FREE/BARGAIN - General and Historical Fiction, Literature - 2015

[Froide]

Happy 2015!
Happy New Year

We point out free and bargain general fiction and literature titles to each other. Please don't post any self-published books (unless you have read them yourself, think they are excellent, and you're not connected to the author in any way) and please do a search before posting to avoid duplicates.

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

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

[Here's the link to FREE/BARGAIN - General Fiction, Literature - 2014]

[Froide]

Reserved



WILL A MOD PLEASE CORRECT THIS THREAD'S TITLE TO READ THE FOLLOWING:

FREE/BARGAIN - General Fiction, Literature - 2015

Many thanks!

[Froide]

Happy 2015!

Cross-posted from the Kindle for Samsung Free Selections thread:

They're here!

These are the January 2015 Samsung Book Deals selections from the Kindle store (in the order in which Amazon presented them). Click on Samsung Book Deals to learn how this works.

• The Garden of Stones (Echoes of Empire Book 1)
  by Mark T. Barnes
  
  Regular Kindle Price: $4.99
  Genres (from BN.com): Science Fiction & Fantasy
  
  

  Overview (from BN.com)
  
  Shortlisted for the 2014 Gemmell Morningstar Award—Best Debut Novel
  
  An uneasy peace has existed since the fall of the Awakened Empire centuries ago. Now the hybrid Avān share the land with the people they once conquered: the star-born humans; the spectral, undead Nomads; and what remains of the Elemental Masters.
  
  With the Empress-in-Shadows an estranged ghost, it is the ancient dynasties of the Great Houses and the Hundred Families that rule. But now civil war threatens to draw all of Shrīan into a vicious struggle sparked by one man’s lust for power, and his drive to cheat death.
  
  Visions have foretold that Corajidin, dying ruler of House Erebus, will not only survive, but rise to rule his people. The wily nobleman seeks to make his destiny certain—by plundering the ruins of his civilization’s past for the arcane science needed to ensure his survival, and by mercilessly eliminating his rivals. But mercenary warrior-mage Indris, scion of the rival House Näsarat, stands most powerfully in the usurper’s bloody path. For it is Indris who reluctantly accepts the task of finding a missing man, the only one able to steer the teetering nation towards peace.

• My First Murder (The Maria Kallio Series Book 1)
  by Leena Lehtolainen (Author), Owen Witesman (Translator)
  
  Regular Kindle Price: $4.99
  Genres (from BN.com): Mystery & Crime, Peoples & Cultures - Fiction
  
  

  Book Description
  Publication Date: December 11, 2012
  
  Twenty-three-year-old law student Maria Kallio is recruited for a temporary position at the Helsinki police department. Sweet-faced but tough and hot-tempered, Maria faces pushback from her new squad – so when a young playboy is murdered at his family’s summer villa, the new detective is out to prove herself.
  
  Found floating facedown at the water’s edge after a night of partying, Tommi Pelatonen appears to have been murdered by one of his closest friends – but why? As Maria discovers, bitter passion and jealousy seethe under the placid surface of the group’s privileged, carefree lifestyle. As Maria uncovers the victim’s unsavory secrets, motives for all seven suspects come to light. Now it’s up to her to untangle the clues before the killer strikes again.
  
  The first book in Leena Lehtolainen’s international bestselling Nordic crime series starring Detective Maria Kallio, My First Murder serves up murder with a slice of life in the Finnish upper crust.

• Shattered Souls (A Caitlyn O'Connell Novel Book 1)
  by Delilah Devlin
  
  Regular Kindle Price $3.99
  Genres (from BN.com): Mystery & Crime, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy
  
  

  Book Description
  Publication Date: January 29, 2013
  
  From popular author Delilah Devlin comes the unforgettable heroine, Caitlyn O’Connell—a psychic ex-cop who’s hell-bent on redemption.
  
  Caitlyn O’Connell had it all: a career with the Memphis PD, a passionate marriage, and the satisfaction that her work made a difference in the world. But she also had a secret, a supernatural “gift” that cost her everything. Now she scrapes by as a private investigator, taking cases the cops won’t touch and counting down the minutes until happy hour.
  
  But when Sam Pierce, her former partner and estranged ex-husband, comes to her for help with a bizarre murder case, Cait can’t say no. And not just because Sam is still as irresistibly sexy as he was on the day they met. Something sinister—and demonic—is terrorizing Memphis, leaving a bloody trail of bodies and clues only Cait can read. Together she and Sam will venture into a dark world of magic and unholy terror, hunting a killer who will lead them to the brink of reality as they know it—and back into the thrall of their stormy past. Steamy and suspenseful, Shattered Souls is the pulse-quickening new offering from fan favorite romance author Delilah Devlin.

