free book: "unclaimed legacy" by deborah heal

Last week, I reviewed the wonderful Young Adult/time travel/historical novel Unclaimed Legacy. Now, you can get your own copy free!

The Kindle version of Unclaimed Legacy is free on Amazon today through Friday (10-29 to 11-2). Get yours today!

Get Unclaimed Legacy free. 
See my 5-star review of Unclaimed Legacy.
See my 4-star review of book one of the series, Time and Again.

free book: "city of prophecy" by peter dudek

I am thrilled to report that my friend Peter's book City of Prophecy, is free on Amazon today through Sunday (9-21 to 9-23)!

I read and reviewed this book last year, and I loved it! If you're a fan of fantasy, you'll love this book ... and if you're not, it's free, so why not give it a chance? I wouldn't be at all surprised to find you love it.

Get it here !

free book: "heiress" by susan may warren

I was thrilled this morning to discover Susan May Warren's excellent book Heiress is free for Kindle. These deals are usually just for a day or two, so get your copy right away!

I read and reviewed this book last year, and here's some of what I had to say:

I simply could not put this book down. And when I had to (you know, for things like work), I found myself thinking about it. Susan May Warren has long been one of my favorite authors, and I especially love her historical fiction. I thought it couldn't get any better than Sons of Thunder (which just won a Carol Award), but she really outdid herself with Heiress. You know what I love most about it? The characters are real – human. Their humanity, in all its messy imperfection, jumps off the pages. They lie, have affairs, run away from responsibility, and treat each other horribly – just like real people do. And when the book wraps up, not everyone is living out their "happily ever after" – again, just like in real life! 

I also named it my favorite historical fiction of 2011 in my "Best Books" post. You really don't want to miss this one—get it here!

free book: "glamorous illusions" by lisa t. bergren

Lisa T. Bergren's new release, Glamorous Illusions, is free for Kindle through Friday! I'm currently reading it for the Litfuse tour, and I'm greatly enjoying it. It's the story of a young woman who suddenly learns she's not who she always thought she was, and she gets swept off on a Grand Tour of Europe with relatives who can barely stand her.

Get your copy here! Following the promotional free period, the book will be on sale for two weeks—$2.99 from June 9-15, and $4.99 from June 16-22. So be sure to grab your copy soon!

"the apothecary's daughter" by julie klassen

The Apothecary's Daughter was a free Kindle download in January 2011. At the time, I'd never heard of author Julie Klassen before (I didn't even have a Kindle yet; I was using the Kindle for PC reading app), so it was just one more book that I downloaded and forgot. Flash forward a year: I'm reading another Klassen book, The Maid of Fairbourne Hall, into the wee hours of the morning, when I suddenly think, "I have a Julie Klassen book on my Kindle!" I finished The Maid of Fairbourne Hall, reviewed it, and then promptly forgot about the other Klassen book ... until last week, when I didn't feel like reading any of my review books, but I wanted to read something. I searched my Kindle, and there it was: The Apothecary's Daughter.

About the book: Lilly Haswell helps her father run his apothecary shop, but she dreams of a bigger life, full of adventure. She gets a taste of that life when her estranged aunt and uncle suddenly appear, offering to host her in London for the upcoming season. Just as she's fitting in—and perhaps making a suitable match—tragedy calls her back to her village. Women are not allowed to work as apothecaries, but in order to save her father from financial ruin, Lilly must keep the shop going while her father is incapacitated. She also must decide which of her suitors—the doctor from London, her father's former apprentice, or the lord of the manor—she will allow to claim her heart.

My take: I enjoyed The Apothecary's Daughter. It wasn't a gripping read by any means, but it was a nice way to spend a few hours. It's not as much of a romance as I expected—when I was 3/4 of the way through the book, I had no idea which of her three (or possibly four) suitors Lilly would end up choosing, and I didn't particularly care. I wasn't invested in any of the romantic relationships; rather, I was more interested in Lilly's relationship with her best friend (who was part of a delicious twist in the story), and in Lilly's search for her mother (a plotline that was largely ignored for most of the book, only to be quickly tied up at the end).

