Kindle First

[ATDrake]

Just a reminder that this will probably be the last day to pick up one of the monthly selections, if you haven't already.

[Manabi]

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

The Good Samaritan by John Marrs [Genre: Thriller]

She’s a friendly voice on the phone. But can you trust her?

The people who call End of the Line need hope. They need reassurance that life is worth living. But some are unlucky enough to get through to Laura. Laura doesn’t want them to hope. She wants them to die.

Laura hasn’t had it easy: she’s survived sickness and a difficult marriage only to find herself heading for forty, unsettled and angry. She doesn’t love talking to people worse off than she is. She craves it.

But now someone’s on to her—Ryan, whose world falls apart when his pregnant wife ends her life, hand in hand with a stranger. Who was this man, and why did they choose to die together?

The sinister truth is within Ryan’s grasp, but he has no idea of the desperate lengths Laura will go to…

Because the best thing about being a Good Samaritan is that you can get away with murder.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

Laura isn’t your average suicide helpline volunteer—because she’s not there to convince her callers that life is worth living. She has something else in mind. With its hushed, urgent tones that captivated me as much as it did her victims, Laura’s voice is unforgettable. It chilled me to the bone, and the writing throughout was so convincing that I felt the same words whispered to her victims creeping through the page at me.

Ryan, husband of one of Laura’s victims, is determined to uncover this “Good” Samaritan’s twisted secret, to expose her lies and manipulation and ensure she is silenced. Their cat and mouse game was so expertly crafted that I found myself breathlessly reading to the finale, which was as gripping as it was satisfying.

Dark and incredibly suspenseful, with an absorbing prose style that reminded me of Donna Tartt or Tana French, each chapter of The Good Samaritan had me pleading for the next. But even after reading the last page, I find myself feeling wary when the phone rings. I can still hear Laura’s voice, soft and insistent, lilting and poisonous, coaxing me to give in.

- Jack Butler, Editor

What Remains True: A Novel by Janis Thomas [Genre: Family Drama]

In this mesmerizing drama, one life-altering event catapults a family into turmoil, revealing secrets that may leave them fractured forever . . . or bind them together tighter than ever before.

From the outside, the Davenports look like any other family living a completely ordinary life—until that devastating day when five-year-old Jonah is killed, and the family is torn apart. As the fury of guilt engulfs them, the Davenports slowly start to unravel, one by one.

Losing her son forces Rachel to withdraw into a frayed, fuzzy reality. Her husband, Sam, tries to remain stoic, but he’s consumed by regret with the choices he’s made. Eden mourns her brother, while desperately fighting to regain a sense of normalcy. And Aunt Ruth, Rachel’s sister, works too hard to care for the family, even as her own personal issues haunt her.

Told from multiple points of view—including Jonah’s—the family struggles to cope with unthinkable loss. But as they face their own dark secrets about that terrible day, they have a choice: to be swallowed up in sadness forever, or begin the raw, arduous ascent back to living.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

We all know a family that has endured tragedy or trial. How these families sustain or splinter is what defines their future. This is the premise that drew me into Janis Thomas’s compelling and heartwarming novel What Remains True. The author taps into a mother’s worst fear and keeps the reader turning pages with her vivid voice, full of sensitivity and grace.

The Davenport family is hurtling toward chaos after the crushing weight of the loss of a child. The novel is told from multiple points of view, and what makes it tick is that each member of the Davenport family holds a secret—a secret that may be a key to unraveling what led to the event that changed their lives forever. Their guilt just might bury them, or a whispered confession could set each one of them free.

This is the kind of book you stay up late to finish—whatever your morning alarm clock setting may be. If you enjoy being dropped headlong into the middle of a family’s story, feeling the weight and hope of their emotional journey, then I suspect you will love this novel like I do.

- Danielle Marshall, Editor

The Silver Music Box by Mina Baites (Author), Alison Layland (Translator) [Genre: War Fiction]

A captivating cross-generational novel from German author Mina Baites about a Jewish family divided by World War II and an inheritance with the power to bring them back together.

