadvantageously located mentioned above; back when Canada still had the extra $2 charge on the free books, I had to think long and hard about whether that "free" book was worth the "shipping and handling". Actually, I tell a lie, because my immediate reaction was always: yeah, no. Especially when Sony or Kobo also had that title available to me without the extra charge and in a better format to boot, especially when it came to the Topaz titles.)

Long story short (too late!): free to all without DRM and in the format of your choice over @ Smashwords for who knows how long, so grab it if you want it.

Description
As a child, dog-loving Brenna Fallon naívely invokes an ancient Celtic deity to save her beloved hound--and inadvertently anchors the new-found power at a spring on her family's farm.

She doesn't know she's also left an opening for a far more malevolent force.

Years later, thanks to the actions of several angry young men, Brenna discovers the terrible potential of that gateway. With a devastating plague unfolding abruptly around her, she must depend on her wits, a stranger she doesn't trust, and a mysterious stray dog who becomes more than just a faithful companion as she struggles to drive back the threat of a modern Black Death.

Welded by a desperate sacrifice, woman, man, and dog face the feral darkness together.

The other stuff I went through this morning, plus a few later additions. It all still seems to be free, but caveat 1-clicker and check to make sure, because most of these are KDP with the deceptive Prime Lending pricing once the freebie expires, though I've found a few that are also openly Smashwords-freebied.

Previously-featured Nebula, Spectrum, and James Tiptree Jr. award-nominee M.C.A. Hogarth offers about a half-dozen shorter works free to all via Smashwords.

Previously-featured Australian sf/fantasy writer and fellow MR member author Patty Jansen returns with a short-novel length YA-looking sf tale with alien terrorists in it: The Far Horizon She also offers a selection of short stories free to all via Smashwords, including her previously-featured (but then-unfree-at-Smashwords) collection Out of Here.

Dave Wolverton, whom you may know from his Star Wars tie-in novels and other works (ISFDB entry), offers a short story which he says was a winner of that L. Ron Hubbard memorial Writers of the Future award, written as Dave Farland, and was the basis of the novel of the same name: On My Way to Paradise - Short Story

Previously featured fellow MR member author Maryann Miller offers a fairy tale rewritten for the modern day: The Visitor

Tina Wainscott writing as Jaime Rush offers a 2004 St. Martin's Press-published dark suspense thriller with romantic elements (but the blurb makes it sound like tracking down/surviving the stalker/killer is the primary plot), free to all via Smashwords: What She Doesn't Know

Previously-featured Big-6-paperbacked Robert W. Walker teams up with Lyn Polkabla to offer a Cuba-set murder mystery starring its first female Lieutenant Detective: Cuba Blue

Edward G. Talbot (ISFDB entry) offers a detective vs serial killer thriller short story: Femoral Depravity

Previously-featured screenwriter Ryne Douglas Pearson offers an FBI vs serial killer thriller: Top Ten

Previously-featured Big-6-paperbacked Bob Mayer returns with two military action thrillers: Black Ops: The Line, : Black Ops: The Gate

If you picked up the previous 2 of David Berardelli's newbie small-press Penumbra Publishing novels, you might as well get the 3rd offered thus far, a mysterious missing person thriller: Escape Clause

Previously-featured Justin Luke Zirilli, who has had a novel picked up for the AmazonEncore imprint which Amazon uses for its more promising indies offers another spin-off story which ties into his gay contemporary fiction novel: Servando and Rowan's Random Reunion (Gulliver's Travelers)

Patricia Traxler has had a book of poems published by the University of Missouri Press, and a mystery/thriller novel published by St. Martin's Minotaur imprint. She offers three literary fiction-looking short stories, two of which which she says have won a number of awards: Linkage for all three.

