-
The Darkling Bride
The Darkling Bride by Laura Andersen is $1.99! This is a Gothic mystery set in Ireland with ghosts and crumbling estates. Elyse read this one and wound up giving it a C. She loved the plot setup, but was iffy on its execution.
Three generations of Irish nobles face their family secrets in this spellbinding novel from the award-winning author of the Boleyn King trilogy.
The Gallagher family has called Deeprath Castle home for seven hundred years. Nestled in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland, the estate is now slated to become a public trust, and book lover and scholar Carragh Ryan is hired to take inventory of its historic library. But after meeting Aidan, the current Viscount Gallagher, and his enigmatic family, Carragh knows that her task will be more challenging than she’d thought.
Two decades before, Aidan’s parents died violently at Deeprath. The case, which was never closed, has recently been taken up by a new detective determined to find the truth. The couple’s unusual deaths harken back a century, when twenty-three-year-old Lady Jenny Gallagher also died at Deeprath under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind an infant son and her husband, a renowned writer who never published again. These incidents only fueled fantastical theories about the Darkling Bride, a local legend of a sultry and dangerous woman from long ago whose wrath continues to haunt the castle.
The past catches up to the present, and odd clues in the house soon have Carragh wondering if there are unseen forces stalking the Gallagher family. As secrets emerge from the shadows and Carragh gets closer to answers—and to Aidan—could she be the Darkling Bride’s next victim?
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
The Princess Problem
The Princess Problem by Christi Barth is 99c! This is the first book in a new contemporary romance series and features a heroine who doesn’t know she’s a princess. There’s also a bodyguard romance. Readers compared this one to a grown-up Princess Diaries, while others felt the heroine was a little too flighty for them.
What girl doesn’t want to wear a tiara? Me. The one who lives in yoga pants and knows she’s not special enough to be a princess.
One minute I’m starting my dream life in NYC, and the next, a man too hot for his own good is banging on my door, telling me that I’m a long lost princess of a country on the other side of the Atlantic.
Not exactly your typical Friday night in the Big Apple.
Suddenly, all of my plans for the future are yanked away. I’m trapped in a life filled with social obligations—and stilettos!—and an uptight royal family I didn’t know existed. They, and the whole rest of the freaking country, have lofty expectations I’m not sure I can meet.
At least the aforementioned sexalicious man, Elias, is my constant shadow, protecting me with his life. The whole situation is overwhelming. So I’ve secretly put him in charge of my happiness, too…and he’s taking my orders very, very seriously.
So seriously, I’m falling for him even harder than the new country I’m coming to…maybe…love.
And that’s a major problem, because he’s crazy about me, too. I may not know all the zillion rules about being royal, but I know one for sure: No way can a princess date her bodyguard…
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
Empress of Forever
Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone is $2.99! Amazon says this is a “limited time deal” but I have no clue how “limited” it means. I mentioned this one in a previous Hide Your Wallet because marketing materials described it as a “feminist Guardians of the Galaxy,” but I’m always wary of men writing women main characters.
From Hugo Award finalist Max Gladstone comes a smart, swashbuckling, wildly imaginative adventure; the saga of a rag-tag team of brilliant misfits, dangerous renegades, and enhanced outlaws in a war-torn future.
A wildly successful innovator to rival Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, Vivian Liao is prone to radical thinking, quick decision-making, and reckless action. On the eve of her greatest achievement, she tries to outrun people who are trying to steal her success.
In the chilly darkness of a Boston server farm, Viv sets her ultimate plan into motion. A terrifying instant later, Vivian Liao is catapulted through space and time to a far future where she confronts a destiny stranger and more deadly than she could ever imagine.
The end of time is ruled by an ancient, powerful Empress who blesses or blasts entire planets with a single thought. Rebellion is literally impossible to consider–until Vivian Liao arrives. Trapped between the Pride—a ravening horde of sentient machines—and a fanatical sect of warrior monks who call themselves the Mirrorfaith, Viv must rally a strange group of allies to confront the Empress and find a way back to the world and life she left behind.
A magnificent work of vivid imagination and universe-spanning action, Empress of Forever is a feminist Guardians of the Galaxycrossed with Star Wars and spiced with the sensibility and spirit of Iain M. Banks and William Gibson.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
Wicked Saints
RECOMMENDED: Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan is $2.99 at Amazon! This could be expiring very soon, seeing as how it’s not price-matched. I really enjoyed this book and gave it a B+:
Wicked Saints is a young adult fantasy debut and it’s a goth kid’s dream. Seriously, if you have a thing for anti-heroes, dark magic, and things that are simply metal as fuck, this book is for you.
A girl who can speak to gods must save her people without destroying herself.
A prince in danger must decide who to trust.
A boy with a monstrous secret waits in the wings.
Together, they must assassinate the king and stop the war.
In a centuries-long war where beauty and brutality meet, their three paths entwine in a shadowy world of spilled blood and mysterious saints, where a forbidden romance threatens to tip the scales between dark and light. Wicked Saints is the thrilling start to Emily A. Duncan’s devastatingly Gothic Something Dark and Holy trilogy.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!
Don't want to miss an ebook sale? Sign up for our newsletter, and you'll get the week's available deals each Friday.
I really liked Empress of Forever! Would recommend if you enjoy big, loud space operas.
Wicked Saints is a really interesting book. I’ve never seen anything like the magic system used here and a lot of the politics and worldbuilding were amazing. Some of the writing is gobsmackingly evocative.
It also reads like a CW show. I couldn’t really enjoy the book until I shifted my expectations from “high stakes fantasy novel” to “Gossip Girl with even more murder”. There’s still a higher level of plot-driven (rather than character-driven) bad life choices than I’m comfortable with, but once I shifted my expectations it was easier to sit back and enjoy the cool magic.
The book should also come with a couple of CW, including but not limited to self-mutilation (one of the magic systems needs blood to function), wars that create child refugees, the horrors of war in general, and vague implications of body horror. When Amanda calls this book “metal as fuck” she ain’t kidding.
Empress of Forever is one of my favorite reads of 2019. Viv is smart and competent, even in a world she’s unfamiliar with (unlike Peter Quill and yes I’m still mad at him from Infinity War). As Erin says it is a big loud lovely space opera. Gladstone has good style, too, so its a good plot that is written well, the best sort of book.
The Legend of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron is 2.99 at Amazon. It’s an omnibus of all three Monpress novels.
I actually struggled to get through Empress of Forever. I think I DNFed one or two chapters in though, in my “life is too short to struggle through books that aren’t holding my interest” attitude.
Thanks for the heads up on The Legend of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron, MaryK. Good stuff!!
BLOODY ROSE by Nicholas Eames is $2.99. Young lesbian bard accompanies a band of mercenaries on a quest for glory. It’s a second-in-series, but it has a different cast and takes place several years after the first book, so I would imagine it stands alone pretty well (though you’ll care more about cameos by characters from book 1 if you’ve met them previously). Both books are in my apocalypse library (books I bought first digitally and then also in paper form so I don’t have to live without them if the grid goes down).
For those enjoying Eli Monpress, I just wanted to point out that while the omnibus contains the first three books, it’s a five book series.
Amy Harmon’s historical romance From Sand and Ash was on sale today too. I have come to really like her books over the last year, especially her last book, the fantasy The Last Girl Child and it struck me that this site has never featured any of her books.
I downloaded a sample of The Princess Problem because the synopsis was 1st person POV. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book is in 3rd person POV. It is still on sale, so if anyone was worried about the POV, don’t be. I haven’t finished the book yet, but so far so good. I was iffy on the first chapter, but it got a lot better with chapter 2.