The Glass Hotel
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel is $1.99! Because this book was such a bestseller, I’m worried this could expire at any moment. I personally haven’t read it, but a fellow bookseller colleague listed this as their best book of 2020. Have you read it?
From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events–a massive Ponzi scheme collapse and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea.
Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby’s glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis is running an international Ponzi scheme, moving imaginary sums of money through clients’ accounts. When the financial empire collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan’s wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.
In this captivating story of crisis and survival, Emily St. John Mandel takes readers through often hidden landscapes: campgrounds for the near-homeless, underground electronica clubs, the business of international shipping, service in luxury hotels, and life in a federal prison. Rife with unexpected beauty, The Glass Hotel is a captivating portrait of greed and guilt, love and delusion, ghosts and unintended consequences, and the infinite ways we search for meaning in our lives.
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RECOMMENDED: The Afterward by E.K. Johnston is $2.99! Carrie review this one and gave it a B+:
It was a solid romance, a solid fantasy, and a lovely case of representation with an all-woman team of adventurers of various skin tones and sexualities. I would read this book again and again and I wish that there was more of it.
Classic high fantasy with a twist from the acclaimed and bestselling author of Star Wars: Ahsoka and Exit, Pursued by a Bear.Johnston’s fans and fantasy devotees will find delightful and inspiration in a brilliant cast of lady knights dealing with fame and difficult choices in the aftermath of a successful quest.
In the year since Sir Erris Quicksword and her fellow lady knights used the mysterious Godsgem to free the king from the Old God’s spell, the people of Cadrium have enjoyed peace and prosperity and the brave lady knights who completed the quest have basked in the glow of their new fame as heroes of the realm–all except the youngest two. Olsa Rhetsdaughter has discovered that the price of fame is her ability to ply her trade as a thief. She’s much too recognizable to make her living picking pockets now, and regular meals on the quest finally jumpstarted puberty so she can no longer pass for a boy when she needs to. And for Apprentice Knight Kalanthe Ironheart, the end of the quest has meant the beginning of her search for a husband–a match that first and foremost must bring with it a bride-price sufficient to pay the debt she took on to train as a knight. To make matters worse, in the year they spent together on the quest, the pickpocket and the knight-in-training fell in love. Meanwhile, the mages entrusted with keeping the Godsgem from falling into the wrong hands have found the task less simple than they imagined, and Cadrium’s golden age may be short-lived if her band of heroes doesn’t act quickly and save the realm once again.
Combining Johnston’s deep affection for the classic quest fantasy of Tolkien, David Eddings, and Tamora Pierce and her unwavering commitment to stories centered on women and LGBTQ characters, The Afterward is a thoroughly entertaining standalone fantasy with a remarkably fresh cast of characters and a delightfully optimistic worldview.
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The Magical Romantic Comedy Starter Pack by R.J. Blain is $1.99! This series seems to be urban fantasy with romantic elements and just some bonkers scenarios. We’ve featured the first book on sale before, but this collection contains four full books and three novellas.
This collection contains four novels and three novellas, including Playing with Fire, Hoofin’ It, Serial Killer Princess, Whatever for Hire, Hearth, Home, and Havoc, Owl Be Yours, and Fowl Play.
Playing with Fire
What do you get when you mix gorgons, an incubus, and the Calamity Queen? Trouble, and lots of it.
For Bailey, catering to the magical is a tough gig on a good day, but she has few other options. She can either keep spiking drinks with pixie dust to keep the locals happy, or spend the rest of her life cleaning up some of the world’s nastiest magical substances.
Years after helping Police Chief Samuel Quinn escape an unhappy marriage, Bailey is once again entangled in his personal affairs. To make matters worse, Quinn’s ex-wife is angling for revenge, tossing Bailey into the deep end along with her sexiest enemy.
Hoofin’ It
All Shane wanted was to get away from the wreckage of his career for a while. He picked New York City to provide him with a distraction from his early, unwanted retirement from the police force.
New York City delivered, distracting him with three corpses and a miniature llama with a spitting problem and an attitude. If he wants to return to a normal life, he’ll have to face off against a sex trafficking ring targeting the woman of his dreams, ancient vampires, murderous criminals, his parents, and an FBI agent with a hidden agenda.