This book was one of Klassen's earliest, and while it's good, The Maid of Fairbourne Hall is far superior. If you happened to get The Apothecary's Daughter as a free Kindle download, as I did, then by all means read it. But if you've never read anything by Klassen before, I'd recommend going right for The Maid of Fairbourne Hall! 3-1/2 stars.

About the author: Julie Klassen loves all things Jane—Jane Eyre and Jane Austen. A graduate of the University of Illinois, Julie worked in publishing for sixteen years and now writes full time. She has won the Christy Award: Historical Romance for The Silent Governess (2010) and The Girl in the Gatehouse (2011), which also won the 2010 Midwest Book Award for Genre Fiction. Julie and her husband have two sons and live in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. For more information, visit www.julieklassen.com.

free fiction: "unleavened"

Last fall, I had the privilege of being one of the first people to read a draft of Peter Dudek's new novel, Unleavened. Peter has just released it as an eBook via Amazon, and you can get it free through tomorrow, April 22. After that, it will be $3.99—still a pretty good deal for a book!

Here's the synopsis of the book from Peter's website:

A widowed father. 

A homosexual son. 

Brad Miller, small-town newspaper writer, is numb to the sensation of love. Since his wife died, his once thriving relationship with God has degraded to a distant acquaintance. The only solace he finds is writing anonymously at his blog, a place where invisible readers offer him a safe sounding board to express his detached emotions. 

But after he finds out his son is homosexual, he is forced to ask himself, and his readers, how can homosexuality be reconciled within the Christian faith? Mixed advice from two very distinct church cultures makes him a central point for division among his Christian brothers and sisters. Confusion and distrust abound. 

To save his relationship with his son, Brad must surface his long hidden wounds and emotions and make himself vulnerable to both his church family, and to God.

Here's a bit of what Dudek has to say about his subject matter (for more, see his blog):

Homosexuality is one of the primary “sins” preached against in the Christian church. It is a very taboo topic, but it is not one that should be considered through one-dimensional glasses. Any issue of sexuality is deeply complex and emotional. Christians should realize that even people with whom they hold disagreements are still real people with real hurts, wounds, fears, needs and joys.

I think we can agree that those of us who claim to be Christ followers are often adept at "hating the sin" but struggle with "loving the sinner," and Dudek does a great job of addressing this topic through fiction.

Unleavened will push some buttons. You probably won't agree with every point Dudek makes. (I didn't.) You might even squirm a little. (I did.) This is not an easy, fun read like most of the books I talk about on this blog. But one thing this book will do is force you to think—I finished the book four months ago, and I still find myself thinking about it from time to time.

If you'd like to read it, you can get it here. (And remember, you can also get Dudek's fantasy novel City of Prophecy—which I loved—for just $2.99.)

free books from francis chan!

Three books by pastor, author, and speaker Francis Chan are currently free for your Kindle! This is a deal you won't want to miss—so hurry; these deals don't usually last very long!

Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God

Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit

Erasing Hell: What God Said about Eternity, and the Things We've Made Up

free christian fiction for your kindle

Every day, I get two newsletters informing me of free or discounted Kindle books. The first, from eReaderIQ.com, lists the top 25 free Kindle books of the day. (I talked about this newsletter in August, so I won't rehash it here. I have some concerns about the service, which I mentioned in my post.) The second newsletter has proven to be the more helpful of the two. It's from inspiredreads.com, and it lists both free and discounted Christian titles. (You can sign up for the newsletter by following this link.)

Today, I was very excited to find the book Sixty Acres and a Bride on the list of free books. I'm on the Litfuse tour for the book, so I'll be posting about it in a few weeks. In the meantime, though, you can read the book, too! Here's the summary from the publisher:

With nothing to their names, young widow Rosa Garner and her mother-in-law return to their Texas family ranch. Only now the county is demanding back taxes and the women have just three months to pay. 

Though facing eviction, Rosa falls in love with the countryside. She can’t help but stand out, though, and her beauty captures attention. Where some offer help with dangerous strings attached, only one man seems honorable, and Rosa must decide to what lengths she will go to save her future.

