Feb 23 2013
Daily Deals: In a fight between a drunken detective and a pro female hockey player, who wins?
The Devil’s Star by Jo Nesbo. $ 1.99
From the Jacket Copy:
In the heat of a sweltering Oslo summer, a young woman is found murdered in her flat—with one of her fingers cut off and a tiny red star-shaped diamond placed under her eyelid. An off-the-rails alcoholic barely holding on to his job, Detective Harry Hole is assigned the case with Tom Waaler, a hated colleague whom Harry believes is responsible for the murder of his partner. When another woman is reported missing five days later, and her severed finger turns up adorned with a red star-shaped diamond ring, Harry fears a serial killer is at work. But Hole’s determination to capture a fiend and to expose Waaler’s crimes is leading him into shadowy places where both investigations merge in unexpected ways, forcing him to make difficult decisions about a future he may not live to see.
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Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. $ .99
From the Jacket Copy:
Overview
Stories filled with wonder and the haunting beauty of his culture have helped make Rudolfo Anaya the father of Chicano literature in English, and his tales fairly shimmer with the lyric richness of his prose. Acclaimed in both Spanish and English, Anaya is perhaps best loved for his classic bestseller … Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will test the bonds that tie him to his people, and discover himself in the pagan past, in his father’s wisdom, and in his mother’s Catholicism. And at each life turn there is Ultima, who delivered Tony into the world-and will nurture the birth of his soul.
(68,000 words)
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Offside by Juliana Stone. $ Free / .99
From the Jacket Copy:
Overview
When hockey phenom Billie-Jo Barker returns home and decides to play in the local Friday night hockey league, all hell breaks loose. Not because Billie’s talent is in question, but because Billie is a woman. And though these are modern times, some of the local guys still have a problem letting a girl into their ‘men’s club.’
Soon, Billie is at the center of a small town battle of the sexes, with everyone choosing sides. Her sisters. The townsfolk. Her friends. And yet, the only person whose opinion she cares about doesn’t seem to care much at all. Logan Forest, the man who broke her heart when she was eighteen and the man she now shares the bench with every Friday night.
She’s got a lot to prove and though Billie Jo Barker scores on the ice, will this girl ever score with the man of her dreams?
It’s free at Apple, Amazon and All Romance.
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Cherry Ames Student Nurse by Helen Wells. $ 1.99 at Amazon.
From the Jacket Copy:
Cherry Ames is back, just as you remember her! The books are just as you remember them, retaining the same look, feel, and sense of adventure and patriotism as when they were first published. With fully illustrated color covers and a soft-finished hardcover format just like the originals, these books will transport you back to the days when you were reading about this spunky young nurse. Series editor and registered nurse Harriet Forman was inspired by, and remains a devoted fan of, Cherry Ames: “…I was going to follow in her footsteps and become a nurse—nothing else would do.”
In Student Nurse, Cherry starts nursing school at Spencer with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation – would she have what it takes to be a nurse? She leaves her quiet town of Hilton, Illinois for the bustle of hospital life, to meet challenges she wouldn’t have imagined. The U.S. is at war. Many nurses have gone to the front, and there is a shortage of RNs at Spencer-which Cherry and her classmates help to fill, as they learn the skills they need to graduate. And who is the mysterious patient in the secret room that no one seems to know anything about? Should Cherry risk expulsion to save his life?
Springer Publishing Company is delighted to be bringing Helen Wells’s beloved heroine back into print for a new generation of younger readers (as well as a host of nostalgic older ones). The books are available as beautifully rendered facsimile hardcover editions and in boxed sets of four.
Volumes 1-4
- Student Nurse: Book 1
- Senior Nurse: Book 2
- Army Nurse: Book 3
- Chief Nurse: Book 4
Another other fantastic Amazon only deals is A Moveable Feast by Anthony Bourdain for .99
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Feb 23, 2013 @ 12:21:30
Cherry Ames? I namecheck her in my DA bio.
I’m a little afraid to read these, though. What if they don’t hold up? Oh the dilemma.