Some days, it isn’t easy being an ex-cop.
Serial Killer Princess
Why would anyone put a mermaid and a gorgon in the same room together? While Tulip enjoys being alive, her lineage brings her nothing but trouble.
Snakes eat fish, and the mer love tearing apart their serpentine nemeses with their hands and teeth. As for the gorgons… she’d rather not think about them at all.
The last thing Tulip wants is to rule the mer kingdom. First, she can barely swim. Second, she’s packing more than her fair share of her father’s genes. Third, what is a landlocked princess supposed to do with an aquatic kingdom?
If she gets her way, nothing. Add in her dirty little serial killing secret, and she’s an international disaster waiting to happen.
Whatever for Hire
Fetching a cat out of a tree should’ve been a quick, easy fifty bucks in Kanika’s pocket. Instead, following one stray thought, the devil pays her a visit and leaves her with a debt to repay.
Hearth, Home, and Havoc
Dakota never intended to become the single mother of a goddess. To make matters worse, her daughter hadn’t quite figured out her role in the grand scheme of things.
Havoc isn’t supposed to be part of Hestia’s portfolio, but where the young goddess of the hearth and home goes, trouble surely follows.
When Dakota’s ex-husband barrels his way back into her life, a heavy dose of havoc is just what the doctor ordered. She just never expected to find love in the midst of murder.
Owl Be Yours
After a wildfire took everything from her, Emily Hall made do surviving as a homeless human by day and as an owl at night. When one of the men responsible for infecting her with lycanthropy comes winging his way back into her life, she must choose between revenge or resuming a normal life.
Until Daniel’s return, she never dreamed she might be able to have both.
Fowl Play
Instead of a quiet dance retreat where she could escape the insanity of being the daughter of an angel, a succubus, and a lycanthrope, Emma Sansaul plummets into the middle of murder, mayhem, and mischief. As becoming the next victim of a crazed serial killer is not on her itinerary, she’s left with no choice but to join forces with Agent Kenneth Bernard to find the murderer, the one man on Earth capable of making her hissing mad one second and in need of a cold shower the next.
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Forever Yours Series Bundle (Books 1-3) by Stacy Reid is 99c at Amazon! As the title suggests, this collects books one through three in the series for less than a dollar. However, there are later bundles in the series that are free and I’m assuming they can be read as standalones!
THE MARQUESS AND I
Lady Willow Arlington, hauntingly lovely, is blind and known by the ton as the dowry-less daughter. Alasdair Morley, the Marquess of Westcliffe, is in need of an heiress, but Lady Willow should be the last person he craves after she was persuaded to reject his offer of marriage when he was a mere third son. Passion reignites between them, and he makes an enticing offer she cannot resist, drawing them into a dance of desire and love despite the misgivings in his heart.
THE DUKE AND I
Far be it for a lady to desire, hatch, and execute a daring seduction of a notorious duke at a masquerade ball. But Miss Emmaline Fitzgerald, a wallflower with no decent prospect, was on such a path, and her quarry was her brother’s best friend, Elliot Winthrop, the Duke of Hartford.
One moment of sin, stolen pleasure and irresistible passion, that was all it was supposed to be….
Little did Emma realized everything about her was imprinted in Elliot’s heart and mind, and her scandalous ruse was about to change and challenge everything she thought she knew about herself and the devilish duke.
THE VISCOUNT AND I
After jilting first a fortune hunter, then a lying libertine, Lady Fanny Dashwood has given up on marrying for love. This time it will be strictly business – a man who’ll agree to her terms, give her the children she craves, but will not trouble her heart.
Sebastian Rutledge, Viscount Shaw, has desired Lady Fanny from afar for years. However, he is a factory owner with a new title – not nearly good enough for an earl’s daughter. Until a dream opportunity arises: a marriage of convenience with the woman of his dreams. Even as their growing passion unleashes in the bedchamber, his new wife remains at arm’s length. Could a wellborn lady ever fall for an unconventional lord?