1914. For Paul, with love. Jewish silversmith Johann Blumenthal engraved those words on his most exquisite creation, a singing filigree bird inside a tiny ornamented box. He crafted this treasure for his young son before leaving to fight in a terrible war to honor his beloved country—a country that would soon turn against his own family.

A half century later, Londoner Lilian Morrison inherits the box after the death of her parents. Though the silver is tarnished and dented, this much-loved treasure is also a link to an astonishing past. With the keepsake is a letter from Lilian’s mother, telling her daughter for the first time that she was adopted. Too young to remember, Lilian was rescued from a Germany in the grips of the Holocaust. Now only she can trace what happened to a family who scattered to the reaches of the world, a family forced to choose between their heritage and their dreams for the future.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

At the center of this gorgeous, sweeping tale of one family’s struggle to survive World War II and its aftermath is a lovely heirloom that has been through so much. Crafted with care decades ago, the object carries the chilling history of persecution and exile of untold numbers of Jews who fled to places far from the homes they loved in Germany.

A little bird flutters to life when the silver music box opens, a symbol of comfort and love passed from father to son to remind the boy that no matter where his father may be, his love is always right there. But this sound of birdsong creates one of the tensest moments in the book: as the Blumenthals hide from the Nazis, that charming chirp could spell the difference between life and death. Each blemish on the tarnished surface, each ding in the silver, tells of a pivotal moment in the family’s story.

We accompany the music box as it changes hands and travels miles and decades, from war-torn Europe to the shores of South Africa and London in the swinging sixties. A simple music box carries the love between generations, even as the world tears them apart, and reminds us that no enemy is strong enough to sever the bond of family.

- Gabriella Page-Fort, Editor

The Unkillable Kitty O'Kane: A Novel by Colin Falconer [Genre: Historical Fiction]

When fiery and idealistic Kitty O’Kane escapes the crushing poverty of Dublin’s tenements, she’s determined that no one should ever suffer like she did. As she sets out to save the world, she finds herself at the forefront of events that shaped the early twentieth century. While working as a maid, she survives the sinking of the Titanic. As a suffragette in New York’s Greenwich Village, she’s jailed for breaking storefront windows. And traveling war-torn Europe as a journalist, she’s at the Winter Palace when it’s stormed by the Bolsheviks. Ultimately she returns to her homeland to serve as a nurse in the Irish Civil War.

During Kitty’s remarkable journey, she reunites with her childhood sweetheart, Tom Doyle, but Tom doesn’t know everything about her past—a past that continues to haunt her. Will Kitty accept that before she can save everyone else, she needs to find a way to save herself? Or will the sins of her past stop her from pursuing her own happiness?

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

What I love most about Kitty, the star of this riveting novel, is her complexity. Kitty is no one-dimensional heroine. She makes mistakes. She doubts herself. She falls for the wrong men. She flip-flops between believing it’s her destiny to change the world and believing that it’s just a fluke that she’s survived at all.

Kitty lives through some of the most treacherous and pivotal events of the early twentieth century—from the sinking of the Titanic to the Russian Revolution to the battlefields of the Irish Civil War—all the while riding her luck. Or is it luck? She certainly wasn’t lucky as a child. Raised in extreme poverty in the Dublin tenements, she barely scraped by.

Relying on her grit and smarts, Kitty eventually flees the grim despair of the tenements and tries to shake her harrowing past. She’s determined to do whatever she can so other young girls won’t suffer the same deprivations she did. Her path isn’t easy, but along the way she chances upon incredible beauty, hope, and love. And even when she’s completely disillusioned by the corruption and deceit around her, she remains true to her heart.

In these uncertain times Kitty is just the sort of heroine I need—someone unsure of herself, imperfect, but unwavering in her pursuit of a better world.

- Jodi Warshaw, Editor

The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves: A Novel by James Han Matson [Genre: Literary Fiction]

In raw, poignant alternating first-person narratives, interspersed with e-mails, gay chat-room exchanges, and other fragments of a youth laid bare in the age of social media, The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves unravels the mystery of a life in all its glory: despair and regret, humor and wonder, courage and connection.

