Free (Kindle) 3 novels by Mel Starr [Xtian Medieval Medical Science Murder Mysteries]

[ATDrake]

So, Mel Starr (SYKM) is a Michigan-resident author who once upon a time, taught history and studied medieval surgery and medieval English.

And Lion Hudson (Wikipedia) is a UK Christian-interest specialty publisher which apparently got formed together by a merger of some other UK Christian-interest specialty publishers.

(NB: UK Christianity seems rather more relaxed and less evangelical than US Christianity, and this may or may not extend to their publishing imprints, which are probably following the tenets of the Church of England anyway.

In any case, I spotted books in their catalogue by British fantasy author Fay Sampson (ISFDB), who's written a rather good and rather pagan-oriented feminist deconstructive take on Arthuriana, so they're probably not really all that stringent on any particular lifestyle-adherence requirements for their authors and/or published works.

And I read through the first 30% of the 1st book after picking these up this morning to see how they were, and it was rather low on the religious mentions, allowing for a medieval background where people really did regulate their lives according to the feast/famine days allowed by the Church calendar, and very high on the how-medievals-treated-wounds-and-behaved-in-general, so I'd class it as pretty comparable to a similar secular series in tone.)

And together, they fight write crime! Specifically, the Chronicles of Hugh de Singleton, Surgeon, starring, you guessed it, a 14th century English surgeon who also happens to solve murders in between treating his less fatal cases.

And offer you three freebie novels in said crime series, courtesy of their Monarch Books imprint, along with a tie-in sale on the 4th in series.

Jaded by deep-discount coupons, you may perhaps laugh at the notion of getting the 4th in this series at $2.39 Canadian at Amazon/$2.99 US in the Kobo store (couponable! but only priced that low for US-claiming account-holders). But the publisher has actually priced these regularly at what I'll call an overly-optimistic price point at $16.99 each for the e-books in Canada (may cost less elsewhere), so it turns out to be a really good bargain, comparatively speaking, and you're getting the first 3 novels free, to boot, which amortizes the overall cost down to like what, 75 cents per?

Ironically for books set in 14th century England out from a UK specialty imprint, these are not free for actual UK persons who do not lie about having UK-resident accounts.

And this has been the selected 3rd (non-repeat) free ebook thread of the day.

Because getting not just one, but three rather nice historical murder mysteries starring a man of what passed for science back then, in a science-y type of profession for those times, giving details of what passed for scientific-ish thought and practice back then, written by someone who's done the research and includes historical notes and while adhering to a particular faith, didn't feel the need to push said faith in his writing of these, and also getting a tie-in sale on a further book in the series, is A Good Thing™ and Relevant To My Interests®.

I just wish this were available in more stores and regions and a few further books dropped in price (and were on sale for Canadians in the couponable Kobo store).

Aside from that, this was a really good offer, IMHO, and I've gone and splurged on the sale book to encourage the publisher to do it more in the future.

Enjoy!

(NB: apparently whoever did the coding for these books decided to place the auto-Start at the first chapter, after the maps and the very helpful Glossary of medieval terms which might be useful to have skimmed before actually starting to read the book, so you might want to page back a bit/go straight to the front cover and start over from there once you open these up to start reading.)

#1: The Unquiet Bones @ Amazon (available to Canadians)

Hugh of Singleton, fourth son of a minor knight, has been educated as a clerk, usually a prelude to taking holy orders. However, he feels no real calling-despite his lively faith-and he turns to the profession of surgeon, training in Paris and then hanging his sign in Oxford. Soon after, a local lord asks Hugh de Singleton to track the killer of a young woman whose bones have been found in the castle cesspool. Through his medical knowledge, Singleton identifies her as the impetuous missing daughter of a local blacksmith. The young man she loved-whom she had provoked very publicly-is quickly arrested and sentenced at Oxford. But this is just the beginning of the tale. The story of Singleton's adventure unfolds with realistic medical procedures, droll medieval wit, romantic distractions, and a consistent underlying sense of Christian compassion.

#2: A Corpse at St. Andrew's Chapel @ Amazon (available to Canadians)

Alan, the beadle of the manor of Bampton, had gone out at dusk to seek those who might violate curfew. When, the following morning, he had not returned home, his young wife Matilda seeks out Master Hugh de Singleton, surgeon and bailiff of the manor.

Two days later Alan’s corpse is discovered in the hedge, at the side of the track to St. Andrew’s Chapel. His throat has been torn out, his head half-severed from his body and his face, hands, and forearms lacerated with deep scratches. Master Hugh, meeting Hubert the coroner at the scene, listens carefully to the coroner’s surmise that a wolf had caused the great wound. And yet. . . if so, why is there so little blood?

#3: A Trail of Ink @ Amazon (available to Canadians)

Some valuable books have been stolen from Master John Wyclif, the well known scholar and Bible translator. He calls upon his friend and former pupil, Hugh de Singleton, to investigate. Hugh's investigation leads him to Oxford where he again encounters Kate, the only woman who has tempted him to leave bachelor life behind, but Kate has another serious
suitor. As Hugh's pursuit of Kate becomes more successful, mysterious accidents begin to occur. Are these accidents tied to the missing books, or to his pursuit of Kate?

