KDP freebie backlist round-up for 2012-01-21

[ATDrake]

Nothing significant in the KDP Select exclusive-or-else slushpile trawl, though we do have some nice minor sf/fantasy contributions and a rather nifty-looking mystery repub originally from Severn House, plus a good dose of Canadiana.

And the horror and romance readers should be happy, since they're getting more reasonable quality repubs and self-pubs by established authors.

Luli Gray has had a couple of YA fantasy children's books, at least one published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and both reviewed favourably by Publisher's Weekly and the Library Journal. She offers a sequel to those: Falcon's Dragon

Previously-featured Nebula award nominee Vera Nazarian offers a fantastic literary short story about the secrets which lurk in bookstores: Old Farts Her humorous YA fantasy tale is still free to all at Smashwords: The Witch Who Made Adjustments

Steven Savile, who has a story published by Phoenix Pick Press as part of their "Stellar Guild" series of established-writer + newbie novellas, offers : Of Time and Dust (The Sally Reardon Supernatural Mysteries)

Previously-featured Star Trek tie-in novel writer David Bischoff offers a 1st-in-planned-series gaming-based fantasy: THE DESTINY DICE (THE GAMING MAGI)

David Mark Brown has previously published some sort of sexuality and addiction self-help book for Christian publisher InterVarsity Press. I like his provided author biography, so I include his alternate-Texas weird adventure novel: The Austin Job (Reeferpunk)

I don't know this author, who seems to be another self-entry into the ISFDB. And I'm not really sure I can make sense of his rur-on needs-more-linespacing blurb. But I like the "publisher" name he's supplied and his comedic sf novel certainly looks cracktastic enough to get for the lulz: Alien Chicks In Citrus Bras And Stalkers From Beyond The Stars

Jacqueline T. Lynch says she's written short stories for literary magazines and has had plays translated and produced and maintains two history/theatre blogs. I'm not bothering to google, but I'm picking up her Celtic vs Roman Boudicca rebellion-based time-travel adventure with what looks like a romantic scientist threesome, because the convoluted synopsis makes it look like it might be cracktastically entertaining: Myths of the Modern Man

Pamela Ditchoff is a US-born Canadian resident poet who has apparently had some poetry volumes small-press published and a novel published by a minor imprint of Random House. She offers a fairy-tale based tale which follows the happily-ever-after into modern-day dysfunction: Mrs. Beast This actually looks fairly interesting and I may give it a try.

Elizabeth Thorne, who has had short stories in anthologies by Ravenous Romance et al., offers a set of probably-erotic fairy tale based steamy romances, some-but-not-all with BDSM and/or LGBT themes: The Gingerbread Dungeon

Samhain-published Aislinn Kerry offers a Halloween-themed paranormal romance probably-erotic short: Heart of Stone

Berkley/Five Star-published Annette Blair now offers the 2nd in her Regency historical Rogues Club series: Unforgettable Rogue

Signet-published Blair Bancroft offers a historical romance set during the Napoleonic Wars which seems to involve spies: The Sometimes Bride A couple of her previously Signet-published romances are available as DRM-free MultiFormat reprints from Ellora's Cave for only 99 cents each as part of their Values From the Vault sale, and she offers what looks like a mix of re-pubs and self-pubs also for 99 cents each via Smashwords (and thence to any other outlet to which they distribute). This is her only KDP title, and I believe at the current pricing scheme she gets the most royalties if you buy directly from SW/Ellora.

Lyons-paperbacked Judy Powell offers a Jamaica-set multicultural contemporary romance: Some Like It Hot

Victoria Lynne offers a Victorian historical romantic suspense originally paperbacked by Dell in 1993: With This Kiss

Zebra/Leisure-published Jennifer Malin offers a romantic suspense set at the archaelogical dig at Pompeii. I usually like archaeology and occasionally suspense, so despite my normal no-romo preference, I think I might actually try this one: The Five Day Dig Looks like she's made her other books available via both Amazon and B&N for $2.99 each.

Bell Bridge Books-published Kathleen McKenna offers what looks like a romantic suspense but may simply be a dysfunctional poor-little-rich-girl-has-horrible-things-happen-how-tragic-the-end sort of tale, since her BBB book was a ghost/horror novel: Nothing Left To Want Reviews are pretty ambiguous on where it goes, so YMMV.

Formerly HarperCollins-published Julian Jay Savarin offers his 2004 Severn House published Berlin-set Hauptkommissar Mueller murder mystery: Hunter's Rain (The Müller Series)

Canadian writer Cheryl Kaye Tardif offers a BC-set crime thriller which ranges from Vancouver to Kelowna, 1st in her Divine series featuring a team of psychic investigators, published by Imajinn who was a Read an E-book Week giveaway participant last year: Divine Intervention

Previously-featured maybe-self-pub Jude Pittman offers another Vancouver-set murder mystery with First Nations people in it: Bad Medicine Perhaps this one will be available to our neighbours to the south.

Canadian writer Mobashar Qureshi's short murder mystery story, a late addition to yesterday's list, is still free: Hemlar and the Telephone Repair Man

Previously-featured Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine Reader's Choice Award winner Dave Zeltserman offers a collection of his mystery/thriller/noir stories: 21 Tales His mystery/crime thriller, another late addition, is still free: Bad Karma

Previously-featured Ken McClure offers his 1986 Collins-published medical conspiracy thriller: The Scorpion's Advance According to his blurb, he is also a medical researcher himself, so hopefully that augurs well for not having silly science in his books.