Feb 23, 2013 @ 13:31:30
@Sunita: Exactly. I have the same dilemma. I’m still not exactly over the disillusionment of re-reading the first 6 Pern books as an adult (the stories were still pretty good, but I’d completely missed the misogyny and slut-shaming the first time – not to mention what was going on between those blue and green riders).
Cherry Ames was one of my early faves – I remember buying them at the local Am Vets thrift store for a nickel apiece. Those books introduced me to the idea of regional accents – she referenced the Midwestern twang a lot (I’m Midwestern and I still don’t exactly know what that means). And I also loved Sue Barton, student nurse. And Vicki somebody, flight stewardess. I probably will have to buy them.
Feb 23, 2013 @ 13:44:03
I was thinking about getting Offside and then I realized that it’s one of the Barker triplet books, with sisters Billie-Jo, Bobbi-Jo and Betty-Jo, and I just don’t know if I can get past the Petticoat Junction reference. It is free, so maybe I can.
Feb 23, 2013 @ 17:30:48
I’m not finding the Amazon Cherry Ames 4-pack with that link. Anyone have a more specific link? I hope I’ve just missed it and it hasn’t been taken down.
Feb 23, 2013 @ 17:31:57
@Kay: try this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0043GXYMS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0043GXYMS&linkCode=as2&tag=dearauthorcom-20
Feb 23, 2013 @ 17:46:59
@Jane: Hm, that gets me to what seems to just be the first book, at $2.99; it’s listed as being 224 print pages. In the editorial reviews, the publisher comment talks about “Volumes 1-4″ and so on, but that seems more like grouping the books into chunks so they don’t seem like quite such a long list.
Feb 23, 2013 @ 17:48:37
@Kay: Right. However, a reader reported that this volume contains all four books. It may be an error. You could buy it and take a look and if it doesn’t contain all four, return it.
The digital list price is upwards near $14 or so whereas individual books run around $2.99 to $4.99 so my guess is that there is an error in the metadata.
Feb 23, 2013 @ 17:59:32
Now if someone would just do ebook versions of the Judy Bolton books. She was my favorite sleuth when I was a kid.
Also, I’m not getting the right link to the $1.99 for all four books, either. The corrected link isn’t right, either.
Feb 23, 2013 @ 18:03:37
Okay, I just bought it. It is the four books smushed into one. It is $2.99. This morning, when I did the deals, it was $1.99. Not sure when the price changed. HTH.
I used this link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0043GXYMS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0043GXYMS&linkCode=as2&tag=dearauthorcom-20
Feb 23, 2013 @ 18:05:42
@Jane: Thanks, Jane! It does indeed appear to be all four books once it’s downloaded (or, at least, I verified the beginnings of the first two and the beginning of the second book is about a quarter of the way along), but it’s a strange format for a collection, with no table of contents at the beginning with links to the beginnings of each book. Instead, it starts out looking like it’s just book 1 (with a ToC of that book’s chapters), but then book 2′s pasted after it.
ETA: what Jane said @9.
Feb 23, 2013 @ 18:15:59
@Jane: Worked for me too, and it’s definitely the first four books. Woo hoo!
At least I hope it’s Woo Hoo.
Eh, either way, it’s a great blast from the past.
Feb 23, 2013 @ 18:27:04
The Devil’s Star is the only book I have read by Nesbo and I didn’t have a lot of trouble picking up on the back story. It’s pretty standard in a lot of ways, but then I have read a lot of depressed detective, police procedurals. I had no idea what to expect and I keep muttering “the detective’s name is Harry Hole?” I didn’t know if it was some sort of dreadful double entendre or what. I’m sure that I will go back and pick up the rest at some point.
Feb 23, 2013 @ 18:40:15
@cleo: I missed the Petticoat Junction reference…whenever I see Billie Joe, I think of Green Day’s lead singer, Billie Joe Armstrong: tattoo’d, guylinered, with some negatives typical of the music industry. I admire him but he’s perhaps not a pop culture reference the author was intending to invoke?
Feb 24, 2013 @ 20:45:09
I still have some of my original Cherry Ames books. Loved her when I was in elementary school. Each book took on a different aspect of early nursing- still find them interesting.
I also see Trixie Belden ebooks- loved her too!