Free (Kobo/DRM-free) The Lost Weekend [Gay Werecat Paranormal Investigative Mystery]

[ATDrake]

Infected: The Lost Weekend by Canadian author Andrea Speed (ISFDB) is a tie-in short to her Infected series of paranormal investigative mystery/suspense thrillers set in a world of virus-induced werecat shapeshifters, starring Roan McKichan, a gay private detective who also happens to be one of said infected, free courtesy of LGBT specialty publisher Dreamspinner Press, who are moving the series over to their spin-off DSP Publications imprint for non-romance titles.

We've previously received the 1st in this series as a holiday freebie from them several years ago, which I read and liked enough to auto-buy the rest of the then-existing series on sale from Fictionwise while they still existed, which I also read and really enjoyed and highly recommend if you think you'll like the setting/themes.

Unfortunately, the demise of Fictionwise and its deep-discount coupons led to a hiatus in my reading of the series, which I was disappointed to find no longer on sale directly in the Dreamspinner store due to the imprint move, while they were having their Black Friday sale, since I was hoping to catch-up on the 3 or so new novels since last I read them.

However, it turns out they do still offer this new freebie short, and for a limited time according to their Twitter, #1 in the series is deep-discounted to just 99 cents in multiple venues (the others are at $6.99 each).

These tend to be filed in the Romance/Erotica categories, but I will tell you straight up that for at least #1-4 in the series, there was extremely little in the way of romance-y-ness or sex (mostly just some relationship drama and a bit of kissing, with occasional fade to black bedroom scenes), and a great deal of focus on the investigative element (a bit more thriller-y than whodunnit mystery-solving) and the background societal changes caused by the werecat virus, as well as lots of swearing and a certain amount of violence.

So caveat the Gentle Reader expecting lots of schmoopiness and lovingly-described sexyfuntimes, who is very likely to be disappointed in those respects.

Currently free @ Kobo (available to Canadians, and DRM-free) and directly from the publisher's webstore (DRM-free in multiple formats available worldwide).

If you're interested in trying out the 1st-in-series novel Infected: Prey should you have missed it as a freebie years ago, it's currently 99 cents/£0.77 over @ Kobo (couponable), Amazon (also UK), & B&N (also UK). Google Play has it too, but for $1.88 in Canada. This is the 2nd edition, according to the blurb, but there's no indication what may or may not have changed, or if they're just calling it that because they've moved it over to a new spinoff imprint. It's also a substantially lengthy work, with what amounts to 2 separate novel-length cases published as a self-contained book, so you'll be getting good value for money.

Also, it turns out that the author has written quite a number of short stories and snippets featuring the characters in the series which are available for free online reading via her website blog: the Infected series tag on her blog, and some more found under the general Read Online tag.

If it weren't for the fact that something else popped up this weekend which kind of trumps this (since it's just a short story with a tie-in sale, after all, no matter how much I like this series), this would have been the feature free book thread of the day (and I'm posting it today instead of saving it for later, since I have this sneaking suspicion that the 99 cent offer on the 1st-in-series is probably valid only through to the end of November, though I'd be happy to be proven wrong).

Enjoy! (if, you know, you're inclined to enjoy paranormal artificially-induced viral werecat investigative mysteries starring a gay private detective with lots of swearing and the occasional bisexual in them, that is, and these are quite enjoyable if you like that kind of thing)

Description
Roan is hired by Scott to look for a hockey player friend of his. After a long night of celebratory drinking, Scott can’t quite remember what happened to his friend, and he isn’t answering his cell. Roan discovers Scott’s friend was much more troubled than he ever realized, and that some mysteries should remain unsolved.

[stormcloude]

Thank you!