• Downard-Facing Death (A Matt Bolster Yoga Mystery Book 1)
  by Neal Pollack
  
  Regular Kindle Price: $3.99
  Genres: Mystery & Crime, Fiction
  
  

  Book Description
  Publication Date: September 6, 2012
  
  Blessed with uncanny deductive skills and a blasé disregard for authority, Matt Bolster was a rising LAPD homicide detective by the age of thirty-five. He was also overworked, divorced, near-alcoholic, and miserable. Then, to impress a girl, he agreed to try yoga. And with a single savasana, everything changed.
  
  Now Bolster has traded his badge and gun for a scraggly beard and the life of an itinerant yoga teacher, dabbling in P.I. work to make rent. He mostly handles missing-persons cases, credit-card fraud – nothing too messy. But that’s before Ajoy Chaterjee, the billionaire founder of one of the world’s leading yoga-business empires, is found murdered inside his West L.A. flagship studio. Bolster knows the LAPD doesn’t have a prayer of cracking the secrets of the yoga world. But he does, and he really needs the dough.
  
  Of course, sticking to the principles of the yamas and niyamas during a murder investigation isn’t easy, especially with so many hot women among the suspects. But personal ethics will be the least of Bolster’s problems if the killer finds him first.
  
  Episode List
  This book was initially released in episodes as a Kindle Serial. All episodes are now available for immediate download as a complete book. Learn more about Kindle Serials.

[koland]

A thread for 2015.

We point out free and bargain Historical Fiction 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.

[koland]

Books 1, 6 & 7 in Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Tales series are on sale for $1.99 each.

http://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Cornwe...price-asc-rank

[Manabi]

Cross posted from the Science Fiction & Fantasy thread because these are mostly historical novels, especially the freebie and the first combo deal.

Phoenix Pick's free book of the month for January is An Elephant for Aristotle by L. Sprague de Camp.

"An amazing narrative vehicle for the display of ... a fairly complete composite of the life and times of which the author writes." —The Chicago Daily Tribune

"By hybridizing a Middle-Eastern travelogue with an Alexandrine comedy of manners, the author has produced a specimen only slightly less rare then [sic] elephants in Westchester—to wit, a historical novel with a sense of humor."—The New York Times

What finer way for Alexander the Great to honor his old tutor Aristotle than to send him an actual Indian elephant?

After capturing a magnificent specimen from an Indian ruler, Alexander tasks Leon of Atrax, a cavalry commander, to deliver the animal to Aristotle in Athens. Leon leads a motley crew of companions (and the elephant) from India to Greece, encountering all sorts of dangers and adventures while attempting the long and arduous journey.

Additionally there are two combo deals. The first one is $10+ and includes the above book along with the other four of de Camp's historicals.

The Bronze God of Rhodes

Spoiler:

The Bronze God of Rhodes is written as the memoirs of Chares of Lindos, a Greek sculptor born on the island of Rhodes. A pupil of Lysippos, Chares eventually built the Colossus of Rhodes, now considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

These memoirs present the trials and tribulations (some of them hilarious) of the sculptor as he undertakes various projects and is forced into a number of adventures, particularly in Ptolemaic Egypt.

This is the second historical novel that L. Sprague de Camp wrote, drawing upon his extensive and detailed historical knowledge of the period.

The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate

Spoiler:

Bessas of Zariaspa is a young officer in the Immortals regiment, sworn to protect and obey his King at all costs. The King wishes immortality and to that end tasks Bessas to find items that make an immortality potion, including the blood of a dragon and the ear of a king.

The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate is a swashbuckling historical novel with larger-than-life characters, set in a detailed historical background that only a scholar such as de Camp can create.

This is the third historical novel L. Sprague de Camp wrote, drawing upon his extensive and detailed historical knowledge of the period.

The Arrows of Hercules

Spoiler:

Set in the time of Dionysios I of Syracuse, at the beginning of the 4th century BC, The Arrows of Hercules tells the tale of Zopyros of Tarentum, an engineer who invents an improved type of catapult.

He is quickly drafted by Dionysios into Syracuse's war efforts against Carthage, which sets him on a series of adventures including a battle against Etruscan pirates and a kidnapping in Carthage.

L. Sprague's meticulous attention to historical accuracy makes this a remarkable read which entertains as much as it teaches us about fascinating events that shaped the course of history.

"Exciting and quite believable adventures." —Classical World

"Rousing piece of fiction ... pace is rapid and unrelenting." —The Arizona Republic

"Highly Recommended ... intriguing novel." —Library Journal

The Golden Wind

Spoiler:

The Golden Wind is the last of the five classic historicals de Camp wrote (both historically and chronologically). The novel tells of the early adventures of Eudoxus of Cyzicus and Hippalus in their original voyages from Egypt to India by sea.

