USA Today bestselling author Kate Danley tops today’s Buffet with her dark romantic fairytale, Queen Mab. The book weaves Shakespeare’s original text into a new fantasy about the redemptive power of love, so readers can experience the romance and passion of Romeo & Juliet from a different point of view — through the eyes of the bringer of dreams… Queen Mab.
Kate’s first novel, The Woodcutter, was published in 2012 and was honored with the Garcia Award for “Best Fiction Book of the Year,” the “1st Place Fantasy Book” in the Reader Views Literary Awards, and was the 1st place winner of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Her other books include the “Maggie MacKay: Magical Tracker series,” and the “O’Hare House Mysteries.”
As usual, each book listed here has gone FREE within the past 24 hours (except for the “Kindle Daily Deals” on page 3). Warning: Kindle book promotions can end without notice, so before downloading click the link “See Kindle price at Amazon” to verify that the book is still free. (Prices and availability may differ outside USA.)
Queen Mab
Fantasy > Fairy Tales
Author: Kate Danley, William Shakespeare
When Faunus, the god of daydreams, breaks the heart of Queen Mab, the queen of dreams, revenge can be the only answer. Using the most powerful families in Verona, they wage their war against one another, and place their final bets upon the heads of two youths, one named Romeo and the other named Juliet.
But when Queen Mab falls in love with a gentleman named Mercutio, everything changes and she will do anything, even if it means destroying the world, to save him. Will it be enough to stop the tragedy? Or only spur it forward to its terrible end?
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Louisiana Bigshot (Talba Wallis, Book 2)
Mystery > Private Investigators
Author: Julie Smith
Meet the hottest detective duo in New Orleans–she’s Queen Latifah. He’s Danny DeVito. Or they would be if this were a movie–in print, they’re Talba Wallis and Eddie Valentino. Talba’s got the beauty, the brains, the computer savvy, the poetic soul,the youth, the right demographic, and the sass. Eddie’s got the detective agency. Also a short fuse and yes, wisdom. Not only do they make it work, they’ve got chemistry.
And they need every skill and ounce of courage they can summon in this intricate tale of a decades-old conspiracy only now coming home to roost, with the murder of Talba’s friend Babalu Maya. Babalu is actually Clayton Robineau, daughter of the local banker in a small Louisiana town that bears her name, a town buried under the weight of its own malevolent past.
Something terrible happened to Clayton as a child, but it was far from the usual “something terrible”. As Talba and Eddie investigate, they find it was an injury—both pscyhic and physical–so bizarre, so shameful and damning that almost anyone in town would kill to cover it up. Or so it seems to the New Orleans duo as they dodge bullets and what passes for the law in this malignant enclave, fetid with the rot of its corruption, yet determined to keep its sordid skeletons buried.
It’s Really 10 Months: Delivering the Truth About the Glow of Pregnancy and Other Blatant Lies
Humor > Pregnancy & Childbirth
Author: Natalie Guenther, Kim Schenkelberg, Celeste Snodgrass
THE GLOW OF PREGNANCY…Right!
To: Moms (or Dads) to Be
From: Celeste, Kim & Natalie
Subject: It’s Really 10 Months!
No one ever tells you about all of the crap that happens to you when you’re pregnant. Like, for example, it’s not nine months, it’s ten long months. We are three thirty-something women who were fortunate enough to be pregnant at the same time. We shared our questions, fears, humor, and experiences through emails,which became our lifeline and virtual support group. Here, we share the good, the bad, and the ugly of our experiences. We do not hold back for the squeamish or the faint of heart—you need the truth, and now!
We are all social workers with graduate education, and we have all worked in the obstetrical units of hospitals for many years. Along the way, we thought it might be helpful to have someone sane weigh in on our hormonal ramblings, so we asked Dr. Bob, a specialist in high-risk pregnancies to help us out. But, we know that all of this experience is nothing like being pregnant yourself!
So prop up your cankles, rest this book upon your shelf of a belly, and check out our email log. We made it through the entire experience and lived to tell the tale—and you will too.
1000 Yards (John Milton, Book 1)
Thrillers > Espionage
Author: Mark Dawson
Meet John Milton. He considers himself an artisan. A craftsman. His trade is murder.
Milton is the man the government sends after you when everything else has failed. Ruthless. Brilliant. Anonymous. Lethal. You wouldn’t pick him out of a crowd but you wouldn’t want to be on his list. But now, after ten years, he’s had enough – there’s blood on his hands and he wants out. Trouble is, this job is not one you can just walk away from.
He goes on the run, seeking atonement for his sins by helping the people he meets along the way. But his past cannot be easily forgotten and before long it is Milton who is hunted, and not the hunter.
Paydown (A Leopold Blake Mystery)
Thrillers > Crime
Author: Nick Stephenson
Greed can be murder…
When a high-flying Wall Street investment banker is found brutally killed, what started out as a simple fraud case turns into expert criminologist Leopold Blake’s first ever murder investigation.
