Kindle First

[Catlady]

No contest. The Short Drop is the only one that holds any appeal at all.

[tubemonkey]

Short Drop it is.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

I will try Fourline.

That's the one I went with too, although I can't say it sounds all that great.

[Wearever]

Still thinking

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by Manabi

That's the one I went with too, although I can't say it sounds all that great.

Beggars and choosers, eh?

[Wearever]

Decided to go with " Burned Bridges of Ward Nebraska " something different & it's supposed to be a fun read, I'll try it.

[ATDrake]

Just a reminder that this is the last day to get one of the November selections if you haven't already.

[Blossom]

Thanks for the reminder I totally forgotten about this month's.

[TrevorViking]

I was positive that I had already bought the thriller book for this month, but just double checked and hadn't. Think I know what happened. For these pre-orders, at least on iOS, it's not a one click process. You have to 'buy' the book, and then also select delivery device. That screen looks similar to the thank you for your purchase screen, so I imagine that accidental non-purchases are common.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by TrevorViking

I was positive that I had already bought the thriller book for this month, but just double checked and hadn't. Think I know what happened. For these pre-orders, at least on iOS, it's not a one click process. You have to 'buy' the book, and then also select delivery device. That screen looks similar to the thank you for your purchase screen, so I imagine that accidental non-purchases are common.

That's exactly what I did yesterday. I was looking at my emails and noticed the confirmation wasn't there.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by TrevorViking

I was positive that I had already bought the thriller book for this month, but just double checked and hadn't. Think I know what happened. For these pre-orders, at least on iOS, it's not a one click process. You have to 'buy' the book, and then also select delivery device. That screen looks similar to the thank you for your purchase screen, so I imagine that accidental non-purchases are common.

For Kindle First freebies you have to do the same thing in a desktop browser.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

For Kindle First freebies you have to do the same thing in a desktop browser.

I always tell it to send them to my Kindle for PC instance. That downloads all the new stuff (sans library books) automatically anyway, so this avoids me sending them to the wrong device by mistake. Plus, I'm going to download them on it to put into Calibre.

[Manabi]

This month's Kindle First selections are out, they are:

Out of Sorts by Aurélie Valognes (Author), Wendeline A. Hardenberg (Translator) [Genre: Contemporary Fiction]

Ferdinand Brun hasn’t always been a grumpy old man. Many years ago, he was a grumpy young man. Now he’d much rather spend time with his canine companion, Daisy, than any of his nosy neighbors. But as his behavior becomes increasingly peculiar, his daughter grows concerned and begins to consider moving him into a retirement home.

In order to maintain his freedom, Ferdinand must submit to an apartment inspection by his longtime enemy, the iron-fisted concierge, Mrs. Suarez. Unfortunately, he’s never tidied up a day in his life. His neighbors, precocious ten-year-old Juliette and vivacious ninety-two-year-old Beatrice, come to the rescue. And once he lets these two into his life, things will never be the same. After an eighty-three-year reign of grouchiness, Ferdinand may finally learn that it’s never too late to start living.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

Aurélie Valognes’s charming and funny tale of eighty-three-year-old Ferdinand’s comeback from grumpy-old-mandom truly warmed my heart. It’s a balm for the spirit, a human chapter in the book of unlikely friendships, alongside kittens playing with gorillas or a monkey hugging a pigeon. It’s a book I’ll pass around to my friends and family, spreading the glow.

At best, old Ferdinand’s behavior around his apartment complex is playfully disruptive—after all, messing with his neighbors’ trash and playing tricks on his landlady, Beatrice, are his only pastimes since his wife died a year ago and his dog went missing, leaving him all alone. But no matter how high he cranks the volume on his turntable or how quickly he escapes the hallway to the quiet of his home, safe from neighborly chitchat, Ferdinand can’t avoid the new family next door. Ten-year-old Juliette comes knocking with the power of a person twice her size, and Ferdinand realizes he has no choice but to let her in. They take to sharing lunches and stories, and young Juliette’s kindness and curiosity help thaw his heart after years of winter. Her company bathes his world in a warm glow, shaking him out of his stupor.

This book inspired me to knock on doors—politely but insistently—and use young Juliette’s affectionate tone, trying to convince everyone to let this sparkling tale into their lives.

- Gabriella Page-Fort, Editor

Terms of Use by Scott Allan Morrison [Genre: Thriller]

Circles is the most popular social network in the world: vast, ubiquitous, and constantly evolving. Days before expanding into China, Circles suffers a devastating cyberattack—and a key executive is brutally murdered.

As he fights to save the company he helped build, top engineer Sergio Mansour uncovers evidence of a massive conspiracy that turns the power of Circles against its users. But as Sergio investigates, someone is watching his every move—someone ruthless enough to brand him a criminal and set a vicious hit man on his trail.

