Books On Sale

Highly-Rated Fantasy and Historicals on Sale

  • The Pretenders

    The Pretenders by Joan Wolf

    The Pretenders by Joan Wolf is .99 right now. This is a Regency historical originally published in 1999 and has a 3.7-star average. There’s a lot of catnip in this book, too: childhood best friends in a pretend engagement, and a hero who is being forced to marry in order to secure his inheritance.

    Deborah Woodly agreed to a pretend engagement with Reeve, Earl of Cambridge, because his straitlaced uncle wouldn’t let him touch his inheritance before his 26th birthday. Not unless he contracted a marriage, which would presumably “settle” him. Deb and Reeve promised not to fall in love, or marry, but to ultimately declare they wouldn’t suit. Broken promises, but also someone was trying to kill Deb.

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  • Kingdom of Summer

    Kingdom of Summer by Gillian Bradshaw

    Kingdom of Summer by Gillian Bradshaw is $2.99 right now. This is book 2 in the Down the Long Wind series, which was originally published in 1992. Book 1, Hawk of May ( A | K | G | AB | Scribd ), is also $2.99 right now. Kingdom of Summer has a 3.9-star average, and readers who read both say that they liked Summer better, but that Hawk set the series up well enough that starting with book 1 is advisable.

    Note: this is more historical fiction/fantasy than it is romance, but I know many of you are fans of both genres, and I didn’t want you to miss out!

    On the path toward greatness, even a hero makes mistakes.

    Armed with his magical sword and otherworldly horse, Gwalchmai proves himself the most feared and faithful warrior of Arthur’s noble followers. But while defending the kingdom, he commits a grave offense against the woman he loves, leading her to disappear from his life and haunt his memories.

    With his trusted servant, Rhys, a commonsense peasant, Gwalchmai tries to find her in the Kingdom of Summer, where Arthur has sent him. But an unexpected and most malevolent force of evil and darkness is loose-that of his mother, the witch-queen Morgawse-and Gwalchmai finds that the secrets of his past may deny him peace…

    In the second book of Gillian Bradshaw’s critically acclaimed trilogy, Sir Gawain comes to life as Gwalchmai, startlingly human yet fantastically heroic.

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  • Lady of Devices

    Lady of Devices by Shelley Adina

    Lady of Devices by Shelly Adina is free right now – free, cheesy bread, free! This is a steampunk historical (which you probably gathered from the cover and the title) and it has a 3.8 average on GoodReads. The heroine is a properly raised young lady who is gifted in chemistry, and finds herself relying on her wits when her father loses everything.

    This is book 1 of the Magnificent Devices series, which is currently 8 books long, and each book has a higher rating on GoodReads than the last. Have you read this series?

    London, 1889. Victoria is Queen. Charles Darwin’s son is Prime Minister. And steam is the power that runs the world. At 17, Claire Trevelyan, daughter of Viscount St. Ives, was expected to do nothing more than pour an elegant cup of tea, sew a fine seam, and catch a rich husband. Unfortunately, Claire’s talents lie not in the ballroom, but in the chemistry lab, where things have a regrettable habit of blowing up. When her father gambles the estate on the combustion engine and loses, Claire finds herself down and out on the mean streets of London. But being a young woman of resources and intellect, she turns fortune on its head. It’s not long before a new leader rises in the underworld, known only as the Lady of Devices . . . When she meets Andrew Malvern, a member of the Royal Society of Engineers, she realizes her talents may encompass more than the invention of explosive devices. They may help her realize her dreams and his . . . if they can both stay alive long enough to see that sometimes the closest friendships can trigger the greatest betrayals . . .

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Comments are Closed

  1. Christina McPants says:

    I love the Lady of Devices series! They’re thoroughly enjoyable fluff. They aren’t really romance, but steampunk good times. Buy the box set to save money, since these are potato chips books.

  2. Jamie says:

    Has any of the Bitchery read Joan Wolf? I figured I’d take a stab at it since it’s only 99 cents, but I’ve never read her and was curious if there were other opinions.

  3. Kimberly R says:

    The first one (The Pretenders by Joan Wolf)-is that really what the back cover says? Because I’m not a fan of the way it’s worded, especially the last line: “Broken promises, but also someone was trying to kill Deb.” This really makes me not want to read the book, just in case the whole book is like this.

  4. JaneL says:

    Joan Wolf is one of my favorite authors. While I think this one is from her backlist (I read it a while back but don’t really remember it), I think she’s gone back to writing Regencies. I need to check them out and see if she’s still got it.

  5. Lily LeFevre says:

    Not romance but a kickass ladies in history that was reviewed here: Liar Temptress Soldier Spy is on sale for 2.99!!! Not sure if it’s a daily or linger but i snatched up a copy straightaway 🙂

  6. Katie Lynn says:

    The lady of devices series is a lot of fun. I think I’ve read through book six? I would have to check my kindle. Also, I believe these are available in an omnibus edition that would save someone who wants to buy more of the series a few dollars.