Bruce Memblatt (ISFDB entry) offers a literary fantasy/supernatural-looking short story about meeting a mysterious stranger: Music Man

David Bain (ISFDB entry) offers four short psychic/supernatural/horror-ish tales newly free: Linkage to pull up all of them (but beware, as one of the annoying things about KDP is that if something's recently come off being free, it's still included with the $0.00 search results). He also offers one of his stories about a psychic detective free to all via Smashwords: Island Ghosts: A Will Castleton Adventure

Matt R. Jones, if he's the one with this ISFDB entry, offers what looks like a spoofy vampires vs werewolves vs revenants novel: Hollywood Vampires: Unholy War

John Grover (ISFDB entry) teams up with B. Thomas Riley to offer a set of horror stories: Revenants: A Digital Chapbook

Alethea Kontis (ISFDB entry), who has co-written an official guide to Sherrilyn Kenyon's popular paranormal fantasy universe, contributes to this horror anthology from Delvling Press: Twisted Tales

Delvling also offers Kimberly Raiser's (ISFDB entry) supernatural/horror historical about the descendants of the lost colony of Roanoke: Children of Roen Part 1 Book 1 (Book One)

I previously included Christopher Webster's Anglo-Saxon poetry analysis and commentary on the basis that I like quasi-academic stuff or attempts thereof. He now offers some sort of thing about a background character from the classic Beowulf epic: Hrothgar

Happy reading if you spot something you think you might like and it's still fortuitously free.

ETA: I don't know this author and I don't care if their book is a horrible waste of electrons. Because they have some of the most brilliantly funny presumably fake reviews I have ever seen on something that wasn't Tuscan Milk or that 3 Wolf Moon Shirt on: Hookers or Cake (Animal Spirits, Pop Culture, God and Robots) I applaud this effort and I encourage you to read them for the lulz.

[Dr. Drib]

As usual, thanks for "making" me pick up more books that I may never read.



Don

[ATDrake]

The feature item above is still free, and I did a random check of 5 of the KDP freebies, which were also still free, so I'm going to put this morning's slushpile yield as an update right here rather than make a new post.

Not sorted, since I need to shower/eat/bus, etc. But it's a really short list and there's some nice stuff in it for the horror/romance people:

Previously-featured Harlequin-paperbacked Patricia Watters offers three historical romances: Her Master's Touch and 2-book omnibus edition : Wicked Pleasures She also seems to offer a mix of backlist and self-pubs over at Smashwords, with the former priced at $2.99 and the latter at 99 cents, which seems a very reasonable price distinction. For the lower price point, she gets more royalties if you buy direct from Smashwords (and possibly for the higher one, as well, as IIRC Smashwords' FAQ says something like 75-85% of the selling price).

James Robert Smith (ISFDB entry) offers the self-explanatory: The Living End: A Zombie Novel

Mark Edward Hall (ISFDB entry) offers a short story collection: Feast of Fear

Peter Giglio (ISFDB entry) contributes to this anthology: HELP! WANTED: Tales of On-the-Job Terror

Newbie horror writer Stephen Melling (ISFDB entry) offers an organized crime thriller which apparently does involve werewolves from one of the comments (not described in the blurb): Wolfkind

Previously-featured Jane Toombs now offers the 2nd in her early California-set historical saga with maybe romance: Golden Chances Book 2 - The Interloper

It turns out that Gramercy Park Press is feeding their freebies via KDP and is a tiny press that looks like it started out as a self-pub to print the editor's stuff (but expanded to acquire a few more authors), so: The Stapleton 2012 Gay Guide to Las Vegas

Raymond Benson has among other things, written some official James Bond media tie-in novels. He offers a 2-novel omnibus of his original work, which claims praise from a member of the rock band Jethro Tull, among others: The Rock 'n Roll Detective's Greatest Hits - A Spike Berenger Anthology

I've previously included some other novels from newbie small-press Penumbra Publishing. Might as well toss this one in for fairness, since it's probably one of the ones which got them their minor ISFDB entry. : America's Galactic Foreign Legion - Book 1: Feeling Lucky, which, as you can probably guess, is a MilSF by Walter Knight. Blurb says it's satirical in the tradition of Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Apparently in the future, ATMs will do press-ganging instead of bunches of roving sailors getting you drunk until it's too late to swim to shore.

