some inexpensive backlist mysteries from Severn House

[sufue]

In the process of looking for some Simon Brett titles, I just noticed that a number of Severn House backlist titles from some good mystery authors have come out in ebook in the US in the last month (Nov 2011) at good prices ($2.99). I don't know if these are temporary price reductions or intended to be the normal prices, but I grabbed a bunch - I hope that will encourage more!

The authors include: Simon Brett, Tim Heald, Paul Johnston, and Paul Doherty.

I've been using some affiliate links this morning (thanks koland and arcadata!), and am not sure my links would be "clean", so I'm not going to post links. But the titles that I found at BN include:

Simon Brett:
Cast in Order of Disappearance (Charles Paris)
So Much Blood (Charles Paris)
Mrs, Presumed Dead (Mrs Pargeter - I love this series - LOL)
Nice Class of Corpse (Mrs Pargeter)

Tim Heald:
Blue Blood Will Out
Unbecoming Habits

Paul Johnston:
Body Politic
The Boneyard

Paul Doherty
The Nightingale Gallery
House of the Red Slayer

Some of these are also available at Amazon.

I suspect (someone from the UK can probably confirm) that some of these have been available in the UK for a while, but I am really happy to see the Simon Brett titles, and the others, available here in the US at a reasonable price. I hope Severn House makes more titles like this available in the future.

[ATDrake]

Hee. Only $2.88 CAD a pop at Kobo, and couponable, too! Less than A few cents past $2 for me after taxes with that 35% off which expires in a few days. I know what I'm spending my leftover Chapters gift card money on.

Here's a search link which will pull all 10 of them up at Kobo. These are under the "Severn Select" aegis rather than the usual "Severn House", so maybe (hopefully?) they're planning a discount imprint.

Linkage to the KoboBooks.com Discount Codes thread which has a handy list of the older working ones in the first post, and the most recent post with the newest coupons in Deals, if you want to take advantage.

Thanks for finding these!

[sufue]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Hee. Only $2.88 CAD a pop at Kobo, and couponable, too! Less than $2 for me after taxes with that 35% off which expires in a few days. I know what I'm spending my leftover Chapters gift card money on.

Here's a search link which will pull all 10 of them up at Kobo. These are under the "Severn Select" aegis rather than the usual "Severn House", so maybe (hopefully?) they're planning a discount imprint.

Linkage to the KoboBooks.com Discount Codes thread which has a handy list of the older working ones in the first post, and the most recent post with the newest coupons in Deals, if you want to take advantage.

Thanks for finding these!

I just went and looked and they actually are at Kobo couponable in the US too, although the starting price is $2.99 USD, not $2.88 CAD. But I've already bought the ones I want from BN, since I'm on strike against Kobo right now:

see post #12 in
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=159239

But, still, if others are having better luck with Kobo...

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by sufue

But, still, if others are having better luck with Kobo...

Well, I actually haven't done anything besides check that the books are couponable, since I'm still sampling to see which ones I want to get (have only ever read Doherty's medievals before).

But thanks for the warning.

I think I'll put these on my Visa instead until Kobo gets their system straightened out, in case I have to dispute any glitch charges. And I'll finally be able to see if the Great Canadian Rebates cashback works when e-books are paid for with a CC instead of a GC (the answer to the latter, incidentally, is no) or if it's just for an e-reader purchase only.

[icedtea]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Well, I actually haven't done anything besides check that the books are couponable, since I'm still sampling to see which ones I want to get (have only ever read Doherty's medievals before).

But thanks for the warning.

I think I'll put these on my Visa instead until Kobo gets their system straightened out, in case I have to dispute any glitch charges. And I'll finally be able to see if the Great Canadian Rebates cashback works when e-books are paid for with a CC instead of a GC (the answer to the latter, incidentally, is no) or if it's just for an e-reader purchase only.

I can confirm that the GCR rebate works on ebooks purchased with a credit card (I don't think any vendor that participates in rebate programs allows purchases paid for with gift cards - it's probably not Kobo specific.) If you don't see the purchases in your GCR account after the allotted time, their customer service people should be able to straighten it out for you.

[SensualPoet]

The Simon Brett's are a nice addition (coupon codes don't apply but at $2.88 one hardly needs them).

His detective, Charles Paris, makes his debut in Cast in the Order of Disappearance (1975) and the sequel is So Much Blood (1976); the series ran through 17 books in total.

Similarly, Mrs Pageter makes her debut in A Nice Class of Corpse (1986) and returns in Mrs., Presumed Dead (1988); that series ran through four additional titles.