  7. Bea says:

    Joan Wolf is also one of my favourite authors. Many of her heroines and heroes are horse mad and that adds an extra something for me. I’m reading The Deception (also from her backlist) right now and enjoying it a lot!

  8. Egged says:

    Just finished the Joan Wolf book and it’s great. The blurb is bizarre and not indicative of the writing style. It’s written in first person, and normally that bothers me, but I really liked the no-nonsense heroine’s narration. Friends to lovers is my favorite trope and The Pretenders did it very well.

  9. Shannon says:

    I really enjoyed Adina’s series. The books do get better, but I think you need to read in sequence.

    I read one Joan Wolf that was recently on sale. I wasn’t wow’d but I think I mentally said, “read her again if on sale.”

  10. marion says:

    I read this Gillian Bradshaw series as a child and loved it. Time to dig these books out and see how they hold up for me.

  11. Storyphile says:

    The Down the Long Wind series is forever coloured with the opinions of my teenage self who borrowed the books from the library.

    Nostalgically, I like Hawk of May best: as a YA fantasy novel. It is told in Gwalchmai’s POV as he is growing up, deciding the direction of his life, and being bullied and pressured to conform to other people’s ideas of who he is, which was all my feels when I first read it in 198?. In hindsight, the good vs. evil conflict is a bit too clear-cut and simplistic for my current tastes.

    As an adult, I agree that Kingdom of Summer is a better book. It is told more from commoner Rhys’s POV, and Gwalchmai is more complex than he was. Gwalchmai’s life is already starting to take a tragic turn and you can see cracks developing in the life of Camelot; things aren’t as black and white. IIRC Rhys gets some very nice romantic elements too.

    The third book In Winter’s Shadow has always been my least favourite, but only because (I’m sure this is a spoiler for no one) it is about the fall of Camelot. It is told from Gwenhwyfar’s POV (Gwalchmai and Rhys are side characters). I just cry too much when I read it. Every time. I have to be in the right mood to reread it.

    As always YMMV. But I’m snapping these up right now, because I only have them in paperback so far.

  12. Cordy (not stuck in spam filter sub-type) says:

    I bought the Joan Wolf – the Amazon reviews looked solid, and enough of the Goodreads people I follow had given it the thumbs up that this anxious person feels like it’s an okay bet. (It’s not the 99 cents! It’s the pain of getting your reading hopes up and then possibly being dashed on the rocks of crummy prose or cardboard characters or Regency heroes who sound like an episode of The Bachelor! You know how it is.)

  13. Sandra says:

    Joan Wolf was one of the best of the trad Regency writers back in the day. I still have quite a few of of her Signet PB on my keeper shelf.

  14. DonnaMarie says:

    Haven’t read this particular series, but highly recommend everything Gillian Bradshaw.

  15. Karin says:

    Some Joan Wolf books are so-so but many are excellent. For .99 I’d take a chance but I checked and it’s also available on Scribd. Besides the Regencies, I highly recommend a pair of medieval mystery/romances I loved, “No Dark Place” and “The Poisoned Serpent”, they’ve been available for .99 for a while. They take place during the English civil war in the 12th century, the same era as the Brother Cadfael books.

  16. Mochabean says:

    Second the Gillian Bradshaw recommendation. She writes wonderful historic fiction, much of it set in ancient world. Not romance, but with strong romantic elements. Much bitchery catnip, such as The Beacon at Alexandria (Cross dressing, competence porn, great secondary characters: late Roman empire, young Ephesian noblewoman disguises herself as a eunuch and runs away to Alexandria to become a doctor, ends up working in a military hospital on the Roman frontier; Island of Ghosts (defeated former enemy of Rome (Sarmatian) sent to Roman-occupied Britain to be part of military unit, must navigate fish-out-of-water , politics, betrayal, etc.). the list goes on. Her stuff is really good and meticulously researched. She written some sort of genre defying stuff as well (sort of paranormal before that was a thing). She’s an interesting author

  17. JessicaG says:

    I bought The Pretenders, and I was kind of “meh” about it. I like the premise, but I didn’t care for the heroine (she came off as a brat, IMHO), and the dialogue seemed rather out of character for the time period. I’m sure many people would like it, but it just didn’t blow my skirt up.

  18. nabpaw says:

    The Pretender isn’t one of my favorite Joan Wolf books, but it doesn’t totally suck. Her earlier works are better. She did a number of the early shorter regencies and then she graduated to the longer regency historicals. the longer ones are notable because the heroine is the narrator. This might annoy some people, but I loved it. The Guardian, The Gamble, The Arrangement and The Deception are all fabulous and filled with romance catnip.

    The Gamble, for example, has the heroine blackmailing the hero into presenting her to the ton so she can find a husband to support her disabled sister (and herself)!!!! Oh c’mon how can you not effing love that?

    and if you find yourself resisting that premise, the premise in the Deception finds the heroine forced into marrying the hero by heroine’s despicable uncle. The hero thinks the heroine was in on it and hilarity ensues. well actually not hilarity so much, but it was good and I enjoyed it.

    In other words, I highly recommend Joan Wolf, just not the Pretender as much.

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