FREE/BARGAIN — Fiction (everything else)

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Get it before they split it!

Now available with its own axe! (Do not try this at home.)

[SomeSteve]

Exhalation (Stories) by Ted Chiang is $2.99 at Amazon US and Kobo US.

https://www.amazon.com/Exhalation-St.../dp/B07GD46PQZ

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/exhalation-4

[sufue]

The Sea and the Sand, which is the second in the McGann historical adventure series by Christopher Nicole, is aJoffe Free Friday book, and it's still free as of right now, Sunday morning, in California.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017KJOV3U
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017KJOV3U

Spoiler:

The Caribbean, 1800.

The spirit of Harry McGann lives on in his son Toby. Protecting Yankee shores from rogue French ships, he’s seen more action in his nineteen years than his father ever saw in a lifetime. But his destiny is set to diverge from his father’s in more ways than one. A chance meeting with the beautiful Felicity Crown, daughter of British navy-Captain, sets him on a path of reuniting the family with his father’s old foe.

Times have changed, however, and a new threat to American interests stalks the seas. Barbary pirates operating out of Tripoli have cast their net wide over the Mediterranean, disrupting trade, plundering merchant ships and placing men and women into captivity. When Felicity’s ship is over-run and Felicity herself sold off to harems across North Africa, the war with these pirates becomes deeply personal for Toby. He believes Felicity is alive and he is prepared to cross the sea and the sand to find her. But Felicity’s cruel masters will not relinquish her without a fight...

The Sea and the Sand is the second book in the McGann saga. A perfect novel for fans of Robert Louis Stevenson and Daniel Defoe.

[salty-horse]

Feast of Sorrow by Crystal King is $2 in the US. (Kobo, Amazon)
Historical fiction. Ancient Rome. Was on my wishlist.

Set amongst the scandal, wealth, and upstairs-downstairs politics of a Roman family, Crystal King’s seminal debut features the man who inspired the world’s oldest cookbook and the ambition that led to his destruction.

On a blistering day in the twenty-sixth year of Augustus Caesar’s reign, a young chef, Thrasius, is acquired for the exorbitant price of twenty thousand denarii. His purchaser is the infamous gourmet Marcus Gavius Apicius, wealthy beyond measure, obsessed with a taste for fine meals from exotic places, and a singular ambition: to serve as culinary advisor to Caesar, an honor that will cement his legacy as Rome's leading epicure.

Apicius rightfully believes that Thrasius is the key to his culinary success, and with Thrasius’s help he soon becomes known for his lavish parties and fantastic meals. Thrasius finds a family in Apicius’s household, his daughter Apicata, his wife Aelia, and her handmaiden, Passia whom Thrasius quickly falls in love with. But as Apicius draws closer to his ultimate goal, his reckless disregard for any who might get in his way takes a dangerous turn that threatens his young family and places his entire household at the mercy of the most powerful forces in Rome.

[sufue]

One of the Joffe Free Friday books, which I'm actually posting on Friday for once , is a just-after-WWII-ish war novel, Storm at Sunset, by Ian Hall.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073JFBQLG
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073JFBQLG

Spoiler:

The end is only the beginning…

Aircraftman Arthur Brownlow and his wife Joy are among the cheering thousands in London celebrating VE Day in May 1945.

But the young couple have heard the chastening words of Winston Churchill:

“We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad.”

Arthur knows that he is not, like many of his fellow conscripted airmen, about to be demobbed. He is to be sent to the Far East as a member of 31 Squadron RAF, which is equipped with a fleet of battered Dakotas ferrying supplies into remote jungle bases and bringing out a wretched human cargo from Japanese internment camps.

Even after the Japanese surrender, it’s grim work for Brownlow and fellow crew members.

They keep a stiff upper lip, but harmony is threatened with the arrival of a subversive Glaswegian docker Jock Patterson and his mutinous message.

However, life is not without its lighter moments – and wireless operator Freddie falls in love with Nelli who, following her release from internment, is working with the RAF. Her Dutch origins hint at the country’s history under colonial rule.

Resentment at centuries of colonisation, first by the West then by the Japanese, is coming to the surface, and the RAF men are soon to feel the backlash in the most horrific way possible.

Freddie is dropped off by ‘U for Uncle’ at a base near where Nelli’s father has been detained, but the Dak fails to return to pick him up.

What shocking news is about to emerge from Bekasi, where 'Uncle' forced landed? Can Wing Commander Brian Macnamara deal with the poisonous Patterson and get the squadron’s mission completed?

How do men react when they discover a loved one at home has betrayed them? Will the conscripted men of 31 Squadron ever be able to cope in Civvy Street again?

Ian Hall’s impressive Storm at Sunset portrays the RAF’s little-appreciated work in the aftermath of the Second World War – its all-too human face and the political and military backlash that affected even their essentially humanitarian mission.