One of the stolen books turns up alongside the drowned body of a poor Oxford scholar. Another accident? Hugh certainly doesn’t think so, but it will take all of his surgeon’s skills to prove.

So begins another delightful and intriguing tale from the life of Hugh de Singleton, surgeon in the medieval village of Bampton. Masterfully researched by medieval scholar Mel Starr, the setting of the novel can be visited and recognized in modern-day England. Enjoy more of Hugh’s dry wit, romantic interests, evolving faith, and dogged determination as he pursues his third case as bailiff of Bampton.

The 4th in series on sale if you'd like to pick it up: Unhallowed Ground @ Amazon ($2.39 for Canadians in the main store, probably comparably priced for the US) & Kobo (2 versions listed, be sure to get this one from the US, where it should be $2.99 and couponable)

[sufue]

I have read all of the books available to date in this series, and I regard them simply as good medieval/historical mysteries and not as Christian mysteries at all.

I'm pretty sensitive to this, and really don't like books which inject religion (of any flavor) into the mystery with no good reason, but as AT Drake mentions, the medieval background pretty much comes with a fair amount of religion, and that's just the way it was. I regard this series (which I quite like) in the same very acceptable historical mystery crowd as Ellis Peters/Brother Cadfael, Margaret Frazer/Sister Frevisse, Peter Tremayne/Sister Fidelma, etc...

Unfortunately none of these show up as free for me right now (Amazon US or Kobo US), but the first four are all at $2.99, and for this series/publisher that's still pretty good. All of them have been on sale or couponable before somewhere in the world (or I wouldn't have bought them!), but usually more in the $4-ish or $5-ish range, so this is still good.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by sufue

Unfortunately none of these show up as free for me right now (Amazon US or Kobo US), but the first four are all at $2.99, and for this series/publisher that's still pretty good.

I think this may have been a weird glitch freebie, since the first 3 books all exist under 2 different ASIN/publisher names and mitford13 mentioned in the Mystery megathread that they were seeing an apparent price fluctuation on the 1st one they posted in the mid-afternoon yesterday, and in the past, Lion Hudson/Monarch Books has given a couple of days for their official freebies.

The ones which were still free late last evening were from "Monarch Books" and are now $2.99 with Kindle publication dates from 2010-2012 or so, the ones which pop up when you search for the author name are $9 CAD each, out from "Lion Fiction" (as are #4-7 in their sole editions) and say that they're the 2nd edition out in 2013-2014.

No idea what they could have changed (maybe they fixed that auto-Start thing and the books now begin at the actually useful preface material) or why they couldn't have updated in situ (unless they were really bent on rebranding the entire series as coming out from Lion Fiction and maybe Amazon requires a new ASIN for that) or even why they didn't turf the older editions with a 404 page once they put the new ones up (as most publishers we've seen change their ASINs, i.e. Baker going from Topaz to AZW, do).

That said, with your assurance that these don't get obtrusive or preachy, I'd be willing to also pick up the rest of the series at $2.99 if they also go on sale, since as an atheist living in the officially most agnostic city region in my country which made something like top 25 for least overall percentage of religious belief/observance surveyed, I don't care for overt religiosity in my reading either (well, except occasionally from the more obscure less-often-written-about faiths or once in a while in sfnal settings with made-up stuff, for the novelty value).

And I'm liking all the lovingly-described medieval medical practice/beliefs bits so far.

[sufue]

I haven't found any of them to be preachy so far, and given the totally ridiculous list prices, I'd grab any that are available on sale at $2.99 if you like the setting and writing style of the first one so far.

[ATDrake]

Thanks for the reply ! Wishlisted, and I'll set up some sort of price-drop service alerts for them once I've gotten something to eat.

(Also, thanks for also having mentioned other historical mystery series you've enjoyed in the past. I was going to ask you if you'd tried the Martin Jensen King's Hound series set in early medieval Denmark out from AmazonCrossing, since I have this inordinate fondness for dragon boat cultures and Nordic literature, but it turns out you already recommended them when they went on sale a couple of months ago when I ran a forum search just now.

for another price-drop/promotion Real Soon Now)

[sufue]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Thanks for the reply ! Wishlisted, and I'll set up some sort of price-drop service alerts for them once I've gotten something to eat.

(Also, thanks for also having mentioned other historical mystery series you've enjoyed in the past. I was going to ask you if you'd tried the Martin Jensen King's Hound series set in early medieval Denmark out from AmazonCrossing, since I have this inordinate fondness for dragon boat cultures and Nordic literature, but it turns out you already recommended them when they went on sale a couple of months ago when I ran a forum search just now.

for another price-drop/promotion Real Soon Now)

And there is a third Jensen/King's Hound book due to come out in translation (A Man's Word: http://www.amazon.com/Mans-Word-King...dp/B00NIXMCQ6/) but not until February of next year in the US at least, although sometimes these sorts of books come out earlier in the UK...

