free books are awesome

Picked up electronically:

• Sasha: A Trial of Blood and Steel, by Joel Shepherd. Fantasy, one of Pyr’s line. Currently available for free on the Kindle store, so I snagged it for reading on either the phone or the iPad when I’m in the mood. Pyr unfortunately doesn’t hand nearly as much electronic love to the Nook store; the title’s available for sale there, but free beats nearly ten bucks, so.
• Countdown: A Newsflesh Novella, by Mira Grant. For reasons which should be ENTIRELY OBVIOUS, given my love of Feed and Deadline. Those of you who follow seanan_mcguire know she was posting snippets of this leading up to the release of Deadline, but this is the polished up, edited version. Those of you who are e-inclined, grab this–it’ll help convince her publisher to let her do another one leading up to the release of Blackout.
• The Door into Sunset, The Door into Fire, and The Door into Shadow, all by dduane. Ebook editions of the “Door Into” books by Diane Duane, currently available for sale directly from the author over on her site. Those of you who are longtime fans of hers and in particular of this series may wish to check her post about the STARLIGHTGUILT discount currently active, and why she hasn’t finished this series in the last thirty years.
• Prince Ivan, Firebird, and The Golden Horde, all by Peter Morwood, also available for direct sale on Diane Duane’s ebook site. These are re-releases of the Tales of Old Russia, and y’all should check Ms. Diane’s LJ post about that, including an OLDRUSSIA coupon code. Act fast, I don’t know how long this discount will be active!
• Footsteps in the Dark, by Georgette Heyer. Old-school romantic/paranormal suspense, this week’s freebie from B&N.

163!

I’d said something before about needing to be back on book hiatus, hadn’t I? Well, given that the new Dresden Files is VERY GODDAMN NIGH, for that I had to make an exception.

Or at least, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it!

Anyway, here you go, folks, a quick summation of recent ebook purchases:

• Ghost Story, by, of course, jimbutcher. Pre-ordered, even, because I HAVE TO HAVE THIS IMMEDIATELY, and I will be dropping all other reading considerations as soon as this thing shows up on my nook.
• Labyrinth and Downpour, by katatomic. Books 5 and 6 of the Greywalker series. I’d already owned Labyrinth, but I went ahead and bought the ebook when I pre-ordered Downpour, which is also very very high. Kat Richardson has bubbled up to the top of my to-read queue and I want to get caught up on her stuff before the new one comes out.
• One o’clock Jump, by Lise McClendon. This is a noir-era mystery currently available for free for the Kindle and for .99 for the nook, so I went ahead and yoinked it down for my Kindle apps.

rachelcaine‘s new Working Stiff is also very nigh, but as I’ll be buying that in mass market, I’ll count that at purchase time! So this puts me at 133.

It will probably surprise none of you that I’ve managed to soundly break my book hiatus the last few weeks. But that said, given recent family events slapping another pile of debt on top of us even aside from the required roof repairs, I will need to be returning to that hiatus. Let us, however, at least document what I’ve got here.

Picked up in print in recent weeks:

• Tongues of Serpents, by naominovik. I’ve had this in ebook for a while and have done it a sore injustice by not reading it yet. That said, Temeraire is of course on my list of Stuff I Must Also Buy in Print. So since this one came out in mass market, I did!
• The Snow Queen’s Shadow, by jimhines. Book Four of his ongoing Princess series of fantasy novels.
• Rebels and Lovers, by Linnea Sinclair. Romantic SF. Bought in paperback because I was vaguely cranky to discover that there’s not any real easy way I can get an iBook off the iPad onto the Nook (without going through Certain Channels), so I thought “screw it” and got the DRM-free paperback instead.
• The Thirteenth House, Dark Moon Defender, and Reader and Raelynx, all by Sharon Shinn. Fantasy. Books 2-4 of her Gillengaria series, book 2 of which I’ve already read. Shinn is another author I’ve already got mostly in print, and I’m not inclined to give up her print books, so I got the paperbacks for consistency.
• Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. Romantic suspense. Bought because B&N seduced me with a 15 percent off coupon, and because I’ve kept meaning to read du Maurier for a while now, and I haven’t been able to get hold of a copy of The Scapegoat yet.
• The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte, by Laura Joh Rowland. Mystery. Bought because seeing the recent movie adaptation of Jane Eyre put me in the mood, mostly, for a mystery featuring Jane’s author as the heroine. Yeah, I’m a sucker for those sorts of mysteries, what can I say. Also, because I’ve previously encountered this author thanks to her period mysteries set in feudal Japan, and the one of those I read was respectable. So checking here out here too.