Eudoxus was a Greek navigator who is credited with exploring and mapping the Arabian sea for Egyptian ruler Ptolemy VIII, and Hippalus is, according to legend, the captain of Eudoxus’ ship during these explorations.

Following the successful exploration of the route to India, Eudoxus decides to break the Egyptian monopoly on trade with India by sailing around Africa, and encounters a myriad of different adventures and misfortunes as their ship attempts to circumnavigate the great continent.

"A tale of high adventure, rich in historical lore and erudite in the telling. Of Mr. de Camp's ... novels, this may well be the most ambitious and quite possibly the best." —Publishers Weekly

The second deal is $15+ and includes all of the above novels, plus three more de Camp novels.

The Glory That Was

Spoiler:

A true tour de force for de Camp, The Glory That Was brings together many of the themes the author excelled in writing about, including time travel and alternate history.

Earth in the twenty-seventh century is ruled by a constitutional monarchy, though both the World Emperor and his Prime Minister have plans to assume greater power by neutralizing the other. In the power struggle that follows, the Emperor is ceded total control of Greece for a secret experiment that has Greece cut off from the rest of the world by a force-field and people of Greek descent being kidnapped around the whole world.

When the wife of a prominent classical scholar disappears, he vows to get her back and he and his friend plan a way inside the barrier surrounding Greece. But they are hardly prepared for what they find inside ... a Greece reverted back to ancient times.

Rogue Queen

Spoiler:

Rogue Queen is a ground-breaking novel by L. Sprague de Camp that was one of the first science fiction books to deal with sexual themes, paving the way for more daring works by future authors.

Part of the Viagens Interplanetarias series, the story takes place on a planet circling the star Lalande 21185, also known as Ormazd. When humans arrive on the planet they find a hive-like society with a hyper-fertile queen being serviced by male drones.

All the other females of the species are infertile, or so it is believed. However, when one of the worker females rebels she discovers that the workers' infertility is largely a result of the diet they follow.

Lest Darkness Fall & Related Stories
(Related Stories by Frederik Pohl, David Drake and S.M. Stirling.)

Spoiler:

Rarely do books have such a great influence on a genre as Lest Darkness Fall has had on science fiction. Frequently quoted as one of the “favorite” books of many of the masters of the field, this book by L. Sprague de Camp helped establish time-travel as a solid sub-genre of science fiction.

An indication of the influence and longevity of the book is the number of best-selling writers who have written stories in direct response to, or been influenced by, Lest Darkness Fall. This new volume includes three such stories by Frederik Pohl, David Drake and S. M. Stirling written over a period of forty-three years—a testament to the timelessness of the book.

Similar, thematically, to Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, the book tells the tale of Martin Padway who, as he is walking around in modern Rome, is suddenly transported though time to 6th Century Rome.

Once in ancient Rome, Padway (now Martinus Paduei, Quaestor), embarks on an ambitious project of single-handedly changing history.

L. Sprague de Camp was a student of history (and the author of a number of popular works on the subject). In Lest Darkness Fall he combines his extensive knowledge of the workings of ancient Rome with his extraordinary imagination to create one of the best books of time travel ever written.

“Endlessly fascinating. The author knows a lot about Gothic Italy and almost as much about human nature, and he has a real gift for making the people of those days come alive.” —The New York Times

“Lest Darkness Fall [is] one of the best time travel stories ever written …” —A Reader’s Guide to Science Fiction

“Good fun.” —The New Yorker

“A work of real and stimulating imagination.” —Saturday Review of Literature

All the bundles are listed on the same page as the freebie

[Dr. Drib]

Got the freebie.

Thank you!

[jscarbo]

Thanks, Manabí. I love DeCamp and have read all of the included books in the past but all are worth re-reading and I'm happy to have them in ebook form. I bought the entire package and look forward to many hours of reading pleasure.

Although off-topic as historical fiction, for fantasy fans I also highly recommend L. Sprague DeCamp and Fletcher Pratt's Harold Shea stories which have been re-printed so many times in different editions and with different titles that it's hard to find a good link to post for them. Many are out of print but Baen is in process of re-publishing them in a single collected ebook edition scheduled for release later this month: http://www.baenebooks.com/p-2557-the...enchanter.aspx

You can read about series here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shea

[Apache]

Originally Posted by jscarbo

Thanks, Manabí. I love DeCamp and have read all of the included books in the past but all are worth re-reading and I'm happy to have them in ebook form. I bought the entire package and look forward to many hours of reading pleasure.