[ATDrake]

It seems like there's getting to be a bit less lag time between the publications of translated series items? We've gotten 4 Leena Lehtolainen Maria Kallio books since 2012 which is a rate of better than once a year from the same translator, and about the same from Viktor Arnar Ingólfsson (though it looks like he's got a few different ones).

OTOH, Tara Chace who translates the Martin Jensen books looks to be pretty busy, as she also does the increasingly popular Jo Nesbø's children's titles.

To be honest, I'm really liking the many of the translated offerings from the AmazonCrossing imprint. I haven't been very impressed by Amazon's other house imprints for the established author new publications/backlist genre stuff that they grabbed and view the ensuing exclusivity as no great loss, but there's often interesting-looking storylines/settings for their AC books.

I hope it does well enough that they'll keep doing more (apparently the overall sales for their house exclusives aren't all that great, according to Wikipedia, and perhaps thus why they keep popping up at $1.99 per in the daily deals, monthly genre, and Big Deal sales), or at least keep on with the translations from their established series, which should at least have some kind of guaranteed readership, even if it starts going into diminishing returns territory.

And I'm certainly willing to toss $1.99 a pop or less at the promising-looking ones when they go on sale, to encourage them to this end.

[peachiekene]

Originally Posted by sufue

I have read all of the books available to date in this series, and I regard them simply as good medieval/historical mysteries and not as Christian mysteries at all.

I'm pretty sensitive to this, and really don't like books which inject religion (of any flavor) into the mystery with no good reason, but as AT Drake mentions, the medieval background pretty much comes with a fair amount of religion, and that's just the way it was. I regard this series (which I quite like) in the same very acceptable historical mystery crowd as Ellis Peters/Brother Cadfael, Margaret Frazer/Sister Frevisse, Peter Tremayne/Sister Fidelma, etc...

Thank you for this recommendation. I don't mind religion in my books as long as it's relevant and this sounds like it fits the bill!

(And of course thanks, as always, to ATDRAKE for the freebie/bargain/sale original post!)

[mitford13]

I'm not a huge fan of the Amazon imprints, except to encourage and hope for more reprints of backlists such as Gladys Mitchell, the Saint books, etc, but Amazon Crossing does have promise...There was a good amount of press recently during the Frankfurt Book Fair - here's one article that seems to show they're doing all right and moving forward with the concept. (I had also seen another article that detailed the Finnish crime books they're featuring for the coming year but I can't find it at the moment.)

http://publishingperspectives.com/20...treasure-hunt/

[crich70]

They didn't stay free for long. I missed them apparently.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by crich70

They didn't stay free for long. I missed them apparently.

Sorry about that; I thought I had a handle on how Lion/Monarch usually did their freebies. In retrospect, the offer was too good to be true, since generally publishers don't do more than 1 book per series for their official promos, much less 3, and with the multiple editions/ASINs search listing/price fluxing, I should have realized sooner that it was most likely a glitch.

At least they're kind of going cheap if you're really interested?

Originally Posted by mitford13

I'm not a huge fan of the Amazon imprints, except to encourage and hope for more reprints of backlists such as Gladys Mitchell, the Saint books, etc, but Amazon Crossing does have promise...

I think the main difference between most of Amazon's in-house imprints and AmazonCrossing is that aside from the big names like Ed McBain & Leslie Charteris et al., their authors are primarily low-level midlist backlist writers who are decently competent, but generally weren't the major talents or most popular sellers in their genres even before Amazon picked them up.

Whereas much of the time when I look at the blurb/editorial reviews for an AmazonCrossing title, it'll say something like Won the Umpty XYZ Award For Best —ic Novel, or that the series is a long-standing beloved classic in its country of origin, or that the writer has some kind of prize recognition for authorship achievement or whatever. So they've kind of been cherry-picking the better quality/proven popular appeal works to begin with.

Originally Posted by mitford13

(I had also seen another article that detailed the Finnish crime books they're featuring for the coming year but I can't find it at the moment.)

I think it might be this one from a couple of weeks back?

AmazonCrossing to Spotlight Finnish Works

Many thanks for mentioning it and linking the other article. It's nice to see that I have a few more things Relevant To My Interests® to look forward to in the near future.

[mitford13]

Yes, that was the article - thanks!
Want to keep an eye out for when Hatchet Grandma is released...

[crich70]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Sorry about that; I thought I had a handle on how Lion/Monarch usually did their freebies. In retrospect, the offer was too good to be true, since generally publishers don't do more than 1 book per series for their official promos, much less 3, and with the multiple editions/ASINs search listing/price fluxing, I should have realized sooner that it was most likely a glitch.

At least they're kind of going cheap if you're really interested?

No worries. I'll keep them in mind for the turn of the month. They do look like interesting stories.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by sufue

I haven't found any of them to be preachy so far, and given the totally ridiculous list prices, I'd grab any that are available on sale at $2.99 if you like the setting and writing style of the first one so far.

Thanks for the endorsement! I get so tired of thinly veiled religious recruitment books when thinking I'm getting intro a juicy novel or whatever. I went ahead and took the jump at 2.99 each