It looks like a great book, and I'm excited to read it. I hope you enjoy it, too ... but hurry—sometimes books will be free one day and full price the next. Here's the link to the book on Amazon. And remember: you don't need a Kindle—you can read the book on your computer.

lazy saturday thoughts

I don't have anywhere to be until 2:30, and I don't have any books that have to be read now, so I'm enjoying a rare morning of laziness. I decided to write a "real" post—it's been a while since I've written anything besides a book review!

• One of Tricia Goyer's books is free on Amazon right now. She's the author of my favorite Amish series (which I reviewed here and here). You can get Songbird Under a German Moon here, but hurry! Another of her books was free two days ago, and now it costs almost $10—I don't know how long this deal will last!

• My parents received the "Hall of Faith" award at Nebraska Christian's Harvest Festival last night. The award is given to faithful supporters of the school. It's supposed to be a surprise, but they figured it out—which I told my boss would happen! Mom is always responsible for ordering the plaque, and she knew something was up when no one would tell her who the winner was. We did manage to surprise them a bit though—my brother and sister-in-law came, sat where we knew Mom and Dad wouldn't see them, and then showed themselves after the banquet ended. I didn't get any pictures at the event (I'm hoping my yearbook photographer was on top of it), so here's a recent picture of my wonderful—and deserving—parents.

• I think I'm going to bite the bullet and get TV. Not pay TV, but free TV. I haven't had TV since I moved out of my apartment over a year ago, and after hooking up my sister's converter box and antenna for her last weekend (or turning on the converter box and turning the TV to the right channel, which is basically all "hooking it up" required), I've decided to do the same for myself. I already own a converter box, so it's just a matter of buying an antenna (which can be really expensive. And even though I checked out antennaweb.org, I'm still not sure what I need). Hulu and Netflix give me a lot of TV options, but sometimes you just want to be able to watch immediately, you know?

• You should check out Clash of the Titles, this fun website I stumbled across recently. Basically, two books go head-to-head, and you vote on the excerpt you liked best. There are always contests to enter, too ... and I just won a $10 Starbucks gift card yesterday, so I know it's possible to win! 

• Snow White: A Tale of Terror, which is one of the movies I talked about in the "My Life in Films" post a few weeks ago, is now streaming on Netflix. Yes, I've already added it to my queue.

• I hate online learning. I understand its value and convenience, but I'd so much rather go to a real classroom where I could physically interact with my instructor and classmates. And I'm thinking about quitting the library program. More on that to come later ...

"refuge on crescent hill" by melanie dobson

When Camden Bristow's freelance photography work dries up and she can no longer pay her bills, she decides it's time to visit her grandmother in Ohio. When she arrives in town, however, she discovers her grandmother has passed away, and the house—a 150-year-old mansion known as Crescent Hill—has been left to her. Camden moves into the house while she decides what to do with it, and strange things begin happening. Items disappear from the house, and Camden hears footsteps upstairs. What if the rumors of ghosts of runaway slaves haunting the mansion are true?

My take: Refuge on Crescent Hill is really fun to read! It's a suspense novel that's not too suspenseful. (You can safely read this at night.) I enjoyed the twists and turns, and I appreciated the Underground Railroad connection. And while Dobson chooses to let the reader in on a villain or two at the beginning, other characters' motivations did not become clear until much later in the book, which kept me guessing. My one criticism is that some of the connections between characters seemed a little too convenient. However, that was only a minor detraction from the enjoyment I experienced while reading Refuge on Crescent Hill.

I give Refuge on Crescent Hill 4 out of 5 stars. You can read an excerpt of the book here.

About the Author: Melanie Dobson is the award-winning author of The Black Cloister; Love Finds You in Liberty, Indiana; and Together for Good. A former corporate publicity manager at Focus on the Family, Melanie has worked in the fields of journalism and publicity for more than eighteen years. She and her family live in Oregon.

Special Note: The Kindle version of Refuge on Crescent Hill will be available FREE for one week starting October 31—be sure to get your copy!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free for review from Kregel Publications.  I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”