And, picked up electronically:

• The Hunt, by Jan Neuharth. Mystery, it looks like; this was this past Friday’s B&N freebie, so I yoinked it out of curiosity. It appears to be set around a foxhunting community, and there promises to be murder and horrible secrets coming out and such.
• Lord of Scoundrels, by Loretta Chase. Romance. Grabbed this while it was on sale for .99, and because it’s highly spoken of by the ladies at Smart Bitches.
• The Blue Light Project, by Timothy Taylor. Suspense, maybe. This was another B&N freebie, and focuses on a four-day hostage situation in the near future. Also, it’s set in Canada; Canada fiction FTW!
• The Whisper of Leaves, by K.S. Nikakis. Fantasy. Saw this one in B&N, thought it looked interesting, and grabbed the ebook later.
• Doctor Who: The Monsters Inside, by Stephen Cole. Just what it says on the tin: a Doctor Who novel. It’s a Nine/Rose one, which I’ve wanted to read for a while just because stories involving Nine are still fairly thin on the ground.
• Doctor Who: Winner Takes All, by Jacqueline Rayner. Got this one since it’s another Nine/Rose story, and because I liked Rayner’s Ten/Rose story, The Stone Rose.

All of which brings me up to a good strong showing of 129 for the year.

As mentioned, I’m on book buying hiatus for a bit, mostly because of wanting to try to put at least something of a dent in my monster To Read list, but also because solarbird and I gotta look at putting a new porch roof on MurkSouth. And that’ll be a big ol’ pile of moneys.

But that doesn’t stop me in the slightest from grabbing free books! Here are the ones I’ve grabbed lately.

• Soft Apocalypse, by Will McIntosh. This is an SF novel along the lines of “what happens if the world ends not with a bang, but with a whimper?” It promises to be exceptionally grim, and I’m not sure when I’ll be in the mood to read this, but I grabbed it anyway when B&N offered it as the weekly freebie. Just to encourage them to do this more with SF.
• Little Fuzzy, by H. Beam Piper. SF. Bought this one by way of interest in John Scalzi’s newly released reboot of same, which is called Fuzzy Nation. I’m not quite prepared to break my hiatus for Fuzzy Nation, but I AM interested, so I’m reading the original first by way of comparison. (Besides, I have a couple other Scalzi titles I need to get caught up on first.)
• The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente. YA/Fantasy. This was available very briefly as a freebie, so I took advantage of that offer while it lasted. I expect I’ll eventually buy a hardcopy too.
• The Winds of Khalakovo, by Bradley P. Beaulieu. Fantasy. This was this past weekend’s B&N freebie, courtesy of Night Shade Books. Yoinked because, again, wishing to encourage B&N to cater to the SF/F audience!

110 for the year! Tomorrow, though, there will be breakage of hiatus for Deadline, to take me up to 111. Tasty, tasty Deadline. GIVE! TO! ZIM! *grabby hands*

This one clearing the slate before Norwescon, since I’m fairly sure I’m coming back with more books from that! And without further ado, from B&N:

• Lessons in French, by Laura Kinsale. Historical romance, heartily recommended by the fine ladies over at Smart Bitches.
• Last Night in Montreal and The Singer’s Gun, by Emily St. John Mandel. General fiction; saw this author spoken well of a while back and have been meaning to try her work.
• The Search, by Nora Roberts. Romance/romantic suspense. Because La Nora is awesome.
• Divine Misfortune, by A. Lee Martinez. Comedic fantasy. Heartily recommended by housemate spazzkat. Lots of fun here involving a couple trying to hire their own personal god.
• And last but most assuredly not least, because I CLEARLY need to get caught up: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows, by, of course, George R.R. Martin. The epicest of modern epic fantasy. Bought for reasons that should be obvious, and because as I mentioned, I need to bloody well get caught up. ;D

Meanwhile, over in Carina Press land:

• A Marriage of Inconvenience, by Susanna Fraser. Historical romance. Bought because Fraser and I follow one another on Twitter, because she’s a fellow Seattleite, AND a fellow Browncoat, and because I really liked her first book.
• Collision Course, by Zoe Archer. Romantic SF. Same author who did the Blades of the Rose series, which I tore through late last year and quite liked!
• Blood of the Maple, by Dana Marie Bell. Paranormal romance. Yet another vampire, but the concept of this one made me giggle and so I had to check it out: a vampire cursed into vegetarianism after pissing off a witch, finds the one female he can’t resist: a dryad. Muahaha.
• Photographs & Phantoms, by Cindy Spencer Pape. Another steampunk work from Pape, a freebie novella Carina offered today and which I can’t actually download yet until its official release date, but which I’m counting now anyway!