Chester Burton Brown appears to be Canadian and claim minor Canadian publication credits. I'm not bothering to google, but I'll give his arctic set mystery a try, especially since it's not every day you get to see one with "a legless aboriginal detective whose handicaps are his greatest asset": Stubborn Town

Australian sf writer and fellow MR member author Simon Haynes (ISFDB entry) offers a short story in his popular Hal Spacejock series: Hal Junior: The Secret Signal He also offers the original novel and another tie-in story free to all via Smashwords

[Blossom]

Overprotected By Jennifer Laurens is Free today! This book was talked about on blog awhile back and I grabbed it for full price. I really liked it.

It's about shelter young rich girl whose father hired the boy who use to pick on her to be her new bodyguard. It's a YA romance with some suspense.

[Dr. Drib]

The author Knight seems to be doing an Anne Rice on his readers and acting like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

This is one book I will avoid big time!



Don

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

The author Knight seems to be doing an Anne Rice on his readers and acting like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

This is one book I will avoid big time!



Don

Ditto.

My goodness. One of the comments starts with: "I think Mr. Reisman, who research shows is an activist politico, just can't take a joke."

I'm sorry, but "researching" people who leave negative reviews is just a little creepy.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

Ditto.

My goodness. One of the comments starts with: "I think Mr. Reisman, who research shows is an activist politico, just can't take a joke."

I'm sorry, but "researching" people who leave negative reviews is just a little creepy.

There are a few authors out there that have been contacting people who leave bad reviews. I stop reviewing and removed several reviews on Good Reads after a author contacted me.
I agree it's creepy.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Blossom

There are a few authors out there that have been contacting people who leave bad reviews. I stop reviewing and removed several reviews on Good Reads after a author contacted me.
I agree it's creepy.

I've pretty much done the same thing. I was contacted by two different authors and now I usually only rate with no review. What got me is that both of them were 3-star reviews, so it's not like I trashed the books. I realize that this is the age of information and accessibility, but that does not excuse acting in poor taste which, in my opinion, is what they are doing.

There's a post on a blog somewhere by an author talking about how authors are sensitive people and that others should keep that in mind, and so on. Yeah, I'll keep that in mind when deciding who to spend my money on, and it won't be the ones who publicly cry over a bad review. I don't have the energy to deal with that.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

I've pretty much done the same thing. I was contacted by two different authors and now I usually only rate with no review. What got me is that both of them were 3-star reviews, so it's not like I trashed the books. I realize that this is the age of information and accessibility, but that does not excuse acting in poor taste which, in my opinion, is what they are doing.

There's a post on a blog somewhere by an author talking about how authors are sensitive people and that others should keep that in mind, and so on. Yeah, I'll keep that in mind when deciding who to spend my money on, and it won't be the ones who publicly cry over a bad review. I don't have the energy to deal with that.

Wow so it happen to you too. I totally agree with you. I will spend my money elsewhere. I seldom give a 2 star rating if it's that bad it be a DNF book for me. It be nice if Good Reads had a place we could put private comments on a book we read so I could remember what I thought of it without risking an author's wrath.

[ATDrake]

Apparently there's a lot of that going around recently, especially from lower-tier published unknowns. I personally view it as free entertainment, especially when it makes it as far as Fandom W*nk.

Mind you, this does not mean I am likely to read any more of the authors' writing beyond their re-posted and often skewered rants, since I have this scale of "you must be this talented before I let you get away with pulling stunts like that" which I measure in milli-HarlanEllisons.

