Free (Amazon) Assorted Titles May 18th

[Fbone]

I decided to try and make one post instead of separate ones to keep them in one place. Above average number available free today so it may take me a while to get through them.

Zombiestan is free again for those who missed it back in January.
http://www.amazon.com/Zombiestan-ebo...7362877&sr=1-1
It began with stories of undead Taliban rampaging through Afghan villages, and faster than anyone could have anticipated; the darkness spreads through the world.
In a world laid waste by this new terror, four unlikely companions have been thrown together- a seventeen year old boy dealing with the loss of his family, a US Navy SEAL trying to get back home, an aging, lonely writer with nobody to live for, and a young girl trying to keep her three year old brother safe.
When they discover that the smallest amongst them holds the key to removing the scourge that threatens to destroy their world, they begin an epic journey to a rumoured safe zone high in the Himalayas. A journey that will pit them against their own worst fears and the most terrible dangers- both human and undead. A journey through a wasteland now known as Zombiestan.

Pibbin the Small by Gloria Repp
Children's picture book. Several positive Amazon and GR reviews.
http://www.amazon.com/Pibbin-Small-F...7368132&sr=1-1
His friend is hurt and the doctor lives far away.
He might run into snakes. Or that giant bullfrog. Or Black Snapping Crabs!
Is Pibbin too small to be brave?

Demon Possession by Kiersten Fay
Billed as sci-fi romance with demons. Many reviews but a few mention poor grammar.
http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Possessi...7368471&sr=1-1
After being enslaved on the spaceship Extarga for most of her life Analia has no memory of her life before, and has lost all knowledge of her people. Her mysterious gift and pointed ears are the only indication that she is different.
Analia is alone, and for all she knows, she’s the last of her kind. By chance Analia escapes her captors, and hides herself on the merchant ship Marada, planning to get off at the very next stop.
Unfortunately for her, there is no next stop. The crew is planning a delivery that could take months, and according to a stipulation in the newly signed contract, no one is allowed on or off the ship until the package is delivered. When Analia is found by the captain of the Marada, she must adapt to her new role on the ship, and try to control her newly awakened desire for the brutal and devastatingly erotic demon.

Eternal Seduction by Jennifer Turner
Appears to be a paranormal romance. I see mention of a lonely vampire. Almost 700 ratings on GR. Published by small press about 4 years ago.
http://www.amazon.com/Eternal-Seduct...7369158&sr=1-1
After living on the streets of New York City for over a decade, Logan Ellis admits her perceptions might be a little skewed. But twisted or not, there’s a satisfying irony in watching a well dressed vampire stand in the middle of a ghetto alley, windblown trash scraping small circles near his feet. What she finds even more intriguing, is waiting for him to decide whether or not he’s going to kill her.
Kerestyan Nelek hasn’t quite made up his mind. As the Lord of New York, he can’t allow a homeless drug addict, whose memories are packed with knowledge of vampiric existence, to run free in his city. It’s not the first time he’s been in this situation with a human, it’s just the first time in thousands of years he’s come face to face with one who doesn’t seem to care. And that’s what makes the decision so damn difficult.
What horrors would you have to witness before you went numb? How many years would it take for you to feel that way? What would it take to make you care again?
Logan’s answers are simple: the worst humanity has to offer, almost thirty…and something she never expected.

[Fbone]

Prison Nation by Jenni Merritt is free again. Contemporary sci-fi.

http://www.amazon.com/Prison-Nation-...7370051&sr=1-1

In the Nation, no one is innocent - not even the children born behind bars. Millie 942B has spent her entire life locked away with her criminal parents and countless other inmates. She believes in the Nation, in its strict laws and harsh punishments.

But when Millie is released on her eighteenth birthday, she finds things are nothing as she was taught. People vanish, never to be seen again. Lies cover every word. Trust is as fragile as ice.

And then there is Reed. Born and raised outside the Prison walls, his dreams and thoughts cause Millie to doubt everything she has ever believed.

What is truly worth fighting for? If she pushes too hard, she could lose her freedom. If she stays silent, she could lose herself. The clock is ticking, and Millie must find the truth before it is too late.