A heartbroken and humiliated Ricky Graves took the life of a classmate and himself. Five months later, the sleepy community is still in shock and mourning. Ricky’s sister, Alyssa, returns to confront her shattered, withdrawn mother and her guilt over the brother she left adrift. Mark McVitry, the lone survivor of the deadly outburst sparked by his own cruelty, is tormented by visions of Ricky’s vengeful spirit. Ricky’s surrogate older brother, Corky Meeks, grapples with doubts about the fragile boy he tried to protect but may have doomed instead. And Jeremy Little, who inadvertently became Ricky’s long-distance Internet crush despite never having met, seeks to atone for failing to hear his friend’s cries for help.

For those closest to the tormented killer, shock and grief have given way to soul searching, as they’re forced to confront their broken dreams, buried desires, and missed opportunities. And in their shared search for meaning and redemption, Ricky’s loved ones find a common purpose: learning to trust their feelings, fighting for real intimacy in a world grown selfish and insincere, and fearlessly embracing all that matters most…before it’s gone from their lives.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

As someone who maintains a public Twitter account, I always think about how my followers might think they know me on a deep level even though they only read what I share through an app. What does intimacy mean if your only tie to someone is through a social network? What do friendships mean if they’re based on emails, texts, chats? James Han Mattson’s modern take on an epistolary novel forces us to confront the depths, nuances, and questions that arise when you strike up—or preserve—relationships online.

In alternating first-person prose, emails, gay chat-room exchanges, and texts, The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves tells the story of a small-town high school shooting from the perspectives of five people with differing relationships to Ricky Graves, the teen perpetrator. A tragic story about grief and guilt in the digital age, the novel deftly ties in themes of love, yearning, and belonging—themes that I immediately gravitated toward as I, and the characters in the book, slowly learned about the motivations behind Ricky’s crime.

Kirkus Reviews calls it “a moving debut about the intersections of rural queerness, the internet, and forgiveness,” and I couldn’t agree more. The tension between Ricky’s deep and unrequited love for his victim and his utter inability to properly channel his overwhelming and confusing emotions made it hard for me to put this book down. More importantly, it forced me to rethink how I treat my own relationships with the people around me in this hyperconnected world.

- Vivian Lee, Editor

The Night of the Moths by Riccardo Bruni (Author), Anne Milano Appel (Translator) [Genre: Suspense]

He’s finally letting go of the memory of his murdered girlfriend. Then he sees her texts.

Alice was a hopeful young graduate student when, on a beautiful August night, her body was found in the woods. She’ll always remember the night she was murdered. And she still suffers the grief and rage that destroyed her family.

But what Alice regrets most is the last fight she had with her boyfriend, Enrico—and the fact that she never had the chance to tell him something that would have changed everything.

A decade later, Enrico has returned to the provincial town where Alice lived and died, to sell his family home. All he wants is to forget. But then, among the things he left behind, he finds an old cell phone…and unread texts sent from Alice’s phone.

Now, her terrible secrets are about to swallow up everyone she knew, loved, and trusted. For Enrico, discovering them is his only chance to put his lost love—and the demons of his past—to rest.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

There’s no escaping the allure of text messages sent from beyond the grave, eerie forest settings, and a cast of characters that range from charismatic to shady to deadly.

As a superfan of both the original Twin Peaks television series and The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, I’m a total sucker for anything that’s reminiscent of either. So when I read Riccardo Bruni’s The Night of the Moths, I was thrilled to discover an Italian cousin to those works. But though it shares the sinister and otherworldly atmosphere of Twin Peaks and the victim’s postmortem narration of The Lovely Bones, this book has a charm all its own.

Enrico, boyfriend of Alice, the murdered young woman, returns to the Italian coastal town where the murder took place a decade ago to sell his family’s nearly abandoned holiday home and deal with the memories that have haunted him.

