RECOMMENDED: The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson is $2.99 right now. SO MANY DIFFERENT PEOPLE have told me about this book, and told me how much they loved it. I added this book to my list of “Bereavement Books” when I gave it a friend who is grieving, and she loved it, too.
A reluctant centenarian much like Forrest Gump (if Gump were an explosives expert with a fondness for vodka) decides it's not too late to start over . . .
After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his last stop. The only problem is that he's still in good health, and in one day, he turns 100. A big celebration is in the works, but Allan really isn't interested (and he'd like a bit more control over his vodka consumption). So he decides to escape. He climbs out the window in his slippers and embarks on a hilarious and entirely unexpected journey, involving, among other surprises, a suitcase stuffed with cash, some unpleasant criminals, a friendly hot-dog stand operator, and an elephant (not to mention a death by elephant).
It would be the adventure of a lifetime for anyone else, but Allan has a larger-than-life backstory: Not only has he witnessed some of the most important events of the twentieth century, but he has actually played a key role in them. Starting out in munitions as a boy, he somehow finds himself involved in many of the key explosions of the twentieth century and travels the world, sharing meals and more with everyone from Stalin, Churchill, and Truman to Mao, Franco, and de Gaulle. Quirky and utterly unique, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared has charmed readers across the world.
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RECOMMENDED – with reservations. A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton is $1.99 right now. This is the first book in the Merry Gentry series, which languished for years unfinished until news earlier last month that a new book was coming soon. I struggle with recommending this book because I enjoyed the first one a lot: political intrigue, mystery, and eroticism, whisk until blended. But not only is the series unfinished, but it goes off the rails in a hurry in subsequent books.
I feel guily recommending something that's not done also because, sadly, it's not likely to be done well when it's finished – I have little trust in Hamilton's treatment of her characters, and finished this series in my head long ago with mental fanfic that gave all the people I liked a HEA. Heh. That said, of the two Hamilton series, I liked Merry Gentry a lot more than mid-to-late Anita Blake, and this review from Diane on GR made me laugh: “It's like Game of Thrones, but with fairies and sex. I love it.”
Did you enjoy this book?
My name is Meredith Gentry, but of course it's not my real name. I dare not even whisper my true name after dark for fear that one hushed word will travel over the night winds to the soft ear of my aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness.
She wants me dead. I don't even know why…
I fled the high court of Faerie three years ago and have been in hiding ever since. As Merry Gentry, I am a private investigator for the Grey Detective Agency: Supernatural Problems, Magical Solutions. My magical skills, scorned at the courts of Faerie, are valued in the human world. Even by human standards, my magic isn't flashy, which is fine by me. Flashy attracts attention and I can't afford that.
Rumour has it that I am dead. Not quite.
I am Princess Meredith NicEssus. To speak that name after dark is to call down a knock upon your door from a hand that can kill you with a touch. I have been careful, but not careful enough. The shadows have found me, and they are going to take me back home, one way or another.
So the running is over. But the fighting has just begun…
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Paris Letters by Patricia MacLeod is a Kindle Daily Deal that's being price matched (merci, les faires) at $2.99. This is a nonfiction illustrated memoir of a woman who takes two years off and moves to Paris. This is also the exact sort of memoir I love when I'm mentally exhausted, because it gives me a peek inside someone else's travels when I'm too busy and/or to travel anywhere but my couch. Plus, the reviews are very positive – it has a 3.9 star average on GR.
“How much money does it take to change your life?”
Unfulfilled at her job and unsuccessful in the dating department, Janice MacLeod doodled this question at her desk. Then she decided to make it a challenge.
Over the next few months, with a little math and a lot of determination, she saved up enough to buy two years of freedom in Europe.
But she had only been in Paris for a few days when she met a handsome butcher (with a striking resemblance to Daniel Craig)—and never went home again.
A love story in the vein of Almost French and Lunch in Paris, Paris Letters (February 4) is a joyful romp through the City of Light, and an inspiring look at what can happen when we dare to create the life we want.
Realizing that her Parisian love affair would be forever, MacLeod began her own business on Etsy, creating beautifully-illustrated letters from Paris inspired by artists like Percy Kelly and Beatrix Potter. She now paints and writes full-time, bringing beautiful things to subscribers around the world and reviving the lost art of letter-writing.
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Lori Wilde's Jubilee, Texas, series is $1.99 each as a Kindle Daily Deal. I'm hoping the price matching faeries pay a visit, so I'm leaving the other retailer links up, though right now, the prices are only at Amazon (fingers crossed!).
The Cowboy Takes a Bride is book 1 in the series, which is small town contemporary romance – and each book in this sale is very popular with readers. All have a 3.5+ star average.
Ex-champion bull rider-turned-cutting-horse cowboy Joe Daniels isn't quite sure how he ended up sleeping in a horse trough wearing nothing but his Stetson and cowboy boots. But now he's wide-awake, and a citified woman is glaring down at him. His goal? Get rid of her ASAP. The obstacle? Fighting the attraction he feels toward the blond-haired filly with the big, vulnerable eyes.
