So, something rather unexpected from the KDP Select exclusive or else slushpile today.
If you've grown up in Canada in the past two decades or so, one of the things you will have seen plenty of copies of in your school or tween/YA section of the public library will be
Eric Wilson's (Wikipedia entry) assorted adventure novels. And if French immersion was available in your school, you'll probably also have seen them in translation.
Mind you, you may not have actually read them (I've only ever looked, but not touched these things; I was always more of a Gordon Korman kind of farcical adventure drama reader anyway), but if you missed out (or are indeed feeling nostalgic), hey here's your chance!
Disneyland Hostage by Eric Wilson is the 6th in his Tom and Liz Austen Mystery series, originally published by small Canadian press Orca Books in 2000.
Free with DRM for who knows how long @ Amazon
main UK DE ES FR IT
Description
On her own during a California holiday, Liz Austen is plunged into the middle of an international plot when a boy named Ramon disappears from his room at the Disneyland Hotel. Has Ramon been taken hostage? Before Liz can answer that question, her own safety is threatened when terrorists strike at the most unlikely possible target: Disneyland itself.
We also have some rather nice stuff for mystery and historical and romance readers today, including some more Canadiana and a high proportion of backlist republications, and some award-winning literary poetry, for those who like award-winning literary poetry.
St. Martin's Press-published Cheyenne McCray returns with a contemporary paranormal action romantic suspense:
Dark Seduction (Altered States)
Julia Templeton offers an historical romance novella originally published in The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance:
Little Miss Independent
ISFDBed Tracy L. Carbone returns with another horror short:
Rent Control
Well-known mystery/crime writer Lawrence Block returns with a short which originally appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine:
A Moment of Wrong Thinking (A Matthew Scudder Story)
Leslie Wooddavis has been previously included for having minor print outlet praise on an earlier self-published sf/fantasy novel, so here's another self-published mystery of hers if you picked up the previous and enjoyed her writing:
The May Carousel
I could have sworn we got this free before, but it's showing up as something I don't have in any of my accounts, so perhaps this is a new ASIN or maybe we only got one of the sequels. In any case, previously title-featured Gretta Curran Browne returns with the 1990 Headline-published start of her epic Irish historical drama:
TREAD SOFTLY ON MY DREAMS: An Epic Novel From Ireland's Past (Book #1 in THE LIBERTY TRILOGY)
Minor indie mystery prize-winner Jinx Schwartz returns with another 2010 Whooodoo (their number of ooooo's) small-pressed mystery adventure offering:
Land of Mountains
Canadian Ed Griffin offers a political prison/personal survival drama originally out in 2000 from small press Trafford, which appears to have several authors of varied subjects in its stable :
Prisoners of the Williwaw
Previously-title-featured Alexandria Constantinova Szeman (formerly published under the pseudonym Sherri Szeman), returns with two new collections of poetry (one Holocaust-themed, one mythological/literary) for which she has won several specified prizes, along with a repeat of her previously-published short story collection:
Linkage for the lot
Sorcha MacMurrough offers an historical romance novella which came out in 2003 from the same Domhan Books which IIRC published another backlist author's works included earlier, so:
The Matchless Miss (The Rakehell Regency Romance Series)
Severn House-published Nicola Thorne returns with a rural UK literary mystery/suspense drama:
Coppitts Green
Avon-published Denise Domning returns with another one of her acclaimed medieval historical romances:
The Warrior's Game
Canadian Vanessa Grant returns with a contemporary romance involving a female astronomer and a shipbuilder, originally published by Zebra in 2000:
Seeing Stars I will make the obligatory "she blinded me with science!" joke here.
Margaret Muir, one of whose historical drama books I've bought via Fictionwise which was an okay read, offers a 2009 Robert Hale-published historical adventure/suspense with some romantic elements:
The Condor's Feather
Previously-featured small presses with some new offerings (amidst any repeats):
Xcite Books (erotic romance & erotica),
Books We Love (assorted genre fiction),
Permuted Press (horror/suspense),
Decadent Publishing (romance & fantasy/horror),
Audio Digest (medical reference),
Wharekohu Bay (New Zealand authors).
Don't forget to check the other threads in the forum for even more backlist mysteries and romance found by our fellow MR members.
Happy reading, if indeed you manage to spot something you think you might like, or reading an Eric Wilson mystery does take you back to your happy childhood years (assuming you're not getting unwanted flashbacks to your crappy childhood ones).