[Fbone]

Murder is a Bad Day to Have a Baby by Jennifer Bannon. Mystery based on real life experience? Published by Crystal Night Books. Never heard of them. Interestingly this sells for $9.99 on Smashwords.

http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Bad-Hav...7373277&sr=1-1

Freddie Nutter is a rookie cop with the Michigummee City Police Department in the wilds of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, riding desk during the last weeks of her unplanned pregnancy. When her partner Doyle, and her baby’s daddy Mick send her on an innocent errand to pilfer some leftover spaghetti and meatballs from her mother’s refrigerator, Freddie’s life takes a horrifying turn. In her mother’s living room, Freddie discovers a blood soaked crime scene, but no body.

Hidden deep in the woods, psychopath Sammy’s obsession with Betsy Nutter’s corpse intensifies while his relationship with his own mother strains to its final thread, and he pursues his next victim. All the while, Freddie’s grief is compounded by the tense kinship with her alcoholic, philandering father, and a convoluted affection for her addicted brother—and the histories of Freddie Nutter and Sammy Gunn intertwine not for the first time, and certainly not for the last.

[Fbone]

My Dear Charlotte by Hazel Holt.

A British Regency mystery with a little Jane Austen thrown in. Description claims author wrote at least 19 novels. GR ratings average 3.5 - 3.8. It may be worth a sample peek.

http://www.amazon.com/My-Dear-Charlo...7371172&sr=1-1

My Dear Charlotte is a British Regency mystery set in the early 1800s and infused throughout with the actual language of Jane Austen, one of the world’s great stylists and comic writers. Hazel Holt has published 19 Mrs. Malory mysteries in the tradition of Barbara Pym and has admirers around the world. My Dear Charlotte is a departure from her other work. It is a novel-in-letters written “with the assistance of Jane Austen’s letters.” From the Introduction by Jan Fergus:

"Of course, you don’t have to love Austen to love this book. If you enjoy detective novels, you will find here a completely satisfying murder mystery, coupled with a romance (or more than one, in fact). My Dear Charlotte gives you, in addition to mystery and romance, a portrait of the world of the English gentry at around 1815, immediately after the defeat of Napoleon—its manners and its moral certainty. As in Austen, Napoleon is not directly mentioned, but his shadow is there: one brother of the heroine is a sailor and the other a junior diplomat at the Congress of Vienna. It’s the social world at home that is central, however, with its balls, visits, courtships, gossip, and of course murder, underlining the tensions and rifts within that apparently civilized society.

But it’s readers of Jane Austen who will get the most pleasure from My Dear Charlotte. It is in my opinion the only successful attempt to re-create the world of Austen’s novels, better even than the best of Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances. Holt does much more, though: she has chosen to write a novel-in-letters, which allows her to incorporate witty quotations directly from Austen’s letters into her novel, quotations about persons, occasions, the minutiae of daily life from housekeeping and shopping to the weather and human nature."

Fans of Sharon Lathan, Georgette Heyer and Barbara Pym will love this new mystery.
About the Author

[Fbone]

GridLock by Sean Black.

This one was mentioned by ATD and was previously published by Bantam. It is listed as adventure/mystery/crime and is probably similar to his others in the series.

http://www.amazon.com/Gridlock-Ryan-...7371960&sr=1-1

Adult movie actress Raven Lane is one of the most lusted after women in America, with millions of fans to prove it. But when a headless corpse turns up in the trunk of her car, she realizes that fame carries a terrible price.
Fearing for her life, and with the LAPD seemingly unable to protect her, Raven turns to elite bodyguard Ryan Lock for help.
Lock stops bad things happening to good people, but can he stop the tidal wave of violence now threatening Los Angeles as Raven's stalker targets - and kills - those closest to her?
As events spiral out of control, Lock is drawn into a dangerous world where money rules, sex is a commodity to be bought and sold, and no one can be trusted, least of all his beautiful new client...

[koland]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Murder is a Bad Day to Have a Baby by Jennifer Bannon. Mystery based on real life experience? Published by Crystal Night Books. Never heard of them. Interestingly this sells for $9.99 on Smashwords.

http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Bad-Hav...N%3DB004TGSMW4

Bad link on k fire (plus it has affiliate tags) http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Bad-Hav...dp/B004TGSMW4/

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by koland

Bad link on k fire (plus it has affiliate tags) http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Bad-Hav...dp/B004TGSMW4/

Thanks. I replaced the link.

[Fbone]

Death Whispers by Tamara Blodgett is free again if you missed it last September. YA fantasy-ish.

