Free/Bargain Literary Fiction June 2014

[peachiekene]

A thread for June.

We point out free and bargain Literary titles to each other. Please don't post any self-published books*, and please do a search before posting to avoid duplicates.

In case no retailer is specifically mentioned in a post, it is safe to assume it's for Amazon US.

Be aware that many freebies are only free for a day, so grab them fast!

*Unless you have read them yourself, think they are excellent, and you're not connected to the author in any way.

[peachiekene]

$1.99

From Here to Eternity: The Restored Edition by James Jones

James Jones’s epic story of army life in the calm before Pearl Harbor—now with previously censored scenes and dialogue restored.

At the Pearl Harbor army base in 1941, Robert E. Lee Prewitt is Uncle Sam’s finest bugler. A career soldier with no patience for army politics, Prewitt becomes incensed when a commander’s favorite wins the title of First Bugler. His indignation results in a transfer to an infantry unit whose commander is less interested in preparing for war than he is in boxing. But when Prewitt refuses to join the company team, the commander and his sergeant decide to make the bugler’s life hell.

An American classic now available with scenes and dialogue considered unfit for publication in the 1950s, From Here to Eternity is a stirring picture of army life in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of James Jones including rare photos from the author’s estate.

AmazonUS
AmazonCA
GooglePlay
B&N
iTunes

(Kobo does not have it for sale, but it is couponable. If you have a 90% coupon it will be cheaper - otherwise it will not.)

[BelleZora]

Free today from Rosetta Books: 79 Park Avenue by Harold Robbins, first published by A. Knopf in 1955. I read this many years ago and look forward to reading it again.

A tale from master storyteller Harold Robbins ...Marja starts out a tough girl from the mean streets of New York. Ambitious and driven, over time she rises from street urchin to stripper, later re-inventing herself as Maryann Flood, the queen of an empire of pleasure. From her posh Park Avenue office, Maryann provides access to exciting and sensual women to sate the desires of New York's most powerful men.All is well-until Maryann runs afoul of the law and leaves her empire facing destruction. Arrested for procurement, blackmail, and bribery, she must face prosecutor Mike Keynes, who stands to benefit greatly by bringing her down-and who is facing a dilemma himself. He loves Maryann, and she loves him in return. Now he faces a choice: set aside his personal feelings for the sake of justice, or fall under Maryann's seductive spell and betray his life's work.The inspiration for the highly rated 1977 miniseries of the same name, "79 Park Avenue" tells a sizzling tale of lust, power, and corruption.

US
UK
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AU

[BelleZora]

Repeat freebie today: Shepherd Avenue by Charlie Carillo, first published by Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986.

When his mother dies and his grief-stricken father abandons him, 10-year-old Joey is sent to his father's parents, Connie and Angelo, where he becomes friends with his baseball-playing Uncle Vic and tomboy Mel, and meets other residents of the boisterous Italian American community in Brooklyn. (Nancy Pearl)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LSCOLE

[BelleZora]

Free today at Amazon: Lightwood by Brainard Cheney

LIGHTWOOD the novel appeared originally in 1939. Set in the piney woods of south Georgia just after the Civil War, it tells the story of a struggle between local land owners and Northern investors. The investors sought to harvest the "wooden treasures" of virgin pine forests. Over time, they used the power of money and the courts to wrest the title to the lands. A labyrinthine legal battle stretched out for more than half a century, culminating in the murder of the Company's land agent, along with as many as 35 more deaths. Based on historical fact, Cheney's novel brings to life a lost time in our history. Reviewed nationally on publication, it highlighted Cheney's friendship and literary connection to many of the Fugitive and Agrarian movement figures.

“LIGHTWOOD has the unimpeachable honesty, goodness, flatness, of a mouthful of cold, excellent corn bread.” Time magazine, October, 1939

“A superior novel of the South, exceedingly well-written…” New York Times, 1939

UK
US
CA
AU

[BelleZora]

I'm going to break the no self-published books unless you have read them rule. I haven't read Luz
by Luis Gonzalez, but the reviews, including those from Kirkus Reviews, Midwest Review of Books, and Palmetto Review, are so impressive I decided to chance pointing it out to you while it is still free. You can also check it out at Goodreads.

FROM PALMETTO REVIEW:

Cuban-American author Luis Gonzalez has offered a stylish and often humorous blend of history and fiction set against the dramatic backdrop of the Cuban exodus of 1994. Gonzalez tells his epic tale with notable depth and compassion, as well as an intimate and abiding knowledge of Castro's Cuba, allowing the reader to feel Clara's anguish at being forced to make a seemingly impossible sacrifice no matter which path she chooses. The author's characters and circumstances are at all times grounded and believable, an impressive accomplishment in a story touched off by a celestial visitor. Gonzalez writes seamlessly, allowing the reader to get lost in the world he creates, paying off all his premises with satisfying results, while never disturbing the reader's suspension of disbelief. Luz is a heart-wrenching but ultimately hopeful tale of sacrifice and discovery -- one of those few moments when both story and story-telling are of equal grandeur.

[BelleZora]

I'm stretching the definition of literary fiction, but don't know where else to put these free historical fiction novels. Evidently too lazy to start my own thread. Besides, I like this one.

The Nook Free Friday Selection is Night Swim by Jessica Keener, published by The Story Plant.

Keener's debut novel is a coming-of-age story that begins, like so many remembrances, with a voice from the past—middle-aged Sarah Kunitz is married with three grown children, but is called back to her own childhood when an unexpected email arrives from Mickey Fineburg, the boy she kissed under a broken pool table at age eight. The majority of the novel comprises vivid vignettes wherein Sarah recalls being a teenager in 1970s upper-class suburban Boston, the only daughter among three brothers. When Sarah's mother tragically dies in a car crash, the young protagonist is prematurely propelled into adulthood and its concomitant dramas of sex, self-discovery, and coping with inevitable loss. While each chapter feels self-sufficient, their loose ordering lends a dreamlike quality to the novel, appropriate for a recollection begun at a "deep hour" of night, when time "doesn't follow lines but circles and dips into underwater caves." Though occasionally belabored by grander themes for the most part left unexplored (e.g., Sarah's Jewish heritage and brushes with anti-Semitism), as well as unbalanced language (compare the weirdly comic description of a sexual encounter as "a quick, slippery ride" with the poetically strange notion of the sun resembling a fetus), Keener's evocation of a young woman coming into her own is nevertheless moving. (Jan.) -- Publishers Weekly

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nigh...=9781611881073

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DY0KT5O

Also free today from Butterfield Books (and first published in print in 1995)Trail of Thread: A Woman's Westward Journey (Trail of Thread #1) by Linda K. Hubalek .

Trail Of Thread is an historical fiction in the form of letters written by a woman in the years 1854-1855 as her Kentucky family traveled by wagon trail to the new territory of Kansas. Deborah Pieratt describes the scenery, the everyday events on the trail, and the task of taking care of her family. Stories of humor and despair, along with her ongoing remarks about camping, cooking, and quilting, make the reader feel as if they had pulled up stakes and went traveling with the Pieratts, too. But hints of the brewing trouble ahead plagued them along the way as people questioned their motive for settling in the new Kansas territory. Why didn't a Southern family have slaves with them? Would the Pieratts vote for or against legal slavery in the new state? Though Deborah didn't realize it, her letters show how this trip affected her family for generations to come. Author Linda Hubalek has paid meticulous attention to historical accuracy and background in this superlative fiction. --Midwest Book Review

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003VS0EWC/