Now, with the financial world at the brink of collapse, Blake must put aside his differences and work with NYPD Detective Mary Jordan to find and stop the killer before it’s too late. As the glamor of Wall Street is stripped away by a series of catastrophic discoveries, Leopold will have to decide how much he is prepared to risk in order to uncover the truth – and whether it’s a price he’s willing to pay.
Final Mercy
Thrillers > Medical
Author: Frank J. Edwards
Dr. Jack Forester, director of the New Canterbury University Hospital emergency department, is struggling to modernize the ED despite fierce office politics, national media coverage, and the obstruction of the power-hungry new Dean, Bryson Witner, when someone tries to murder Jack’s Nobel Prize-winning ally and mentor, former Dean James Gavin, and make it look like a suicide attempt.
As Jack begins to uncover facts that suggest that Gavin is not the first victim — nor the last — of a terrifying murderer at large, he and beautiful hearing-impaired author and investigative reporter Zellie Andersen begin to uncover hidden truths, a furtive conspiracy and madness, while death becomes a desperately personal affair.
TODAY’S BARGAINS……………What’s this?
I Know This Much Is True (P.S.)
Psychological Thrillers
Author: Wally Lamb
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
With his stunning debut novel, She’s Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman’s painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal—this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world.
Reminiscent of a former football coach recalling his glory days, Howard’s booming, rich voice is a beefy compliment to Lamb’s powerful prose. Never to be mistaken as a ventriloquist, Howard makes little distinction when moving in and out of character–his voice barely cracks an octave for dainty female personalities. However, this understatement (so to speak) lends to smooth transitions and believable, down-to-earth narration. (Running time: six hours, four cassettes) –Rebekah Warren
Barefoot Summer (A Chapel Springs Romance)
Christian Fiction > Romance
Author: Denise Hunter
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
Madison’s heart has been closed for years. But one summer can change everything. In the years since her twin brother’s drowning, Madison McKinley has struggled to put it behind her. Despite the support of her close-knit family and her gratifying job as a veterinarian in their riverside town, the loss still haunts her.
To find closure, Madison sets out to fulfill her brother’s dream of winning the town’s annual regatta. But first she has to learn to sail, and fast.
Beckett O’Reilly knows Madison is out of his league, but someone neglected to tell his heart. Now she needs his help—and he’ll give it, because he owes her far more than she’ll ever know.
Madison will do anything—even work with the infamous Beckett O’Reilly—to reach her goal. And as much as she’d like to deny it, the chemistry between them is electrifying. As summer wanes, her feelings for him grow and a fledgling faith takes root in her heart.
Kill City Blues: A Sandman Slim Novel
Fantasy > Paranormal & Urban
Author: Richard Kadrey
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
Another day, another apocalypse
James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, has managed to get out of Hell, renounce his title as the new Lucifer, and settle back into life in L.A. But he also lost the Qomrama Om Ya, an all-powerful weapon from the banished older gods. Older gods who are returning and searching for their lost power.
The hunt leads Stark to an abandoned shopping mall—a global shopping paradise infested with Lurkers and wretched bottom-feeding Sub Rosa families, squatters who have formed tight tribes to guard their tiny patches of retail wasteland. Somewhere in this kill zone is a dead man with the answers Stark needs. All Stark has to do is find the dead man, recover the artifact, and outwit and outrun the angry old gods—and natural-born killers—on his tail.
But not even Sandman Slim is infallible, and any mistakes will cost him dearly.
The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat
History > Military > Korean War
Author: Bob Drury, Tom Clavin
Regularly $15.00, Today $1.99
November 1950, the Korean Peninsula: After General MacArthur ignores Mao’s warnings and pushes his UN forces deep into North Korea, his 10,000 First Division Marines find themselves surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by 100,000 Chinese soldiers near the Chosin Reservoir. Their only chance for survival is to fight their way south through the Toktong Pass, a narrow gorge that will need to be held open at all costs.
The mission is handed to Captain William Barber and the 234 Marines of Fox Company, a courageous but undermanned unit of the First Marines. Barber and his men climb seven miles of frozen terrain to a rocky promontory overlooking the pass, where they will endure four days and five nights of nearly continuous Chinese attempts to take Fox Hill. Amid the relentless violence, three-quarters of Fox’s Marines are killed, wounded, or captured. Just when it looks like they will be overrun, Lt. Colonel Raymond Davis, a fearless Marine officer who is fighting south from Chosin, volunteers to lead a daring mission that will seek to cut a hole in the Chinese lines and relieve the men of Fox.
The Misremembered Man
Literary Fiction
Author: Christina McKenna
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
The Misremembered Man is a beautifully rendered portrait of life in rural Ireland which charms and delights with its authentic characters and gentle humor. This vivid portrayal of the universal search for love brings with it a darker tale, heartbreaking in its poignancy.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2