When out-of-work wedding planner Mariah Callahan learns that her estranged father has left her a rundown ranch in Jubilee, she has no choice but to accept it. Her goal? Redeem her career by planning local weddings. The obstacle? One emotionally wounded, hard-living cowboy who stirs her guilt, her heartstrings, and her long-burned cowgirl roots…
Goodreads | Amazon* | BN | Kobo | All Romance eBooks
The Cowboy and the Princess by Lori Wilde is $1.99 as a Kindle Daily Deal. This is a contemporary western fairytale romance set in Jubilee, Texas, and it has a 3.7 star average. This book has been on sale before, too, so you may already own it. Have you read? What did you think?
(Please note: as of right now, the price is $1.99 at Amazon only, but I am hoping for price matching for everyone.)
Brady Talmadge was a cowboy with five unbreakable rules:
1) Never pick up a pretty hitchhiker
2) Avoid damsels in distress
3) Never order chili at a truck stop
4) Always trust your gut
5) Never tell a lie . . .
This is what happened when he broke all his rules . . . and got into a whole lot of trouble.
On the run from an arranged marriage, Princess Annabella of Monesta dons the guise of a hitchhiking cowgirl. But when she finds herself drenched, alone, and hungry, she has no choice but to trust the tall Texas horse whisperer who offers her a ride. He's like no one she's ever known–a strong sexy man who says just what he thinks.
And when one wild kiss leaves her breathless, she quickly realizes she'll give up everything to spend a lifetime of night times in his arms. But how can there be happily-ever-after with palace guards hot on her trail?
Goodreads | Amazon* | BN | Kobo
Lori Wilde's A Cowboy for Christmas is $1.99 today. This is book #3 in Wilde's Jubilee Texas trilogy, but some reviews indicate that it can stand alone. Readers loved the heroine and the hero in this story, and it has a higher star average than the first two. Both characters start out in really tough circumstances.
It's Christmastime in Jubilee, Texas, but Lissette Moncrief is having a hard time celebrating . . .
Especially after she accidentally smashes her car into Rafferty Jones's pick-up truck. Yes, he's a whole lot of handsome—from the tips of his boots to the top of his Stetson.
But he's no Christmas present. Lissy's not about to let herself get whisked away by his charming ways and words . . . only to watch him drive away in the end.
But what Lissy doesn't know is Rafferty's in town just to meet her—and to give her a share in a windfall that doesn't rightly belong to him. At first, he just wants to do his good deed and get out.
But one look at this green-eyed beauty has him deciding to turn this into a Christmas to remember . . . making promises he's determined to keep—whether she believes in them or not.
I’m sorry, but I HATED that Kiss of Shadows book, and I say that as someone who thoroughly enjoyed Anita Blake for many years. It’s just such a dawdling, tedious, navel-gazing mess that spends more time describing what people are wearing and coming up with new flowery, cosmic euphemisms for sex acts than actually moving the plot along. I couldn’t believe how bone dry the narrative was and how one-dimensional all the characters were. It’s like it was written by a robot fed the Sookie Stackhouse novels and a bunch of fashion magazines getting paid by the word. I bought it at full price and never bothered to finish it. Someone else might like it, but just take this as a caveat that having enjoyed other books by Hamilton doesn’t necessarily guarantee you’ll enjoy this, though the sale price may take the sting out of it if you feel the way I do.
@Dora:
No, you’re right, Merry Gentry and Anita Blake are VERY different. Early Anita, when she was a terrible dresser who didn’t have sex with everything that wasn’t nailed down (hur) is better than Merry, but for me, the Merry Gentry books worked because of the ways in which, initially, Merry was vulnerable, and the ways she communicated that she was scared. I was hooked trying to figure out what would happen next.
I wished, though, that the story had started earlier, so I could have seen her solving crime and hiding in plain sight, etc. I’m sure there’s “Merry Gentry Casefiles” fanfic somewhere, though.
I totally liked the first Merry Gentry book. She’s a fairy princess and a private investigator. What’s not to like? Don’t answer that question. I’m not saying there aren’t flaws, but when I was maybe nine I started an intensive detective novel diet, without having relinquished my obsession of all things unicorn and unicorn related, and this book, while not suitable for a nine year old, is exactly what I would have wanted my future self to read.
It looks like Paris Letters is by Janice MacLeod, not Patricia. (That’s teeny lettering and an awful font on the cover. That publisher has a lot to learn about ebooks, eh?)
The individual Lori Wildes are not on sale at BN, but you can get a box set of the 3 books for $4.99 – which is actually cheaper 🙂
Here’s the link
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/jubilee-texas-series-lori-wilde/1117447093?ean=9780062340641
“Thanks, fairies” would be “merci les fées” ;o)
(Also, merci pour tous les deals!)
And Amazon is now offering all three Lori Wilde ebooks in a boxed set for $4.74 here!
I’m yet another person who’s burned out on the Anita Blake books, but I totally like the Merry Gentry ones. While she and her cohorts have also experienced “power inflation”, it’s organic to the story. Most of them are recovering powers that they used to have, and she has a special mission from the Goddess. What I like most is the overarching story of the rebuilding of faerie. I love those moments when something happens that makes the world of faerie a little more of what it used to be.
I agree that some prequel stories would be great.