Although off-topic as historical fiction, for fantasy fans I also highly recommend L. Sprague DeCamp and Fletcher Pratt's Harold Shea stories which have been re-printed so many times in different editions and with different titles that it's hard to find a good link to post for them. Many are out of print but Baen is in process of re-publishing them in a single collected ebook edition scheduled for release later this month: http://www.baenebooks.com/p-2557-the...enchanter.aspx

You can read about series here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shea

I did not know that Baen was publishing this. I am putting it on my To Buy List. Thank you for the information.
Apache

[AwfulWaffle]

The Random House edition (not Rosetta books) of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle is $2.99 at Amazon, Google Play, and likely elsewhere.

[sufue]

This book was listed as a US Kindle Countdown deal in the "Mystery, Thriller & Suspense" category, but looks more like historical fiction to me...

A Fragile Peace by Paul Bannister is, per the blurb on the website, the fifth book in Paul Bannister’s best-selling ‘Arthur Britannicus’ series, chronicling the life of King Arthur in ancient Britain.

It is $0.99 for about 3 1/3 more days, before going up to $3.99.

link: http://www.amazon.com/Fragile-Peace-.../dp/B00LFW9UF8

Spoiler:

After forming a truce with Constantine, the Emperor of Rome, King Arthur of Britain feels confident in his newly established rule.

His people are united under his banner, the pagan and the Christian living together as one in his lands, and there seems to be nothing left to do but celebrate his triumph.

But a storm is brewing, both within the kingdom and outside it.

A terrible plague spreads through the land, killing thousands and weakening Arthur’s army.

And a rival warlord is gaining power, inciting those on Britain’s borders to mount an attack.

Can Arthur rally enough men to his side to stop the threat of war?

Or will his fragile peace be shattered?

‘A Fragile Peace’ is the fifth book in Paul Bannister’s best-selling ‘Arthur Britannicus’ series, chronicling the life of King Arthur in ancient Britain. It is perfect for fans of Conn Iggulden, Ben Kane and Simon Scarrow.

‘I enjoyed A Fragile Peace for several reasons: its ability to bring this historical period alive in all its splendour and brutality, its pace and its successful handling of the first person narrative.’ - Helen McCabe, author of ‘The Price of Beauty’.

'A thrilling story which weaves together both history and legend.' - Richard Foreman, best-selling author of the Swords of Rome series.

'A fantastic insight into Roman life.' - Tom Kasey, best-selling author of 'The Dante Conspiracy'.

Paul Bannister is a journalist and author. His other books in the series are 'Arthur Britannicus', 'Arthur Imperator', ‘Arthur Invictus’ and ‘The King’s Cavalry’.

[ATDrake]

Free again from the author @ Amazon (not KDP Select, but also not price-matched to anywhere obvious that I can spot from Canada):

Goobersville Breakdown by novelist, film director, and Cornell University Physics faculty member Robert H. Lieberman (ISFDB, IMDB, Wikipedia), his quirky satirical contemporary literary fiction novel originally out from Gamma Books in 1979. This has quoted praise from various newspaper outlets in the blurb.

Best-selling novelist and award-winning film director Robert H. Lieberman takes readers on a hilarious, non-stop ride as they follow the mad travails of Neil Nudelman, down-and-out in Goobersville, New York.

Desperate to support his wife and two children, Nudelman tries his hand at countless jobs, palming himself off as a carpenter, ghost writer for a wealthy businessman, and even attempts selling himself to the Chinese. At war with his bizarre neighbors the Szorsky’s, Nudelman contemplates justifiable homicide.

Now in it’s fourth edition, the laughs are as fast and funny as ever, the pathos heart-breaking.

[issybird]

Beet by Roger Rosenblatt has dropped to 99¢ for Kindle from $8.89.

Beet is in the genre of campus humor and it's by a prize-winning author. I like campus humor and I very much liked Rosenblatt's memoir of childhood, but I'm on the fence about this, as the reader reviews are all over the place for only an anemic 2.8-star average at Amazon. But I thought I'd put it out there for fellow fans of Lucky Jim, The Straight Man et al.

[Wearever]

Thanks Sufue,

I'll try this series with " Fragile Peace " I like the legend of King Arthur. This book looks interesting.

[Little.Egret]

Trial By Fire by Richard Townsend Bickers

1939 and Roger Hallowes, an RAF sergeant pilot returns to the hangars with his comrades from B Squadron to see who else had returned from the latest attack.

The arithmetic Roger did to calculate his chances of surviving another half-dozen operations gave him no comfort.

Endeavour Press reprint, originally published as 'The Gifts of Jove'.

Richard Townsend Bickers volunteered for the RAF on the outbreak of the second world war and served, with a Permanent Commission, for eighteen years. He wrote a range of military fiction and non-fiction books, including `Torpedo Attack', `My Enemy Came Nigh', `Bombing Run' and `Summer of No Surrender'.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QS15ZUA/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00QS15ZUA/
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00QS15ZUA/