There are also a mystery and a romance for free, posted in their respective threads...

[GA Russell]

The Bobbsey Twins Megapack

15 novels

99 cents

https://www.amazon.com/The-Bobbsey-T...dp/B00KX8HUOS/

[Quoth]

Or 18 free here: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/...t_search=Go%21
Likely need some reformatting, so the "megapack" (79p UK & Ireland) might be convenient.

[ZodWallop]

The Intruder by Charles Beaumont is $3 at Amazon (full price everywhere else).

The Supreme Court has ordered an end to racially segregated schools, and folks in the predominantly white Southern town of Caxton are prepared grudgingly to comply with the ruling. But when Adam Cramer, a handsome and smooth-talking young man, arrives in town and begins to make incendiary speeches and stoke the flames of racial prejudice, the situation quickly turns deadly. Who is Cramer, and what is the sinister truth behind his real agenda? As tensions build and violence flares, it all leads to an explosive and surprising conclusion!

As compelling and relevant today as when first published, Charles Beaumont’s The Intruder (1959) has lost none of its power to shock, and modern readers will find Cramer’s bigoted rhetoric eerily familiar in light of today’s civil rights debates. Beaumont (1929-1967), better known for his Twilight Zone scripts and his weird and brilliant short fiction, earned widespread acclaim for this novel, which was adapted for a controversial 1962 film by director Roger Corman, who contributes a new introduction to this edition.

[SomeSteve]

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (stories) by Alice Munro is $1.99 at Amazon US and Kobo US.

https://www.amazon.com/Hateship-Frie.../dp/B000XU4US0

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/hat...eship-marriage

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by SomeSteve

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (stories) by Alice Munro is $1.99 at Amazon US and Kobo US.

https://www.amazon.com/Hateship-Frie.../dp/B000XU4US0

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/hat...eship-marriage

This is the first book I ever read by her. A wonderful collection of short stories.

[sufue]

Joffe's Free Friday books for today, June 7, 2024, are usually available through the weekend, but occasionally not. So if you want any or all of these, best to grab them now.

Per the blurb, Eilís Dillon’s Across the Bitter Sea is an historical saga set in Ireland.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HHHBMC5
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09HHHBMC5

And the other two books are a mystery, and a non-fiction history, posted in the appropriate threads.

Spoiler:

Across the Bitter Sea is a compulsively readable novel in the great tradition of the historical saga, set in Ireland.

The heroine is Alice, a passionate woman of peasant ancestry. When a landowner, Samuel, falls in love with her, Alice’s mother agrees to the union. She has had to send two of her sons off across the bitter sea to America in search of prosperity, and knows this could also have been Alice’s fate.

In the turbulent years that follow, Alice sees the unfolding political events from both sides. She follows the career of a charismatic man of her own class, Morgan Connelly, whom she loves, and ultimately Alice’s fortunes and those of her children are inextricably linked to the Irish Movement in this expansive and absorbing novel of ideals and love.

[Cactus Chef]

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami is on sale for $2.99 from the usual vendors:

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/norwegian-wood-2
https://www.amazon.com/Norwegian-Vin...dp/B003XT603Q/
https://play.google.com/store/books/...d=1EhPf1ZptXwC
https://books.apple.com/us/book/norw...od/id420534299
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nor...=9780307762719

[sufue]

One of the Joffe Free Friday books for today (and usually through the weekend, but not always) is a historical novel by Deryn Lake, whose John Rawlings historical mystery series I've liked. But I haven't read this stand-alone, which isn't a mystery.

Pour The Dark Wine
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V52PHTQ
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00V52PHTQ

Spoiler:

Sixteenth-century Tudor England.

A time of intrigue and chaos, with a country ruled by a cruel and determined monarch. In Henry VIII’s court a rise to favour can easily be followed by a fatal fall from grace.

Four Seymour children of Wolff Hall stand upon Merlin’s Mound, said to be able to grant wishes, and make ambitious claims for their futures.

Edward, the eldest, wishes to own all the land he surveys.

Thomas, rakish and carefree, wishes to marry the highest woman in the land.

Elizabeth, their half-gypsy cousin, cunningly wishes for the wisdom of Merlin.

And lastly Jane, their plain but romantic sister, wishes that she will one day marry a king.

The four Seymour lives will be inextricably bound with the reign of the ruthless King Henry VIII and his sometimes equally perilous passions and hatreds.

Each of them will find their childish wish granted – but at what price?

All will be at the mercy of the King’s bloody reign and victims of their own ambitions as they strive to further the Seymour cause and believe that happiness can be found in power…

And there are also two thriller/mysteries going for free, posted in that thread.

[Tarana]

Inferno by Dan Brown $2.99 Amazon & Kobo

Book 4 of Robert Langdon series.

[salty-horse]

Just Inferno.