Desperate to clear his name, Sergio turns to Malina Olson, a beautiful and headstrong doctor who has an agenda of her own. Now, he and Malina must survive long enough to expose the truth in a world without hiding places, where a single keystroke can shift the global balance of power.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

What if our own data was turned against us? Author Scott Allan Morrison uses that question as a jumping-off point for his riveting thriller. Terms of Use is his first novel, after he spent almost twenty years as a journalist covering Silicon Valley. “I wanted to create a fast-paced, big-picture story that was exciting and, I hope, a little bit unnerving for readers,” he says. We’ve gotten so used to the idea of sharing our personal information online, but do we ever really know what happens to our info once it’s out of our hands?

The broad implications hooked me from the beginning, and the strong human element kept me grounded as I sped through the pages. The main character, engineer Sergio Mansour, is one of the good guys—or at least one of the “don’t-be-evil” guys. He isn’t a perfect hero, but his complexity is one of the reasons I got so sucked into this book. Sergio is proud of the work he’s done—creating better ways to connect people—and he sure doesn’t mind the prestige or the payoff that comes with his achievements. In fact, his moments of vanity had me on guard against liking him too much.

But when he uncovers evidence that someone has secretly corrupted the social media company he spent years building—and worse, pinned the deception on him—I found to my delight that his moral compass had survived success intact. Sergio is determined to clear his name and become a real force for good in the world. But if he wants to build a better future, the first step is to stay alive.

- Kjersti Egerdahl, Editor

A Death in Sweden by Kevin Wignall [Genre: Conspiracy Thriller]

Dan Hendricks is a man in need of a lifeline. A former CIA operative, he is now an agent for hire by foreign powers on the hunt for dangerous fugitives. It’s a lethal world at the best of times, and Dan knows his number is almost up. His next job could be his last—and his next job is his biggest yet.

The target sounds trackable enough: Jacques Fillon, who gave up his life trying to save a fellow passenger following a bus crash in northern Sweden. But the man was something of an enigma in this rural community, and his death exposes his greatest secret: Jacques Fillon never existed at all.

Dan is tasked with uncovering Fillon’s true identity—but can he do so before his own past catches up with him?

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

I still remember the moment I received a call from a colleague at Thomas & Mercer about A Death in Sweden. He was holed up at his local coffee shop with the book in his hands and told me he couldn’t come into the office until he’d finished it—it was that good. He sent me the manuscript right away. I read it in one sitting and didn’t need further convincing.

Within the first few pages, I realized I was in for something very special. I immediately fell under the spell of the author’s lean, cool prose and the mystery of a man who saves the life of a fellow passenger in a bus crash. This final act of heroism reveals a secret: our hero never existed.

Set amid a world of political wrangling and murder, A Death in Sweden depicts the lives of men who carry out governments’ dirty work—the kind intelligence agencies can’t or don’t want to do themselves.

This is no ordinary spy thriller: of course it is filled with action, intrigue, and suspense, but the emotionally complex characters and their motivations, murky pasts, and shaky futures are what give this book the heart and depth to make it a truly remarkable read.

- Emilie Marneur, Editor

Before Goodbye by Mimi Cross [Genre: Coming of Age Fiction]

Music means more than anything to high school student Cate Reese; it’s also what unites her with Cal Woods. Devoted classical guitar players, Cate and Cal are childhood friends newly smitten by love—until a devastating car accident rips Cal out of Cate’s life forever. Blaming herself for the horrific tragedy and struggling to surface from her despair, Cate spirals downhill in a desperate attempt to ease her pain.

Fellow student David Bennet might look like the school’s golden boy, but underneath the surface the popular athlete battles demons of his own. Racked with survivor’s guilt after his brother’s suicide, things get worse when tragedy darkens his world again—but connecting with Cate, his sister’s longtime babysitter, starts bringing the light back in.

As Cate and David grow closer, the two shattered teenagers learn to examine the pieces of their lives…and, together, find a way to be whole again.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

Reading Before Goodbye for the first time felt very much like listening to my favorite symphony (Beethoven’s Sixth, for the record)—the highs, the lows, the beauty, and the tragedy that coexist within the music. The story starts on a high with Cate, a young woman who is at the top of her artistic game, in love with classical guitar, and also a little bit in love with her childhood friend Cal, fellow guitarist and creative muse. When disaster strikes, Cate is thrown off the path she’d always imagined for her life and forced to find a new one. How do you pick up the pieces of your heart and move on when you can’t find a reason to? Cate discovers help where she least expects it and must rely on her guitar to learn to love again.

Author Mimi Cross pulls from her real-life experiences in writing this very personal story, and her voice echoes on every page. A lifetime performer and music educator, Cross understands what it means to lose yourself in a song, to be lifted away on a stream of melody, to let music carry you through tragedy. Cross has communicated through her music for years. In Before Goodbye, she shares that music in the written word through Cate, and it is just as affecting and heart wrenching as you’d imagine.

