Free and bargain romance ebooks + Discussion January 2014

[laurla]

Darn Kobo and their coupons!! Every time they suck me in with those codes trying to complete series... And, then I have to go and purchase NEW bargains (har har) so that I end up with even more incomplete series.
So, a not so good week... But my average was only 1.98, so I can live with that, I guess


Another pretty good week reading. One stinker that made so angry! I even left a review on GR - I rarely leave full reviews, I don't think I'm very good at them. So unless I feel really strongly about a book, I usually just rate them. But I had to review that 2 star to get the anger off my chest and let it go.

The rest of my reads were good though! So yay

[laurla]

Just saw this in my email.... I have the Vinet, but not the other two. I know there are Christina Skye fans on here, so thought I'd pass along

Pirate Hearts: Plundering Love on the High Seas - .99 US amazon (don't see it on kobo)

PIRATE HEARTS includes:

PIRATE'S BRIDE (Lynette Vinet)
Young Bethlyn Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Dunsmoor, is forced into an arranged marriage with brash colonial Ian Briston, who abandons her after the wedding ceremony. Seven years later, she sets sail for America, determined to force her husband to be just that. But when the ship is captured by the infamous American privateer, Captain Hawk, he mistakes her for a prostitute. Bethlyn becomes Hawk's prey and succumbs to nights of passion in the arms of the masked buccaneer. But what will happen when she arrives in Philadelphia to claim her wayward spouse now that she's known the ecstasy of being the pirate's bride?

SEVEN NIGHTS WITH A PIRATE (Christina Skye)
Driven to redeem her father's debts, gently bred Tess Leighton dons a mask and cloak by night, running contraband across the sands of Romney Marsh. After crucial military secrets are captured enroute to Napoleon, London sends naval hero Viscount Ravenhurst to stop the elusive Romney Fox. But one kiss by moonlight invigorates his passion ... and the heart he thought long dead. Then Tess is betrayed and finds herself the captive of a notorious smuggler pirate. Now two unyielding rivals swear to claim her wounded heart. But a traitor watches from the shadows, and Tess must learn who to trust before she loses everything she holds dear.

EMBRACE AND CONQUER (Jennifer Blake)
Félicité despises the Irish colonel, Morgan McCormack, who marches into New Orleans with the Spanish conquerors, even though she's pressed into becoming his mistress or risk losing her father and brother to charges of treason. Pride demands she escape from his beguiling embrace, but when she flees, she winds up in a pirate haven where desperate men vie to have her. Morgan follows her into the island trap, where only courage and desperate desire can possibly lead to freedom, trust ... and love.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by laurla

Just saw this in my email.... I have the Vinet, but not the other two. I know there are Christina Skye fans on here, so thought I'd pass along

Pirate Hearts: Plundering Love on the High Seas - .99 US amazon (don't see it on kobo)

This is my kind of bundle! I had the first book but not the Skye one.

Oh dear they have more books on sale a whole list of them here!

I picked up the missing Blake gothic novels for 99 each I didn't have.

[Blossom]

So you remember that horrible Bobbi Smith topaz book Forbidden Fires I bought for 99 cents? After working on it all yesterday I now have a good readable copy and learned alot in the process.

First off it was a PITA to do but I feel like I've conquered the format now.

I first had to extract the SVG images, then use Notepad+ batch replace to remove the scripts from each page. I use this post as a guide only doing the first 3 steps. I use Acrobat 8 to merge the pdfs files then crop them. I then ran it through OCR software. I use Able2Extract (which isn't free but cheaper than ABBYY) I find it does a much better job interpreting letters and less weird characters than ABBYY but it takes about an hour to convert but it really worth it not having to fix every page for OCR errors and yet still have my italics.

Once that was done I ran the html file through PSPad cleaning up the styles using Tidy and then open it in Word and fixed the formatting and broken sentences using my macros and regex expressions. I then put the finish html file in Calibre and converted it to mobi and epub.

Now I got the method down I can do this in probably 3 hours if I don't run into problems.

So that's one topaz book down and several more to go!

[Jane A]

Originally Posted by Blossom

So you remember that horrible Bobbi Smith topaz book Forbidden Fires I bought for 99 cents? After working on it all yesterday I now have a good readable copy and learned alot in the process.

First off it was a PITA to do but I feel like I've conquered the format now.

I first had to extract the SVG images, then use Notepad+ batch replace to remove the scripts from each page. I use this post as a guide only doing the first 3 steps. I use Acrobat 8 to merge the pdfs files then crop them. I then ran it through OCR software. I use Able2Extract (which isn't free but cheaper than ABBYY) I find it does a much better job interpreting letters and less weird characters than ABBYY but it takes about an hour to convert but it really worth it not having to fix every page for OCR errors and yet still have my italics.

Once that was done I ran the html file through PSPad cleaning up the styles using Tidy and then open it in Word and fixed the formatting and broken sentences using my macros and regex expressions. I then put the finish html file in Calibre and converted it to mobi and epub.

Now I got the method down I can do this in probably 3 hours if I don't run into problems.

So that's one topaz book down and several more to go!

Wow! I'm in awe! I wish I had your mad skills! Have you ever tried to scan a favorite old MMP and produce an ecopy? Or use a scanning service and clean up their results?

[Jane A]

Jo Goodman's My Steadfast Heart is .99 at Amazon This is the first in her Thorne Brothers Trilogy. This is a great series - highly recommended!