PS. For a print-published YA author you may or may not want to avoid, googling for the phrase "I didn't make it up, beyotch! I had a friend who faked her own kidnapping!" will help cut down your possible TBR/purchase list as well as provide you with bonus lulz. That, incidentally, is a direct quote.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

...since I have this scale of "you must be this talented before I let you get away with pulling stunts like that" which I measure in milli-HarlanEllisons.

I have a similar scale, but it's more along the lines of "I have to already be a die-hard fan before I see you acting like a brat/looney/psycho, or I'm outta here!"

Which is why I still read Anne Rice no matter what she does. Of course, these days I follow her Facebook posts, and her ability to be open and diplomatic in such a venue has won back any points she may have lost with me in the past anyway. But there was a time when I might have dropped her had I not already been a huge fan of her work.

PS. For a print-published YA author you may or may not want to avoid, googling for the phrase "I didn't make it up, beyotch! I had a friend who faked her own kidnapping!" will help cut down your possible TBR/purchase list as well as provide you with bonus lulz. That, incidentally, is a direct quote.

Wow. I read the first result listed. A YA author who cusses like a sailor. That's... Wow. And this:

It's very hurtful to know that so many people are reading negative things about something I worked so hard on, something I may or may not have lived through, and something I really like. Think about that.

kind of touches on that blog post I mentioned earlier. I mean, I can see why authors would hope that people would be sensitive to their feelings (we all wish that, right?) but to expect it and rail against the opposite, well, shoulda maybe picked a different career.

Edited to add: It's not that I'm insensitive to author's feelings, I just don't feel it's my job to have to deal with them personally, ya know?

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

I mean, I can see why authors would hope that people would be sensitive to their feelings (we all wish that, right?) but to expect it and rail against the opposite, well, shoulda maybe picked a different career.

Edited to add: It's not that I'm insensitive to author's feelings, I just don't feel it's my job to have to deal with them personally, ya know?

Myself, I'd be a lot more impressed with such authors and sensitive to their feelings if they showed the same consideration to others that they demanded of everyone else.

Unfortunately, most of the time they act like super special snowflakes whose every action should be excused because they're creative, don'tchaknow and everyone else is a pixel-stained technopeasant wretch who should bow down before the altar of their precious creativity (which, incidentally, the daily KDP slushpile trawl has managed to lower my overall opinion of not merely into the gutter, but straight underground into the Via Cloaca; I suspect that after the 90-days-free period of the initial KDP Select experiment, this will need to be expressed in geological strata).

Sure, that YA author felt bad that her book wasn't viewed well by a reader and would have preferred a kinder and gentler and more loving review, but she herself didn't hold back when calling the reviewer a "beyotch", besides slamming her as an evil person personally, rather than someone whose reach may have exceeded their grasp when it came to expressing themselves, even if they were only doing a review instead of a full book like she was. The irony, it bludgeons!

Anyway, I'm mainly commenting to link the excellent Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon on: How to Communicate with Writers, which provides very useful tips to all of us lowly reader peons.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Anyway, I'm mainly commenting to link the excellent Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon on: How to Communicate with Writers, which provides very useful tips to all of us lowly reader peons.

Love that! If you combine the poet & screenwriter, you have the songwriter. We've got a lot of those where I live. But the advantage of living in Nashville is that musicians and songwriters either get over their "special snowflake syndrome" quickly, or they go back home. It can't survive here in any real way because there's so much incredible talent all around the city.

[tilia]

Originally Posted by Blossom

It be nice if Good Reads had a place we could put private comments on a book we read so I could remember what I thought of it without risking an author's wrath.

You can Do you have all options showing when you edit a review? There's several options below Date Finished, one of them is Private notes.

I guess I should be glad no author's ever commented on my reviews

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by tilia

You can Do you have all options showing when you edit a review? There's several options below Date Finished, one of them is Private notes.

I guess I should be glad no author's ever commented on my reviews

I've never seen that option! There is a limit to how much you can write in the box but it will help me to remember what I thought of the book.