Free (Kindle) In Legend Born by Laura Resnick [Epic Fantasy] + 2 KDP backlist finds

[ATDrake]

Well, once again that KDP select exclusive-or-else-but-5-days-out-of-90-free thing brings us nifty backlist sf/fantasy.

I still think it's one of those things which will backfire in the long run what with locking stuff into Amazon thereby increasing their increasingly virtual monopoly market dominance and reducing overall availability marginalizing people with other readers, but for now I'm quite content to take advantage of stuff which shows up.

I'm also sticking a backlist literary fiction and a romance and a crime thriller freebie afterwards, because I don't feel like cluttering the forum with extra threads for stuff I don't really care about which will probably disappear in a day and isn't an official time-limited publisher promo offering anyway.

As a reminder, that yellow exclamation!yield icon next to a thread title means something which I have reason to believe will disappear Real Soon Now, so grab it while you still can if you want it.

In Legend Born by Laura Resnick, daughter of prominent sf writer/editor Mike Resnick and a pretty decent sf/fantasy/paranormal author in her own right, judging from what little I've read of her work, is the first in her epic fantasy Silerian Trilogy, originally published by Tor Books in 1998.

This new edition includes a whole bunch of maps and extras, and is free for an increasingly limited time @ Amazon main, UK, DE, FR, ES, IT (DRMed).

The other books are a not-too-unreasonable-for-relatively-recent-late-90s-work $5.95 each, and available in the Kindle Lending Library.

Description
"I CAN TAKE CARE OF MY ENEMIES, BUT DAR SHIELD ME FROM MY FRIENDS..."

For a thousand years, the mountainous island nation of Sileria, wherein dwells Dar the destroyer goddess, has toiled under the yoke of one foreign conqueror after another. But now, as the empires which surround the Middle Sea battle for supremacy on the mainland, Sileria's long-forgotten dream of independence is reborn in the mystical visions of a fiery young sorcercess. The subjugated nation's perpetually feuding factions make their violent bid for freedom when a bold mountain bandit, a mysterious exile with a deadly bloodvow on his head, a seductive aristocrat, and a notoriously vengeful water wizard are all reluctantly united by prophecy, destiny, and necessity. If these treacherous enemies can maintain a truce, they might change the world; but betrayal has always been a way of life in Sileria...

** The first book of the critically acclaimed epic fantasy trilogy which continues with THE WHITE DRAGON and concludes with THE DESTROYER GODDESS

** This ebook edition contains Color Maps, as well as Directories of Characters, Settings, and a Glossary

There's also Shepherd Avenue, a literary fiction coming-of-age novel by Charlie Carillo, who's been freebied twice previously by Kensington books, which was praised as one of the best books of the year 1986 by the American Library Association, according to the blurb.

And True North, a contemporary romance novel by popular author Marie Force, who's had previous freebies offered from publishers Sourcebooks and Carina Press.

ETA: Dead Space (apparently not available to Canadians, and possibly not elsewhere; I thought KDP Select stuff was not supposed to be geo-restricted?), some sort of comedic crime thriller originally published by St. Martin's Press by fellow MR member Lee Goldberg who's probably the only one of us to have the distinction* of having his own dedicated Fandom Wank page, which I freely admit has provided me over the years with a level of entertainment which I sincerely hope his novels can similarly bring.

He's got a bunch of them available in the Kindle Lending Library, but at $2.99 a pop regularly, if it turns out you like his writing, you might as well just buy them outright and save your once-a-month borrow for the pricier more dubiously-enjoyable stuff.

* And totally not a glorified fanfic writer† despite having authored a whole bunch of Monk TV show spinoff tie-in books, because he got paid for them. Or something.

† Not that there's anything wrong with being one. Some of my favourite authors are actually glorified fanfic writers, whom I might not have discovered were it not for that.

[ATDrake]

3 4 more KDP backlist titles, since you're probably already looking at this thread to see the ones above and they'll likely all expire around the same time anyway:

The Bastard, a French Revolution-set historical romance by Brenda Novak, who also has a previously HarperCollins printed maybe-Regency/maybe-Victorian pirate romance available until 10 pm PST today in multiple formats without DRM at All Romance.

The Pearl of Paradise: A Romance Novella, a paranormal romance which may actually be a self-pub, but is offered by Jean Brashear whose contemporary fiction The Goddess of Fried Okra is currently free from publisher Bell Bridge Books for Kindle and in ePub at Kobo.

Bookmarked to Die: A Miss Zukas Mystery by Jo Dereske, who was paperback-published by Avon/HarperCollins starting in the mid-90s.

Bonus non-KDP Irish historical romance by Miriam Minger, who's kindly made it available to all on Smashwords instead of going with this exclusive-or-else lockout thing: Wild Angel, originally published in paperback by Jove in 1994 (also free on iTunes, for those who want a syncable version for their iDevice)

She's also offering a free iTunes iBook for children: Little Mike and Maddie's Christmas Book

ETA: Minger has also marked down a few more of her historical romances to 99 cents at Amazon (DRM-free), and will presumably promote them in other stores as well, since apparently the backlist author consortium she belongs to is holding a holiday sale.

Captive Rose (Crusades), Defiant Imposter (US plantation), Secrets of Midnight (generic Anglophile) all just 99 cents each (regular $3.99)

And one more freebie from formerly Dorchester-published Gemma Halliday, who it seems has yanked her "Hollywood" chick-lit mystery series from all the other stores in order to make them Kindle-exclusive (with DRM, sigh): Hollywood Headlines, formerly published as "Scandal Sheet".

ETA #2: Cynthia Wright is also freebieing without restrictions at Smashwords the 1st in her US Revolutionary War historical romance "Raveneau" novels: The Silver Storm (originally paperbacked by Ballantine Books), also on iTunes.

She's also offering two more of her Revolutionary historical romances on sale @ 99 cents each (same backlist consortium as Minger above).

Caroline (nook, Kindle, Smashwords), Touch the Sun (on sale for nook and Kindle only) both DRMed at Amazon