89 for the year, now. We’ll see how many print books I pick up at the con!

In print:

• The Dark and Hollow Places, by Carrie Ryan. YA/SF. This is her third book set in the world of The Forest of Hands and Teeth.
• Pushing Ice, by Alastair Reynolds. SF. Bought in print since it’s not available electronically to US customers, and because I’d seen it favorably reviewed on Goodreads.

Electronically:

• Memories of You, by Bobbie Cole. Romantic suspense. This is a Carina Press book, and I grabbed it since I’m a sucker for an amnesia plot.
• Steam & Sorcery, by Cindy Spencer Pape. Steampunk. Again, Carina Press, and bought in no small part because I was enchanted by a cover with a heroine on it who not only has a visible head, she’s also wearing glasses.
• Arabesque, by Hayden Thorne. Fantasy. Grabbed this off of Smashwords; it’s an M/M adaptation of the Snow White fairy tale, which I heard about via the Outer Alliance. Sounded like fun.
• The Phantom of Pemberley, by Regina Jeffers. Mystery. This is yet another of the wave of sequels to Pride and Prejudice that have emerged since Jane Austen went into the public domain, and this time around, it’s a murder mystery taking place at Pemberley not long after Elizabeth and Darcy get married. Picked it up because it’s this week’s freebie on bn.com.

This post’s total brings me to 52 for the year!

I’m home sick with a cold so let’s see if I can get caught up on stuff. Here are some ebooks I’ve bought lately!

• Goblin Tales, by Jim C. Hines. Fantasy. Short story collection featuring the goblin hero Jig Dragonslayer, self-pubbed by the author. Recommended for any fans of the Jig novels!
• The Silent Army, by James Knapp. SF. Book 2 of his Revivors series; picked up because I just burned through Book 1 and enjoyed it quite a bit.
• Alcestis, by Katharine Beutner. Fiction. Bought electronically since I also have a hardback copy and this is to read on the Nook.
• Millie’s Fling, by Jill Mansell. Chick lit/romance. Picked up because it was a freebie on B&N this past weekend.

Total for the year thus far: 46.

Since yesterday’s hardware shenanigans have settled down, howsabout another book roundup, peeps?

Purchased in a slew of buying from B&N, electronically:

• Trick of the Mind and A Spider on the Stairs, by Cassandra Chan. Mystery. These are Books 3 and 4 of her Gibbons-Bethancourt series, which I am very much enjoying; I plowed through library checkout copies of Books 1 and 2 last weekend and went ahead and got these in ebook form. I’d already had a copy of Book 3 bought as a cheap hardback but I wanted to read it on the nook since it was available.
• Bond With Me, by Anne Marsh. Paranormal romance, probably. It’s this week’s Friday freebie from B&N, and I grabbed it since what the hey, free book.
• The Pretender’s Crown, by C.E. Murphy. Fantasy, the Book 2 to go with the most excellent The Queen’s Bastard. Already own a paper copy of this but this is for reading on the nook!
• Daughter of the Forest, by Juliet Marilier. Fantasy. Re-buy of a book previously owned in print.
• Halting State, by Charles Stross. SF. Re-buy of a book previously owned in print.
• Acacia, by David Anthony Durham. Epic fantasy. Re-buy of a book previously owned in print, specifically because it’s a big brick of a book and those are WAY easier to read for me on the nook these days.
• Feast of Souls, by C.S. Friedman. Fantasy. Re-buy of a book previously owned in print.
• The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. YA SF. Because everybody on the planet but me has apparently read this, and right now B&N has the ebook marked down to five bucks.
• Emissaries from the Dead, by Adam-Troy Castro. SF. Re-buy of a book previously owned in print.

This brings me to 21 for the year!