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Whispers...7373638&sr=1-1

Almost fifteen-year-old Caleb Hart is a Cadaver-Manipulator in the year 2025.

When teens receive a government-sanctioned pharmaceutical cocktail during school,
paranormal abilities begin manifesting... making the teens more powerful than the adults.

After Caleb discovers he has the rare, Affinity for the Dead, he must do whatever it takes to hide it from a super-secret government agency whose goal is exploitation.

Caleb seeks refuge in his new girlfriend, Jade, until he realizes that she needs as much protection from her family, as he does from the government.

Suddenly, Caleb finds that hiding his ability while protecting Jade and his friends is a full
time job; can he escape the government, protect Jade and lose the bullies that are making him miserable?

[Fbone]

A few more self-published/Createspace and small press titles. ATD mentioned some. I'm just going to post links. Over 600 free titles added today and now bleary-eyed looking through them all.

65 Below. Military action/adventure.
http://www.amazon.com/65-Below-ebook...7373976&sr=1-1

No Game for a Dame. Mystery woman sleuth.
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Maggie-Su...7374617&sr=1-1

Red Star Airacobra: Memoirs of a Soviet Fighter Ace 1941-45
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Star-Airac...7375235&sr=1-1

[ATDrake]

If you're going by reviews as a potential quality measure, the author of Zombiestan is a proven review-faker who got caught sockpuppet-blasting dissidents in the comments (forgot which fake account he was logged in under and responded as his own name using the "real" account; I love it when they do that). The entire saga over at the Amazon discussion boards in this long thread here.

Also, it's your thread and you can do what you wish, but I personally wouldn't see the point of re-mentioning an official time-limited established print-publisher promo freebie that's already gotten its own thread.

[pdops]

Thanks for all the links. I picked out a couple to read.

[AnemicOak]

Thanks Fbone.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

If you're going by reviews as a potential quality measure, the author of Zombiestan is a proven review-faker who got caught sockpuppet-blasting dissidents in the comments (forgot which fake account he was logged in under and responded as his own name using the "real" account; I love it when they do that). The entire saga over at the Amazon discussion boards in this long thread here.

Also, it's your thread and you can do what you wish, but I personally wouldn't see the point of re-mentioning an official time-limited established print-publisher promo freebie that's already gotten its own thread.

I appreciate your comments. Regarding reviews I initially look at the quantity of reviews then look a bit closer at quality. I then compare with GR. Questionable reviews are everywhere but according to this thread crowd sourcing supposedly equalizes them out. Now if most of the 5-star reviews are suspect, then I move on. I ran into several of them today.

Zombiestan received a 3.79 rating (Q=68) on GR. Some of those obviously fake. They are so easy to spot. This doesn't necessarily mean the book is unreadable. I'll let people here decide.

And I do post what may have been posted elsewhere. Sorry, if you feel slighted. It was taking too much time searching this forum beforehand. It was just faster to repost the link here.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Fbone

And I do post what may have been posted elsewhere. Sorry, if you feel slighted. It was taking too much time searching this forum beforehand. It was just faster to repost the link here.

I don't feel slighted. I just think it's wasted effort to repost a link to a known official publisher promo that already has its own feature thread existing near the top of the front page and the time to copy-paste/type out a description for that might instead be better spent on picking out another potentially interesting more obscure book to feature.

But your thread, your call.

As for fake reviews and all, I admit I do let author behaviour influence what I will and won't include because I personally don't feel like giving any attention, much less redirecting other peoples' attention, to spammers and entitled melodramatic reader-insulters, so there are a number of established backlist authors I'll never link to again because of that, I don't care how good their actual works might be.

IMHO they can get their own publicity perfectly well without any help from me.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I appreciate your comments. Regarding reviews I initially look at the quantity of reviews then look a bit closer at quality. I then compare with GR. Questionable reviews are everywhere but according to this thread crowd sourcing supposedly equalizes them out. Now if most of the 5-star reviews are suspect, then I move on. I ran into several of them today.

Zombiestan received a 3.79 rating (Q=68) on GR. Some of those obviously fake. They are so easy to spot. This doesn't necessarily mean the book is unreadable. I'll let people here decide.

And I do post what may have been posted elsewhere. Sorry, if you feel slighted. It was taking too much time searching this forum beforehand. It was just faster to repost the link here.

I've read Zombiestan. It is definitely solid.