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Chain of Voices: A Novel by Andre Brink (Sourcebooks Landmark) is $2.99 (Amazon US, iTunes iBooks)

Book Description:

On a farm near the Cape Colony in the early nineteenth century, a slave rebellion kills three and leaves eleven others condemned to death. The rebellion’s leader, Galant, was raised alongside the boys who would become his masters. His first victim, Nicholas van der Merwe, might have been his brother.

As the many layers of Andre Brink’s novel unfold, it becomes clear that the violent uprising is as much a culmination of family tensions as it is an outcry against the oppression of slavery.

Spanning three generations and narrated in the voices of both the living and the dead, A Chain of Voices is reminiscent of William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!; it is a beautiful and haunting illustration of racism’s plague on South Africa.

The Kennedys Amidst The Gathering Storm: A Thousand Days In London by Will Swift (HarperCollins) is $0.99 (Amazon US, iTunes iBooks)

Book Description:

In The Kennedys Amidst the Gathering Storm, Will Swift presents a fresh, empathetic interpre*tation of the ambassadorship of Joseph Kennedy and explores the intricate, often shifting relation*ships among Kennedy, Chamberlain, Churchill, and, of course, Roosevelt.

Arriving in London in early 1938, the Irish-Catholic Kennedys were welcomed by politicians, aristocrats, and intellectuals, all eager to court America. They finally appeared to have overcome their lifelong status as outsiders. From 1938 to 1940, the Kennedys crystallized their identity as protagonists on the world stage, making public the competitive and clannish intrafamily dynamics that would fuel their mythic rise to power. They all learned from their father’s successes—and failures. The older children—Joe Jr., Jack, and Kathleen—took an active part in England’s glittering, “last fling before the bombs fall” society, but all nine children charmed, their every move chronicled by the British and American media. John F. Kennedy’s path to the White House began in London. As his father’s political fortunes dimmed, Jack published a best-selling book and his star rose.

Drawing on recently released Kennedy family archives, Joseph P. Kennedy’s private papers, and using rare photographs of English society and the photogenic Kennedy clan, Dr. Swift, with penetrating psychological insight, brings to life this fascinating family during a dramatic one thousand day period.

Way Past Legal by Norman Green (HarperCollins) is $0.99 (Amazon US, iTunes iBooks)

Book Description:

You never know, when it happens, what’s going to change your life, what’s going to bounce you out of the rut you’ve been in, send you flying off in some new direction.

Manny’s latest score left him with more money than he’s ever dreamed of, but with money comes danger — from his partner, Rosey, who might get greedy, and from the Russian mobsters they stole it from. Worse, if he’s busted again, he’ll go back to prison for life, leaving his motherless five-year-old son, Nicky, still trapped in the foster care system.

With the kind of guts born of panic and desperation, Manny grabs his son and heads for the wilds of Maine. When he discovers that the bad guys are on his trail, his impulse is, as usual, to run. But the people he’s met in Maine — including the local police chief — have become his unlikely friends and an unlikely surrogate family to his boy. Now they’re all in danger, and it’s because of him. Does Manny have what it takes to change his street-tough ways and become a real father to Nicky? And does he dare to settle into a new life, putting at stake the safety of everyone he has come to love?

Norman Green presents a gripping portrait of a man trying to break out of the stranglehold of a life of crime and create a future for himself and his son.

Going Wrong by Ruth Rendell (Open Road Media) is $1.99 (Amazon US, iTunes iBooks)

Book Description:

A street hustler-turned-wealthy businessman races to extricate his childhood sweetheart from the arms of her fiancé before it’s too late

When Guy Curran, a streetwise hustler from the wrong side of the tracks, falls in love with good-girl Leonora, he knows that one day she will be his wife. But as life leads the two down different paths, Guy’s obsessive love takes a murderous turn. Convinced that Leonora’s respectable family has conspired against him, Guy struggles to extricate himself from a complex web of half-truths and artful lies—with a hit man’s bullet.

With expert pacing and rich characterization, Rendell artfully constructs an ever-widening spiral of paranoia and desire.

Wherever Grace Is Needed by Elizabeth Bass (Kensington Books) is $2.99

Book Description:

In this thoroughly heartwarming novel, Elizabeth Bass – author of Miss You Most of All – creates an unforgettable story of friendship, compassion, and the extraordinary love that lies at the heart of every ordinary family.

When Grace Oliver leaves Portland for Austin, Texas, to help her father, Lou, recuperate from a car accident, she expects to stay just a few weeks. Since her mother’s divorce thirty years ago, Grace has hovered on the periphery of the Oliver family. But now she sees a chance to get closer to her half-brothers and the home she’s never forgotten.

But the Olivers are facing a crisis. Tests reveal that Lou, a retired college professor whose sharp tongue and tenderness Grace adores, is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Grace delays her departure to care for him, and is soon entwined in the complicated lives of her siblings – all squabbling over Lou’s future – and of the family next door…

Ray West and his three children are reeling from a recent tragedy, particularly sixteen-year-old Jordan, whose grief is heightened by guilt and anger. Amid the turmoil, Grace not only gives solace and support, but learns to receive it. And though she came to Austin to reconnect with her past, she is drawn by degrees into surprising new connections.

With wit, wisdom, and unfailing insight, Elizabeth Bass tells a story of loving and letting go, of heartache and hope, and of the joy that comes in finding a place we can truly call home.

Show No Fear: A Nina Reilly Novel by Perri O’Shaughnessy (Pocket Books) is $3.67

Book Description:

A brand-new Nina Reilly thriller takes readers back to Nina’s first murder investigation, to the case that ignites her passionate commitment to fighting for justice.

As a single mom working as a paralegal and attending law school at night, Nina has her hands full fighting for custody of her young son Bob and overseeing a medical malpractice lawsuit on behalf of her mother. But when a woman falls to her death off a bridge near Big Sur and witnesses disappear, Nina suspects there is more to the “accident” than the authorities are saying. With the help of homicide cop Paul van Wagoner, she rushes to uncover the truth.

Show No Fear illumines what makes the brilliant Nina Reilly tick — and, in this fascinating prequel to an illustrious career, begins a love affair for her fans and readers of complex, gripping thrillers everywhere!