W.D. Gagliani (ISFDB entry) offers a psychic cop vs kidnapping "hard-noir" thriller: Savage Nights

Anthony Neil Smith offers a previously Wildside Press-printed "noir nightmare": Psychosomatic

Previously featured Billie Sue Mosiman offers a previously-anthologized short story: Interview with a Psycho

Sheryl Nantus is a Montreal-born writer (ISFDB entry). She offers a horror short story set in the Canadian wilderness, previously printed in The Willows Magazine: Fool's Gold

Nathaniel Lambert (ISFDB entry) offers a horror novelette with praise from Fangoria magazine: The Horribles

Mainak Dhar, who was previously featured as a self-pub Indian writer who had some of his novels picked up for local print-republication, has a epic adventure post-apocalyptic novel from Severed Press, who've been doing those repubs for more established ISFDB horror writers, so: Zombiestan

Joe Schreiber (ISFDB entry) gives an introduction to this pop-culture spoof zombie anthology: New Dawn Fades (PMP Zombies)

Les Edgerton has an unusual mix of how-to-write (one of which we received free last year) and cosmetology print-published books to his name. He offers a prison buddy novel composed of rewritten short stories that have apparently been literary-magazine-published: Just Like That From the blurb, it may have some scenes of graphic violence in it.

Larry Stuart, as far as I can tell, has been small-press print-published by Pen Press (not to be confused with Poisoned/Flying/Flaming/Polished Pen Press) which seems to have a few other authors in its stable, so here's his Scottish Highlanders escaping to the Canadian Pacific Railway historical immigrant maybe-YA probably-coming-of-age saga: Highland Justice

It's not often that a book gets praise from a representative of The American Textile History Museum, and this looks decently educational, so if you know/have kids who could use some educating regarding textile history, this might be something to pick up: Amasa Walker's Splendid Garment by Emily Chetkowski, illustrated by someone whose name is too small and blurry to read from the cover image.

Gerald Houseman, who's written a number of folklore/mythology books for St. Martin's Press among others and says he's a winner of the American Folklore Society Award, offers what looks like a fiction collection but could be a set of gathered road-trip anecdotes: The American Storybag: A Collection of Tales

Mark Lord says he's the editor of a magazine for Historical Fiction and Alternate History. He offers: The Court in English Alliterative Poetry, 1350-1450 which I'm getting because I like quasi-academic works or attempts thereof.

Possibly of use to the people wanting to try classic lit: The Scarlet Letter: Student Edition with Chapter Summaries, Annotations, and Definitions Mind you, this guy's main credentials are that he has a university degree in Communications, but maybe he manages to communicate the point of the novel well enough.

For the aspiring musicians in the audience: Fifty Great Celtic Jigs, Volume 1 by Gregory Mahan, who apparently maintains a website on Celtic music, and includes the sheet music for said jigs.

It's not every day that someone offers a short story originally printed in a Mensa Society publication. Rosa Turner Boschen offers that and several more as part of her lit-fic-looking collection: Six Short Tales: New Beginnings

A.J. Davidson has written non-fiction print-published books on Irish true crime/legal cases which have received newspaper acclaim, if the blurbs are to be believed. He turns his hand to fiction writing and offers the lot of what he's written so far (mainly mystery/thrillers, but one historical-looking thing) if you're interested: Linkage to pull up all 7.

This is included because I like big lizardy things with teeth. If you do too, or know/have kids who do, then you may want to give it a try as well: The Dinosaur Name Game: A Dinosaur Pitcure Matching Game

If you don't already know why I'm adding this, you haven't been paying attention: GOODNIGHT DINOSAUR (Fun Rhyming Children's Picture Book)

If you know kids with career ambitions, this illustrated picture book may be for them: Maybe I'll Be A Doctor When I Grow Up

That's everything whose author/publisher I recognized, claimed author creds which more-or-less checked out, or looked reasonably interesting to me regardless.

Happy reading, if indeed you find something you think you might like.

[Shack70]

Thanks for the list!

[emellaich]

Thanks again

[phloxy]

LOL at the "no-romo preference." Thanks for the list, as always!

[GeckoFriend]

What does KDP stand for?

[ATDrake]

KDP=Kindle Direct Publishing, which is Amazon's platform for the self-published stuff.

[CWatkinsNash]

Zombiestan???

They could put nothing but the title on the product page and I would have downloaded it anyway.

Grabbed 13 from today's offerings. I think that's a record for me. Nice work, as always!

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Victoria Lynne offers a Victorian historical romantic suspense originally paperbacked by Dell in 1993: With This Kiss

I just want to say if you like historical beauty and beast type romances grab this one. I paid full price for it. I've bought all her back titles but this one is my favorite.

[Dr. Drib]

OK, another 20 or so books.

Thanks!


Don

[GeckoFriend]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

KDP=Kindle Direct Publishing, which is Amazon's platform for the self-published stuff.

Thank you

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

Zombiestan???

They could put nothing but the title on the product page and I would have downloaded it anyway.

Grabbed 13 from today's offerings. I think that's a record for me. Nice work, as always!

I'm not much for your garden variety zombie novel, but that is definitely a great title, so will likely read that one. Plus, not USA or UK which almost never happens!

[Blue Tyson]

The Slab by Jeff Mariotte

I've read this one, it is good.

Your standard psychic powers Salton Sea underground monster rednecks hunt women for fun and other trailer trash horror novel.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

The Slab by Jeff Mariotte

I've read this one, it is good.

Your standard psychic powers Salton Sea underground monster rednecks hunt women for fun and other trailer trash horror novel.

LOL! Sounds awesome! I just snagged it. Thanks!

With Blossom's rec on With this Kiss and this one, my total for the day is now 15.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

LOL! Sounds awesome! I just snagged it. Thanks!

With Blossom's rec on With this Kiss and this one, my total for the day is now 15.

[Britomart]

Unforgettable Rogue by Annette Blair is (no longer?) free in Germany, but the third volume in the series, Unmistakable Rogue, is free right now. Here is a Amazon.com link which I hope works.