I read this book in one sitting, utterly captivated by the dark world that Enrico must navigate in order to discover the truth about his girlfriend’s murder. What is behind the villagers’ assumption that the crime was committed by a developmentally disabled man? Is the victim’s heroin-addicted brother escaping his own guilt along with his family’s tragedy? Why do so many of Enrico’s former friends treat him with suspicion?

I invite you to step into the woods surrounding this quaint and mysterious village and try to spot the culprit through the trees.

- Elizabeth DeNoma

[Wearever]

Thank's Manabi !

I'll need to think about these, most seem to have a dark theme.

[darryl]

I'm not too thrilled with any of these selections. I may go for the Good Samaritan in the hope of being pleasantly surprised or I may simply pass. It would not be the first time.

[DrNefario]

I don't normally bother. Since they're amazon published, they're always all available through the Kindle Owner's Lending Library if I want to read them, so I only get something if it really seems like I might read it in the near future.

[sufue]

Yeah, seems that way to me too - I'm not big on the "dark secrets/sins from the past" plot line in general. I thought Halloween was last month ...

Originally Posted by Wearever

Thank's Manabi !

I'll need to think about these, most seem to have a dark theme.

[Wearever]

Originally Posted by sufue

Yeah, seems that way to me too - I'm not big on the "dark secrets/sins from the past" plot line in general. I thought Halloween was last month ...

That was my impression too

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by darryl

I'm not too thrilled with any of these selections. I may go for the Good Samaritan in the hope of being pleasantly surprised or I may simply pass. It would not be the first time.

Yes, I feel the same way. I've decided to pass this month.

[badgoodDeb]

Yeah, I'm no tinterested in any of them this month. I hope they notice that their takers are fewer this month.

[Catlady]

I'll probably choose Good Samaritan. The author's previous book was already on my radar as a possibility, and I like the premise.

[Jenga5238]

I noticed when looking through this month's selections that the 3 I looked at didn't have Whispersync as an option. Do you think they'll add that later after we choose, or will it not be available? Usually I choose one with the whispersync since I usually do audiobooks and appreciate a decent deal on a passable listen more than a good read (no time for turning pages in my life these days). But I didn't see the audio additional option. Which totally ruins kindle first for me if that's going to be the case going forward. Thoughts? Projections?

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Jenga5238

I noticed when looking through this month's selections that the 3 I looked at didn't have Whispersync as an option. Do you think they'll add that later after we choose, or will it not be available? Usually I choose one with the whispersync since I usually do audiobooks and appreciate a decent deal on a passable listen more than a good read (no time for turning pages in my life these days). But I didn't see the audio additional option. Which totally ruins kindle first for me if that's going to be the case going forward. Thoughts? Projections?

I hadn't noticed that; even worse, when I looked just now, I saw that the Audible price for the books that ARE Whispersynced is $7.47--a considerable increase from the previous $1.99!

Sorry, Amazon/Audible, no way I'm paying $7.47!

[Deskisamess]

I let my husband pick which Kindle First book to buy. I don't think I've ever found one of them to be up my alley. He picked The Good Samaritan this month.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by Jenga5238

I noticed when looking through this month's selections that the 3 I looked at didn't have Whispersync as an option. Do you think they'll add that later after we choose, or will it not be available? Usually I choose one with the whispersync since I usually do audiobooks and appreciate a decent deal on a passable listen more than a good read (no time for turning pages in my life these days). But I didn't see the audio additional option. Which totally ruins kindle first for me if that's going to be the case going forward. Thoughts? Projections?

Since Amazon owns Audible and also published these, I suspect they'll be doing audio books for them all sooner or later. Worst case you grab one you think you'd like in the hopes they'll add Whispersync later and they never do. In that case you can just let the free book languish in your library.

I went with The Good Samaritan myself, but it was a best of a bad selection thing. I doubt I'll ever read it, I just like to pick up my free one each month.

[Catlady]

For those interested in the Audible books corresponding to the Kindle First titles: pricing has been changed. When I checked earlier, the Audible books were priced at $7.47 once you own the Kindle book; now the prices have returned to the usual $1.99 for five of the six books (the sixth book isn't showing any special pricing).

I got The Good Samaritan and preordered the corresponding Audible book.