Sunday, April 04, 2010

No Sneak Peeks Here

Originally posted April 4, 2010 by Cindy O'Neal
There are entirely too many "sneak peeks" and "first chapter" books in the "free books" searches lately. I am choosing to not list them. When I find a free book to share, it will be a complete book. It may be the first book in a series, but heck, that's how my daughter and I got hooked on Melody Carlson's stuff. We picked up I Heart Bloomberg as a freebie and it turned out to be the first book in a really great series. And that first book was a complete book and not a teaser. If you want a sample, order a sample before you decide to purchase a book. Amazon makes it easy to have a sample of any Kindle book sent to you. When you are reading the description of the book, click the button to send a sample to your Kindle. If you like what you read, purchase the book and delete the sample.

A free sample is not a free book.

My opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Note: If you are reading this on your Kindle and want to get a book from the Kindle store now, type in the title, then toggle your 5-way switch to the right until store is highlighted. Press in on it to search. When the title comes up, make sure it is still free (or an acceptable price) before finally pressing in on the 5-way switch to "buy" it. You can always press the back button (before you press buy) if you change your mind. 

And remember... what is FREE today may not be FREE tomorrow, so get these while you can!

The Luxe (Kindle Edition)
From Publishers Weekly: With a quote from The Age of Innocence as an epigraph and an enthusiastic blurb from the creator of Gossip Girl on its back cover, this lavishly produced debut makes no secret of its twin influences. The story opens in 1899 with the funeral of Elizabeth Holland, a well-bred beauty said to have plunged to her death in the Hudson River. The narrative then travels back several weeks, tracing the relationships and events that have led to the somber assembly. This tangled web includes not one but two sets of star-crossed lovers; an upstairs/downstairs romance; a scheming social climber; a bitter servant girl; and oodles of money, all set in a Edith Wharton via Hollywood vision of Old New York. The dialogue has its clunky moments, and the plot twist that drives the tale is telegraphed from the very start, but readers caught up in the fancy dress intrigue are unlikely to mind much: it’s all part of the dishy fun. Needless to say, the ending paves the way for at least one sequel. Ages 14-up. (Dec.) 

From Kirkus Reviews: A big, sumptuous tale of catty girls, dark secrets and windswept romance unfurls in this compulsively readable novel of late-19th-century New York City socialites. Godbersen weaves a tenuous web of deceit, backstabbing and pretense that follows four teens: Elizabeth Holland, a prim and proper lady of old-money society, is betrothed to one man, though furtively loves another; Henry Schoonmaker, a debauched playboy who must marry Elizabeth or be disinherited; Diana Holland, Elizabeth’s younger sister who is in love with her fiancĂ©; and Penelope Hayes, a member of the nouveau riche who will stop at nothing to win Henry’s affections. As Elizabeth and Henry’s wedding approaches, the spectacle unfolds in a wondrously grandiose scene, making for a fun, though not entirely unexpected dĂ©nouement. A delicious new twist along the Gossip Girl vein, readers will clamor for this sharp, smart drama of friends, lovers, lies and betrayal. (Fiction. YA)


Body in the Library, The
Kindle Price: $0.00
Review: "The best opening I ever wrote." Agatha Christie "Genuine old-crusted Christie." Time "Professional detectives are no match for elderly spinsters! it is hard not to be impressed." Times Literary Supplement "one of the most ingeniously contrived of all her murder stories." Birmingham Post

Product Description: The very-respectable Colonel and Mrs Bantry have awakened to discover the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing evening dress and heavy make-up, which is now smeared across her cold cheeks. But who is she? How did she get there? And what is her connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry? The Bantrys turn to Miss Marple to solve the mystery.