When I finished reading Before Goodbye, I let out the breath I seemed to have been holding for four hundred pages. This book is a journey, tense but riveting, tragic yet hopeful, and when it’s over, I hope you experience the same feeling I did: that overwhelming peace that comes when you’ve just listened to a piece of music that touches your soul.

- Miriam Juskowicz, Editor

The King of Taksim Square by Emrah Serbes, Mark David Wyers [Genre: Modern Fiction]

Seventeen-year-old Çağlar is just another apathetic teenager—except when it comes to his sister, Çiğdem, who he believes is the world’s most beautiful and brilliant nine-year-old. Determined to display her genius, Çağlar grooms Çiğdem’s talent into a perfect Michael Jackson impersonation and pursues a sure route to fame: YouTube.

Tragically, Çağlar’s efforts are sabotaged by a little incident internationally known as the Taksim riots. Now it seems that everyone’s too busy watching the people’s uprising unfold to click on Çiğdem’s video. That leaves Çağlar only one recourse: he will have to use the riots to his advantage. After all, who wouldn’t want to watch a child doing the moonwalk against the backdrop of political unrest? But as Çağlar strives to showcase his sister, he finds himself pulled into the heart of the uprising and discovers that he may just have talent of his own.

From bestselling author Emrah Serbes comes a hilarious, poignant story of a teen’s struggle to find his place and launch his sister’s star amid Turkey’s real-life fight for freedom.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

The King of Taksim Square is a triumph of humor in hard times. Author Emrah Serbes drops you into a riot zone—smoke bombs, code words, and all—and then adds a few belly laughs. This book is Turkey’s novel of the moment, the Gezi novel, making sense of the insanity of the Arab Spring through one funnier-than-average guy’s accidental run-in with the tumult of the Gezi Park protests that hit headlines worldwide in 2013.

Seventeen-year-old Çağlar doesn’t see a place for himself in the system or against it—all he sees are the obstacles between him and his little sister’s dream of stardom. She’s a Michael Jackson impersonator, and the way he tells it you’d think she’s the next Taylor Swift rather than a pudgy girl with average dancing abilities. In this country where East meets West, Çağlar makes light of the current state of affairs, dismissing political distractions to focus on his only goal: winning his talented sister the attention she deserves. But when the uprisings tear Çağlar and his sister apart, he works his way into every social scene in Taksim Square, rallying support from all sides in his search for his sister.

Emrah Serbes has the power to simplify a complex moment in current events—it’s no wonder his novel shot to #1 in Turkey, making him the voice of a generation, connected to the world not only through social media but also through Michael Jackson and TV talent shows. Critics compare him to J. D. Salinger, and for good reason—much like Holden Caulfield, Çağlar’s acerbic wit won’t soon be forgotten.

- Gabriella Page-Fort, Editor

Grave of Hummingbirds by Jennifer Skutelsky [Genre: Literary Fiction]

In the remote Andean village of Colibrí, a boy discovers what appears to be the body of an angel. But in the face and wounds of the dead, winged woman, Dr. Gregory Moreno sees something even more disturbing: an uncanny resemblance to his beloved late wife that cannot be mere chance. And in American anthropologist Sophie Lawson, still more echoes of the doctor’s lost love stir…igniting the superstitions of the townspeople, and an elusive killer’s deepest desires and despair.

When Sophie vanishes, her son and Dr. Moreno must navigate the streets, politics, and mysteries of a place where tortured ghosts and strange omens exist side by side with mortals both devout and corrupt. But they may need nothing less than a miracle to save her from sacrifice at the altar of a madman’s twisted passion.

Conjuring shades of Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, or even Neil Gaiman, Grave of Hummingbirds is a mesmerizing novel of dreams and demons, beauty and blood.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

Things are not exactly as they appear to be in this poetic and powerfully imaginative Gothic tale set in a remote village in the Andes. Against a gritty backdrop of betrayal, drug money, and a grisly series of ritual murders, Jennifer Skutelsky’s Grave of Hummingbirds is at once unexpectedly lyrical and a mesmerizing murder yarn. The novel is a seamless mix of horror, love, and a touch of magical realism, with a powerful sense of its unusual place.

The discovery of a body in the foothills of the Andes leads to an unfolding mystery and a race to find the perpetrator of the crimes. A local doctor, Gregory, becomes involved in the case when he realizes that one of the victims resembled his wife, who had died from cancer just the year before. The killer stirs again when the doctor meets American Sophie Lawson, a forensic anthropologist visiting her son. Before Sophie meets her own grotesque fate, Gregory undertakes a frenzied search across the mountains to find the man responsible.

Take a look inside the dark, edgy world of Grave of Hummingbirds. You’ll want to stay there awhile.

- Carmen Johnson, Editor

[booklover6]

A Death in Sweden looks good.

[Manabi]

I went with Terms of Use, thought it sounded interesting.