DAILY DEALS: Blasts from the past
The Medieval Hearts Series by Laura Kinsale $ 1.99
From the Jacket Copy:
In this pair of unforgettable romances set in fourteenth-century Europe, the New York Times–bestselling author and RITA Award winner once again proves “no one—repeat no one—writes historical romance better than Laura Kinsale” (Mary Jo Putney, New York Times–bestselling author).
Special to these ebook editions, each novel is presented in two versions, the first re-creating Middle English dialogue with deep period detail, the second reworked by the author to be a tighter read, with more modern words for dialogue. Whichever you decide to read, you’ll come away agreeing with New York Times–bestselling author Julia Quinn: “Laura Kinsale’s work is unfailingly brilliant and beautiful.”
For My Lady’s Heart: With Princess Melanthe di Monteverde widowed, a political marriage would tip the balance of power to any kingdom that possessed her. Determined to return to England alive and unwed, she hides behind a mask of witchery. Protecting her is Ruck d’Angleterre, a chivalrous knight who never wavers—and the only man Melanthe wishes could lift the veil of her disguise. He once desired her, but now his gaze reveals distrust. As they flee her enemies, Melanthe’s impossible love for the knight only grows . . .
Shadowheart: As the last unmarried princess of Monteverde, Elayne is trapped when her hand is promised to the land’s ruler. But on the voyage to meet her betrothed, she is captured by a pirate, Allegreto Navona—and soon finds her captor impossible to resist. Trained as an assassin, Allegreto is the bastard son of an ambitious lord who raised him to murder for control of Monteverde. If Allegreto can make Elayne his wife, the country will be his. But she is no mere maiden to be possessed. As he finds himself falling in love with her, Elayne will prove his greatest challenge . . .
Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie $ 2.99
From the Jacket Copy:
The story of the love that ended an empire.
In this commanding book, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Robert K. Massie sweeps readers back to the extraordinary world of Imperial Russia to tell the story of the Romanovs’ lives: Nicholas’s political naïveté, Alexandra’s obsession with the corrupt mystic Rasputin, and little Alexis’s brave struggle with hemophilia. Against a lavish backdrop of luxury and intrigue, Massie unfolds a powerful drama of passion and history—the story of a doomed empire and the death-marked royals who watched it crumble.
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Robert K. Massie’s Catherine the Great.
Praise for Nicholas and Alexandra
“A larger-than-life drama.”—Saturday Review
“A moving, rich book . . . [This] revealing, densely documented account of the last Romanovs focuses not on the great events . . . but on the royal family and their evil nemesis. . . . The tale is so bizarre, no melodrama is equal to it.”—Newsweek
“A wonderfully rich tapestry, the colors fresh and clear, every strand sewn in with a sure hand. Mr. Massie describes those strange and terrible years with sympathy and understanding. . . . They come vividly before our eyes.”—The New York Times
“An all-too-human picture . . . Both Nicholas and Alexandra with all their failings come truly alive, as does their almost storybook romance.”—Newsday
“A magnificent and intimate picture . . . Not only the main characters but a whole era become alive and comprehensible.”—Harper’s
Night Passage by Robert Parker $ 1.99
From the Jacket Copy:
The first book in the complex and engaging Jesse Stone series by the beloved New York Times bestselling author Robert B. Parker
After a busted marriage kicks his drinking problem into overdrive and the LAPD unceremoniously dumps him, thirty-five-year-old Jesse Stone’s future looks bleak. So he’s shocked when a small Massachusetts town called Paradise recruits him as police chief. He can’t help wondering if this job is a genuine chance to start over, the kind of offer he can’t refuse.
Once on board, Jesse doesn’t have to look for trouble in Paradise: it comes to him. For what is on the surface a quiet New England community quickly proves to be a crucible of political and moral corruption—replete with triple homicide, tight Boston mob ties, flamboyantly errant spouses, maddened militiamen and a psychopath-about-town who has fixed his violent sights on the new lawman. Against all this, Jesse stands utterly alone, with no one to trust—even he and the woman he’s seeing are like ships passing in the night. He finds he must test his mettle and powers of command to emerge a local hero—or the deadest of dupes.
The Black Path by Åsa Larsson $ 1.99
From the Jacket Copy:
A grisly torture-murder, a haunting northern Sweden backdrop, and a dark drama of twisted sexuality collide memorably in Åsa Larsson’s masterpiece of suspense—a tale of menace, hope, longing, and darkness beyond imagining.
The dead woman was found on a frozen lake, her body riddled with evidence of torture. Instantly, Inspector Anna-Maria Mella knows she needs help. Because the dead woman—found in workout clothes with lacy underwear beneath them—was a key player in a mining company whose tentacles reach across the globe. Anna-Maria needs a lawyer to help explain some things—and she knows one of the best.
Attorney Rebecka Martinsson is desperate to get back to work, to feel alive again after a case that almost destroyed her. Soon Rebecka is prying into the affairs of the dead woman’s boss, the founder of Kallis Mining, whose relationship with his star employee was both complex and ominous. But what Rebecka and Anna-Maria are about to uncover—a tangled drama of secrets, perversion, and criminality—will lay bare a tale as shocking as it is sad…about a man’s obsession, a woman’s lonely death, and a killer’s cold, cold heart.
Captains and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell $ 1.99
From the Jacket Copy:
New York Times Bestseller: Sweeping from the 1850s through the early 1920s, this towering family saga examines the price of ambition and power.
Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh is twelve years old when he gets his first glimpse of the promised land of America through a dirty porthole in steerage on an Irish immigrant ship. His long voyage, dogged by tragedy, ends not in the great city of New York but in the bigoted, small town of Winfield, Pennsylvania, where his younger brother, Sean, and his infant sister, Regina, are sent to an orphanage. Joseph toils at whatever work will pay a living wage and plans for the day he can take his siblings away from St. Agnes’s Orphanage and make a home for them all.
Joseph’s journey will catapult him to the highest echelons of power and grant him entry into the most elite political circles. Even as misfortune continues to follow the Armagh family like an ancient curse, Joseph takes his revenge against the uncaring world that once took everything from him. He orchestrates his eldest son Rory’s political ascent from the offspring of an Irish immigrant to US senator. And Joseph will settle for nothing less than the pinnacle of glory: seeing his boy crowned the first Catholic president of the United States.
Spanning seventy years, Captains and the Kings, which was adapted into an eight-part television miniseries, is Taylor Caldwell’s masterpiece about nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America, and the grit, ambition, fortitude, and sheer hubris it takes for an immigrant to survive and thrive in a dynamic new land.
This has been quite the weekend for the 1-click..click…click…click. Thanks!
The Kinsale boxset is showing up as $10+ for me! *cries*. I have the books in paperback (and audiobook) of course but I would have downloaded the ebooks if they’d been on special for me. Oh well. *sob*
@LeeF: You’re welcome, I think!
@Kaetrin: Curses on time-zone disadvantage! I think this one was a really brief deal, unfortunately.