All in all, a nice introduction to some of Brett's work. Several other titles are available at Kobo published by Pan for which, happily, discount codes do apply.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by icedtea

I can confirm that the GCR rebate works on ebooks purchased with a credit card

Good to know, thanks! I guess I'll be saving my Chapters gift card for those rare geo-restricted to the US books.

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

The Simon Brett's are a nice addition (coupon codes don't apply but at $2.88 one hardly needs them).

Actually, the coupons do work on the Brett books, at least for Cast in Order…, which I just bought for $2.09 CAD. Maybe you tried an expired one?

BTW, rotating through the suggested two-letter region variations in the Discount Codes thread linked above gives up 5 iterations of the 35% off coupon.

I just bought myself the 1st in each series* to try (Nightingale Gallery, Body Politic, and Unbecoming Habit, respectively). I'll probably come back for the rest in a day or so with the 30% coupon once I've read a bit more than the 5-10% than the downloadable Kindle samples worked out to.

I hope Severn and Kobo keep putting out the low-priced backlist and the good coupons. I can see myself buying a lot more from them both in the future if they keep it up.

* Except for the Heald book, since I like upper class Brit twit cases more and I figure I've already got a monk in the Doherty book, so I got the 2nd instead.

[Fbone]

Thanks for posting. My library has a few of these in print. Put them on my list.

[sufue]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

His detective, Charles Paris, makes his debut in Cast in the Order of Disappearance (1975) and the sequel is So Much Blood (1976); the series ran through 17 books in total.

Similarly, Mrs Pageter makes her debut in A Nice Class of Corpse (1986) and returns in Mrs., Presumed Dead (1988); that series ran through four additional titles.

The Tim Heald ones (Unbecoming Habits and Blue Blood Will Out) are also the first and second in that series, so I'm really hoping that Severn will come out with more in each series, at reasonable prices, and that these aren't $2.99 "teasers" and then they price the rest of the series backlists at a lot more.

I also hope they come out with a few more authors/series...at these prices I will enjoy reading (or re-reading) AND getting a few more p-books off my shelves.

[ATDrake]

All of the titles thus far are #1-2 in their respective series, and I'm hoping the list of books in the series at the front of each respective e-book means that Severn is planning to bring them all out to the point marked.

I have some print Severn books of authors whose series they've picked up new volumes of after the original publishers dropped them, and they're always careful to mark the ones they didn't put out by distinguishing "their" titles with a little "available from Severn House" footnote marker for the applicable ones.

[orange!]

Originally Posted by sufue

...Some of these are also available at Amazon....

Just checked. Yes, I see all 10 of the books in your original list at Amazon for $2.99 each.

I had to pick up a couple of these. Here's the product description for The Body Politic. Who could resist?

Edinburgh, 2020 - a independent, supposedly crime-free city with a year-round festival. No TV, private cars or popular music; sex sessions once a week. Blues-haunted private investigator Quint Dalrymple is called in to cast light on the murder of a guardswoman. Has the Ear, Nose and Throat Man returned, or is something much worse at the heart of the body politic?

[sufue]

Severn has come out with a second round of backlist titles by Simon Brett, Paul Doherty, and others. Unfortunately these are priced at $5.XX and not $2.99, like the first set. For me, this takes them out of the “impulse buy/replace the DTB on my shelf" range, and puts them into the “wait for a coupon/maybe I’ll buy them someday” range. They ARE at Kobo and Books on Board, and seem to be couponable at Kobo, at least – I just tried one at Kobo and the Kobo coupon out this weekend (jan6us25) worked. The books are also at BN and Amazon, but they never have much in the way of useful discounts.

These seem to be the 3rd and 4th in their respective series, after the first batch, which were the 1st and 2nd, so it seems possible they are going to work their way through these backlists. (The Paul Johnston series is #3, #4, and #5, which completes the series.)

I sure wish they were all at $2.99, though, and not $5.XX. I had sent Severn House an e-mail (no reply, of course) thanking them for the first batch, telling them I bought them all, and expressing the hope they were planning to continue this. I think I’ll send them another e-mail expressing my disappointment with the price of these new ones, indicating that they have crossed over my price point to buy when it’s replacing books I already own in paper, and hoping that they will reconsider their pricing decision. I don’t expect it to do any good, but at least I will have provided input.

The list of new titles, at least the ones I found, includes:

Simon Brett/Charles Paris:
Star Trap (#3)
An Amateur Corpse (#4)

Simon Brett/Mrs Pargeter:
Mrs P’s Package (#3)
Mrs P’s Pound of Flesh (#4)

Tim Heald:
Deadline (#3)
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie (#4)

Paul Doherty/Brother Athelstan:
Murder Most Holy (#3)
The Anger of God (#4)

Paul Johnston:
Water of Death (#3)
The Blood Tree (#4)
House of Dust (#5)