Dec 21 2012

Daily Deals: Four romances for 2.99 and under

By Jane • Book Deals • • Tags:

Happy Holidays. Here is an extra four deals, some that have been featured before. I wanted to make sure that there was something for the romance fan today given that this is a romance blog.

Instant Attraction Jill ShalvisInstant Attraction by Jill Shalvis. $ 2.99

From the Jacket Copy:

The first in a sensational new series, Jill Shalvis introduces Cameron, Stone, and T.J. Wilder–three bad-boy heroes who effortlessly mix breathtaking adventure and scorching sex appeal. . .

Get Wild. . .And Then Get Wilder. . .

Accountant Katie Kramer is a quintessential good girl–working hard, recycling diligently, all the while trying to ignore the feeling that she doesn’t fit in anywhere. That’s all she wants. Well, that–and amazing sex, and the kind of daredevil escapade she can look back on when she’s crunching numbers in a dusty cubicle. Which explains why she just took a job in Wishful, California, working for Wilder Adventures and Expeditions. Waking up to find a magnificently built stranger towering over her bed–that part defies explanation. . .

This was one of the first titles that we featured on Save the Contemporary, back when contemporaries were not very popular and agents told authors they couldn’t sell.  I wrote in my review:  “I admit that I initially had a problem with snowboarder Cam because he simply was a snowboarder. He just didn’t fit my idea of a hero because snowboarding seems so . . . youthful, but you really won me over.   And as much as I liked Cam whose vulnerability ran just beneath surface, it is Katie who carries this book.    There is a real sense of joy in her character, despite her loss.   While neither Cam nor Kate are full of much real courage in the beginning, they both grow by asborbing the others’ strengths.   Katie becomes less fearful and Cam becomes more open and together the  discover that their connection to each other makes them stronger inside where all the external thrills could not begin to compensate.   ”

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Rainshadow Road by Lisa KleypasRainshadow Road by Lisa Kleypas. $ 2.99

From the Jacket Copy:

Lucy Marinn is a glass artist living in mystical, beautiful, Friday Harbor, Washington.  She is stunned and blindsided by the most bitter kind of betrayal:  her fiancé Kevin has left her.  His new lover is Lucy’s own sister.   Lucy’s bitterness over being dumped is multiplied by the fact that she has constantly made the wrong choices in her romantic life.   Facing the severe disapproval of Lucy’s parents, Kevin asks his friend Sam Nolan, a local vineyard owner on San Juan Island, to “romance” Lucy and hopefully loosen her up and get her over her anger. Complications ensue when Sam and Lucy begin to fall in love, Kevin has second thoughts, and Lucy discovers that the new relationship in her life began under false pretenses. Questions about love, loyalty, old patterns, mistakes, and new beginnings are explored as Lucy learns that some things in life—even after being broken—can be made into something new and beautiful.

I gave this a B review but it is not without its problems. The magical realism that Kleypas introduces into her contemporaries in this series likely isn’t an afterthought but its a fairly shallow application. I wrote: “Rainshadow Road is written in the same spirit of a Sarah Addison Allen book, a contemporary world with a touch of mysticism or what some term magical realism. The mysticism aspect of the story was the weakest part. Why magic in a mundane world?  Is it that true love can only be obtained through magical intervention?  Or is it meant to highlight the beauty of love, that there is something magical in the concept. Or was it just something to test writerly boundaries? I’m not sure if the message of “Rainshadow Road” is that every gifted artist has magic or whether every person has a gift of magic.  The inclusion of magical realism is also soft. The story would have remained the same if you removed the mysticism. The characterizations, the plot, the conflict all exist without those elements. The good thing is if readers don’t like the magical realism element, it doesn’t interfere a great deal and will be only a minor irritant.”

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Melissa Marr GraveminderGraveminder by Melissa Marr. $ 1.99

From the Jacket Copy:

 

Three sips to mind the dead . . .

Rebekkah Barrow never forgot the attention her grandmother Maylene bestowed upon the dead of Claysville, the small town where Bek spent her adolescence. There wasn’t a funeral that Maylene didn’t attend, and at each one Rebekkah watched as Maylene performed the same unusual ritual: She took three sips from a silver flask and spoke the words “Sleep well, and stay where I put you.”

Now Maylene is dead, and Bek must go back to the place she left a decade earlier. She soon discovers that Claysville is not just the sleepy town she remembers, and that Maylene had good reason for her odd traditions. It turns out that in Claysville the worlds of the living and the dead are dangerously connected; beneath the town lies a shadowy, lawless land ruled by the enigmatic Charles, aka Mr. D. If the dead are not properly cared for, they will come back to satiate themselves with food, drink, and stories from the land of the living. Only the Graveminder, by tradition a Barrow woman, and her Undertaker—in this case Byron Montgomery, with whom Bek shares a complicated past—can set things right once the dead begin to walk.

Although she is still grieving for Maylene, Rebekkah will soon find that she has more than a funeral to attend to in Claysville, and that what awaits her may be far worse: dark secrets, a centuries-old bargain, a romance that still haunts her, and a frightening new responsibility—to stop a monster and put the dead to rest where they belong.

Peculiar and spooky are some of the words used to describe this book but the criticisms point to the blandness of the characters who are vanilla and cardboard according to one reviewer.

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Scandal's Bride with Bonus Content Stephanie Laurens Scandal’s Bride with Bonus Content by Stephanie Laurens. $.99.

From Jacket Copy:

For a limited time and at a special price, discover #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens’s Cynster novels with Scandal’s Bride, plus special excerpts from more books in the series.

In Scandal’s Bride, how can an honourable lady like Lady Catriona Hennessy unite with a rake like Richard Cynster? Though charmed by his commanding presence, she cannot give up her independence. Marriage had not previously been on Richard?s agenda, but perhaps taming the lady was just the challenge he needs – if he can have the rights of the marriage bed without making any revealing promises of love?

HarperCollins is having a big sale on Stephanie Laurens’ backlist titles. It’s time to replace those worn paperbacks with digital copies. The titles are pre order for delivery on January 2, 2013. I’ll list more in the next couple of days. Scandal’s Bride was not my favorite Laurens’ book but her familiar formula is evident here and thus if you like the hero in pursuit, this might be up your alley.

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