The Jackal by J.R. Ward is $1.99! This is book one in the Black Dagger Brotherhood spin-off series: Prison Camp. I fell off this particular bandwagon years ago, so I’m unsure if this spin-off can be started on its own and if the series has changed much since the original books.
RECOMMENDED: A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer is $1.99 at Amazon! This is part of today’s Kindle Daily Deals and isn’t being price-matched yet. This one was recommended to Carrie and she really enjoyed it, giving the book an A-:
I enjoyed the way this book both used and subverted Beauty and the Beast tropes. There’s a good blend of angst and humor and worldbuilding.
RECOMMENDED: The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick is $1.99! This is a price-matched Kindle Daily Deal and the rest of today’s deals are also pretty good. (Veronica Roth’s Carve the Mark is only $4.99!) Sarah enjoyed the emotional journey of this book and gave it a B in a Lightning Review:
In the end, his realization that his life mattered, that he was loved, and that he had more to give the world before he died, too, was terribly poignant and made me sniffle for quite awhile after I closed the book.
RECOMMENDED: Dark Prince by Christine Feehan is $1.99 and this is the first book in Feehan’s very much amazing Carpathian series. $1.99 is a terrific price if you’ve never read it but Be Ye Warned: crack is within these pages. Sarah reviewed this edition in 2011 and gave it a C+, but even though she could identify the problematic parts and disliked them, she couldn’t stop reading. She also admits to reading it six-plus times:
Dark Prince was the first of these types of books that I read, and I am still somewhat baffled as to why I find it so fascinating, even in a larger edition, in a hardcover, for the third or fourth time. I can only surmise that a book like this, something that was so new, so powerful and so different, even after it’s been imitated countless times, doesn’t diminish with time. The powerful innovation of the forerunner of a genre doesn’t lose it’s effect. At least, it doesn’t on me.
If you’ve never read the Carpathians, clear your schedule and enjoy the crack. The Carpathian series was a big favorite of Sarah’s, and one of the earliest entries she wrote for SBTB outlines the Carpathian Madness – the elements that are in every Carpathian story and why she reads them anyway because crack.
Targeted by Katie Reus is $1.99! This is the first book in the Deadly Ops romantic suspense series. The hero and heroine used to be in a relationship. Unfortunately, it’s been years since they’ve seen each other and now the hero is undercover with a new persona, tasked with getting close to the heroine to help with a case. Obviously, she doesn’t know it’s him. While readers loved the second chance romance combined with the hero’s disguise, some felt certain aspects of the story dragged a little long. It has a 4-star rating on Goodreads.