Colin Thorne finds his way out of a London workhouse but at the cost of losing his two younger brothers. With an uncertain future ahead of him, Colin makes seafaring his life until the inexorable pull of revenge draws him back to London. The debt owed to him by the Earl of Weybourne will be paid.

Weybourne Park has been Mercedes Leydon's home her entire life. Now serving as the estate's manager and caretaker of her uncle's two children, Mercedes knows the earl's frequent absences are what make Weybourne Park a home.

But the earl's gaming has taken its toll and she and her young cousins are faced with losing everything to a devil-of-a-stranger calling in a debt that can't be paid.

Casting caution aside, Mercedes will make a new bargain with this devil. If it's her soul he wants—or her body—she will give it to him and stake her own claim on his steadfast heart.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Jane A

Wow! I'm in awe! I wish I had your mad skills! Have you ever tried to scan a favorite old MMP and produce an ecopy? Or use a scanning service and clean up their results?

I have used a scanning service those $1 book scan and was not too happy with the quality I have learn many editing skills from horrible formatted books I have purchased over the years from places like Amazon or Smashwords. I'm still learning though so much I want to know how to do and yet to figure it out.

[Jane A]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I have used a scanning service those $1 book scan and was not too happy with the quality I have learn many editing skills from horrible formatted books I have purchased over the years from places like Amazon or Smashwords. I'm still learning though so much I want to know how to do and yet to figure it out.

I've heard the results are pretty bad, but if one had the editing skills is might be worth it to get some good books that may never be published as an ebook. I keep trying to learn more in the hopes that someday I can attempt it, but so far I'm a long ways from that point!

[Blue2u]

IIRC a few of you have mentioned Tiffany Snow - Kathleen Turner series. Looks like they're on sale for $1.99 at Amazon right now.

[library addict]

Originally Posted by Jane A

I've heard the results are pretty bad, but if one had the editing skills is might be worth it to get some good books that may never be published as an ebook. I keep trying to learn more in the hopes that someday I can attempt it, but so far I'm a long ways from that point!

Me, too.

I ended up converting my PDFs to RTF and going through line-by-line comparing with the print version or original PDF. This was before Calibre could use Word docs. I also learned a lot the time I had to totally repair two books which were in ePub but had horrible formatting/scanning issues. Enough that I know I really don't want to do it again Also a higher percentage than I am happy with of the Harlequin Treasury titles I bought during the BIG sale are like that, too.

It frustrates me because these are books that should have been corrected at the publisher's end. A few typos/scanning errors are okay, but when there are two or more on every page...grrrr!

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by library addict

Also a higher percentage than I am happy with of the Harlequin Treasury titles I bought during the BIG sale are like that, too.

It frustrates me because these are books that should have been corrected at the publisher's end. A few typos/scanning errors are okay, but when there are two or more on every page...grrrr!

That's how Home For Christmas by Patricia Potter is. It's full of OCR errors. Amazon pulled the book because they got complaints about it.

[library addict]

Originally Posted by Blossom

That's how Home For Christmas by Patricia Potter is. It's full of OCR errors. Amazon pulled the book because they got complaints about it.

Harlequin eventually fixed most of the ones I reported to them. But that was direct at Harlequin only. There are several I had gotten at Sony that aren't yet fixed. And none of the ones I didn't report to Harlequin have been fixed. (And by report, I used to send them a detailed email with every error I found )

At least Harlequin took it seriously though. Penguin always sent me a form email back

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by library addict

Harlequin eventually fixed most of the ones I reported to them. But that was direct at Harlequin only. There are several I had gotten at Sony that aren't yet fixed. And none of the ones I didn't report to Harlequin have been fixed. (And by report, I used to send them a detailed email with every error I found )

At least Harlequin took it seriously though. Penguin always sent me a form email back

I'm not holding my breath on them ever getting fixed. I own several hundreds of the HQ Treasury books. I just have to live with the errors I guess.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Jane A

I've heard the results are pretty bad, but if one had the editing skills is might be worth it to get some good books that may never be published as an ebook. I keep trying to learn more in the hopes that someday I can attempt it, but so far I'm a long ways from that point!

If you want to see what they look like Open Library has a ton of these type scans.

I just finished another topaz book into a readable copy. I realize one thing I am trying to solved Hyphenation right now I am going through each one and manually fixing it. Ugh! For some reason all the em-dashes are really strike through text so I am having to do a search and replace on those with real em-dashes.

Those are my two biggest time consumers.

[Blossom]

On Sale @ Amazon $0.99

Sandra Marton Classic Box Set
Note: These are old Harlequin Presents back titles.
You get 5 of them for under a buck! What a deal! I wouldn't call these novels though they are category romance length and HP's are pretty short compare to other HQ imprints.

SANDRA’S CLASSICS: THE BAD BOYS OF ROMANCE

Five full length novels of Classic Romance. Sexy. Sassy. Tender. Tantalizing.

Intimate Strangers: A city girl & a hard-bodied cowboy, stranded alone together in the wilderness.

Night Fires: New Orleans. Mardi Gras. A woman on the run, and the lover who may also be her killer.

Fly Like an Eagle: He’s a reformed jewel thief, or so he claims. But he also steals women’s hearts.

Deal With The Devil: A nation in flames. A dangerous stranger can save her, if she agrees to become his wife.

Lovescenes: A rock star making a career change. A struggling actress. Is he using her to get what he wants?