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ONLY EVER HER by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen is a KDD for 99-cents today. I read it last year and liked it very much. It’s a hard book to categorize: it’s not a romance—although we do see some relationships start up and some come to an end—and it’s not really a mystery—although there is a missing woman in the present and her mother (who was murdered long ago) in the past. It’s really more of a quiet story about how the ripple effects of events, significant or small, continue on for a long, long time. Recommended.
The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley is $1.99. *click* I’ve been wanting to read this!
One-clicked The Afterward.
Get The Magical Romantic Comedy Starter Pack! For one of those days when Earth is garbage and you’d prefer to visit an alternate universe that is hilarious and disturbing.
CW for the first story: The main character spends some time in a “medical coffin” after being contaminated by an explosion of contaminants, so if hospital-stay PTSD is a thing or an explosion of contaminants is too much after the past year plus… be aware or skip to the next story. (It’s at the beginning of that story so it’s possible to skip that part of it, too.)
The Magical Romance starter sounds like the Pride series by Shelly Laurenston, but a couple of notches up on the bonkers scale. Could the Bitchery confirm? Thank you!
I definitely preferred the original cover of “The Afterward” to this illustrated version (which I assume is also on the paperback).
I read Playing with Fire (first in the Magical Romance etc.) and enjoyed it. It has some of the same bonkers as the Pride books, but with fewer shapeshifters and more (lots more) magical/supernatural creatures. It was kind of a wild ride (literally at one point), but enjoyable.
oooh, The Afterward sounds great.
I loved Station Eleven, but I was disappointed by The Glass Hotel. I don’t know, it seemed like a collection of contrived coincidences.
I DNFed the first book in that R.F. Blaine series when I realized that I was bored despite the nonstop bonkersness, because the edgy absurdity came at the expense of making me care about any of the characters. If “what if Cards Against Humanity wrote a paranormal romance novel?” sounds like an appealing book description to you, the series might be worth a try–based on the other comments, it seems like you either vibe with it or you really don’t. I really like Laurenston, but this did not work for me.
Nancy Werlin’s Zoe Rosenthal Is Not Lawful Good is $2 right now in the US. It came out in April, so probably a short-term sale to try and boost its numbers. It’s a YA about a high school senior and expert list maker who has her whole life planned out – except her obsessive love for an SF show, which leads her to fake an illness and sneak away to DragonCon, while trying to conceal this fandom from her boyfriend.
@Margarita I like both the Magical Romantic Comedy books and the Pride series, but I wouldn’t necessarily say the MRC was like the Pride series with the bonkers level turned up. The Pride series have bonkers characters, whereas the MRC books often feature main characters who start out as the token sane person in the book but end up as bonkers as the rest.
I will say that R.F. Blaine books are definitely in the “you like it or you don’t” category. There are certain moods where I can’t stop reading them and certain times when I’ll put the book down and not circle back for a while. They were definitely among my comfort reads during the pandemic. The best analogy I can come up with is that they are the book equivalent of popcorn movies, where the plot itself is secondary to whatever set piece is happening on page/on screen at the time. And sometimes that is all you have brain power for and it is GREAT, but sometimes your inner monologue can’t stop with the “wait, but what about…” and then it’s probably time to enjoy something different.
I thought I’d look more closely at the Stacy Reid bundle but on my screen there isn’t a link to Amazon, etc. What’s up?
@Todd @Annie Kate @Courtney M thank you very much for sharing your views!!!!
I have the Magical starter pack and really enjoy most of the books. The writing reminds me of Gini Koch where things are just slightly explained and the reader is expected to follow the jumps. Most of the books are stand alone in this pack, but Whatever For Hire and the Quinn/Bailey books have slight ties due to the Devil.
Although famously frugal, I gleefully paid full price for The Magical Romantic Comedy Starter Pack. I seldom reread, but have read them all at least 4 times in the last year or so, they’re that addictive and fun.
“The Viscount and the Vicar’s Daughter” by Mimi Matthews is currently free at US Amazon.
@joy, I was interested in that one too and there is no link on my screen either
Forgot to click a button on my end, y’all! Buy link should be there now.
I read Playing with Fire (first in the Magical Romantic collection which is no longer on sale); it was a fun campy read.