books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: January Kindle Offers

A new year and a new batch of Kindle offers for your delectation today. And it’s quite a good one so if you weren’t as lucky as me and Santa didn’t bring you what you told people you wanted, you might be able to pick some fresh reading material up in the offers.

One of my all time favourites is back on sale for 99p – Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. I’d love to get something new from her in 2023, but as it’s only three years since The Starless Sea came out and it was nearly triple that between The Night Circus and that, I’m trying not to get my hopes up! And Bridget Jones’s Diary is also 99p – it’s been years since I read it (rather than watched the film!) but it was such a huge part of my reading back in the day – even if I haven’t read either of the two most recent sequels! Another book that I read ages ago and loved is on offer too – Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility. I didn’t love his follow up A Gentleman in Moscow, but I have the latest one, The Lincoln Highway, on the Kindle TBR and I must try and get to it soon.

This month’s 99p Georgette Heyer is The Quiet Gentleman – which is from the more mysterious end of her romance books and features Actual Peril at times. On the contemporary romance front, if you read and enjoyed the O’Neil Brothers books after I wrote about them before Christmas, Holiday in the Hamptons from Sarah Morgan’s From Manhattan with Love series is 99p. I bought myself the new Mary Balogh while writing this – Remember Love is the first in a new series for her and I’ve had a good history with her historical romances – right back to my Essex days. There’s also one of the recent Lisa Kleypas’s – Devil’s Daughter – which is the next generation sequel to her fan-favourite Devil in Winter.

If you’ve been reading Philippa Gregory’s Tudor novels after I wrote about them last summer, The Taming of the Queen (about Katherine Parr) is the one on offer at the moment. It’s not a great month on the crime/mystery offer front though. Or at least not if you read the sort of mysteries that I do – all the books on offer are the sort with dark and brooding covers with ominous shadows on them or bare branches, which is an indicator that they’re too psychological or gruesome for my tastes! A Spoonful of Murder is on offer though, which is one of the crop of if you like Richard Osman… that are now appearing and which I’ve got on the physical to-read pile but haven’t got around to yet!

Happy Wednesday!

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: June Kindle offers

I’m trying a new thing this month, and doing a round up of good books that are on offer on Kindle in the UK at the moment. Now this will only work if there are books that I’ve read on offer, so who knows if it’ll be a regular thing!

Cover montage

First up is recent release Book Lovers, which I did a post about the day it came out, and which is now 99p. Perfect for reading on a sun lounger. And if you’re into Bridgerton and have already read the whole series, Just Like Heaven, the first book in Julia Quinn’s Smythe Smith series is 99p. I bought the paperback back when it first came out – in my pre-Kindle let along pre-blog days. The series is is about a group of young ladies who play in a string quartet – most of whom are oblivious to the fact that the music they play sounds terrible. Honoria is the exception – she knows they’re awful and she’s determined to get married so she doesn’t have to play any more. The hero is her brother’s best friend who is meant to be looking out for her and keeping her out of trouble…

I wrote about Paula Byrne’s biography of Barbara Pym a few months back and now the first Barbara Pym novel I read is on offer – ok the Kindle edition of Excellent Women isn’t as pretty as my designer hardback, but for 99p you don’t expect it to be. In other books I’ve mentioned recently, the first Nicola Upson Josephine Tey novel An Expert in Murder is 99p as well as Dear Little Corpses, the latest.

In other books I have recently mentioned, Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep, which came up in my books set in schools post, is also 99p, as is Three Sisters, Three Queens which one of the later Philippa Gregory Tudor books that I haven’t read yet! You’ll probably have noticed Sarah Morgan’s Beach House Summer on my in progress list – but it’s 99p at the moment as well if you want to try and finish it before me!

In past books of the week that are on offer, T J Klune The House in the Cerulean Sea was one last year, Lyssa Kay Adams’s The Bromance Book Club was one in 2019. In Authors who I like, but who I haven’t read *this* one of – there’s Ian Mortimer’s A Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval Britain – I’ve listened to the Elizabethan and Restoration ones of these on audiobook and they’re lovely, but I’ve never read (or listened to) this one.

There’s almost always a Terry Pratchett book on offer – that’s how I’ve picked up my Kindle copies to supplement my hard copies. This month it’s Eric (which I haven’t read in ages) and the very first one, the Colour of Magic, which as I explain in Where to start with Terry Pratchett isn’t actually where I tell people to start usually! Sadly the deal on Wee Free Men was a one day one, but it will come around again I’m sure.

In books I own but haven’t read yet, there is The Strawberry Thief, the fourth in Joanne Harris’s Chocolate series. Charlie Homberg’s The Paper Magician – which is the first in the series is 99p, books 2 and 3 are £1 each and only book 4 is not on offer (and the whole series is in Kindle Unlimited ). Rose Tremain’s The Gustav Sonata, is one of two of hers sitting on the tbr shelf I think! Harriet Evans’ latest The Beloved Girls is 99p again too – I bought it last time it was on offer! There’s also Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, which I really need to read as I have a hard copy I borrowed from a friend about a year ago sitting on my bureau…

I read Umberto Eco’s In the Name of the Rose as part of my history degree, and I think £1.99 is a bit of a bargain for it, plus the latest cover is gorgeous. It was adapted for TV the other year, which was an interesting watch as it was much more violent than I remembered!

And finally, because this post has got super long, in books I mention because other people liked them but I didn’t, (and really didn’t in this case) there is Claire Lombardo’s The Most Fun We Ever Had, which was even long listed for the Women’s Prize, which just goes to prove everything I’ve ever said about me and award nominated (or winning) novels!

Enjoy – I hope I haven’t cost you all too much money