Category: ebooks

Ebook Review Central, Carina Press, March 2012

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Ebook Review Central> ebooks

Carina Press published a very interesting line-up of titles in March of 2012, and Ebook Review Central is here to take a look at the hits for the month.

Every four weeks, as the Carina Press issue rolls around, I continue to be amazed at the range of fiction that Carina publishes, and at how quickly the blogosophere produces reviews for their fiction. When ERC first began, October 24, 2011, with the Carina Press September 2011 titles, the one-month delay was built in to allow for titles published at the end of the month to get read and reviewed.

Even the titles Carina published March 26, barely two weeks ago, Alien Velocity by Robert Appleton, Gate to Kandrith by Nicole Luiken, Her Dark Protector by Carol Stephenson and A Kiss in the Wind by Jennifer Bray-Weber, all have reviews.  (I’m in the middle of Alien Velocity right now!)

Carina Press does an amazing job, month after month, of making sure their books get in the hands of reviewers. They also publish just plain good stories. Clearly a lot of readers think so.

About those stories…what were the highlights this month?

The Kowalskis pull the hat-trick for first place! Shannon Stacey’s Yours to Keep, the third book in her Kowalski Family series was the number one title this month. The completes the series, and makes the third month in a row Ms. Stacey’s Kowalski family member of the month has had the most and best reviews. This is the one I read first, and I enjoyed both the story and the family so much I had to read the first two books. It’s the story of a young woman who pretends she has a fake fiancé to keep her grandmother from worrying about her. But when her grandmother plans a visit, she needs a real-pretend fiancé to keep up that pretense. Then the fake turns real, and suddenly Emma Shaw and Sean Kowalski are playing for keeps.

Beauty in the Beast by Christine Danse is described as a dark fairy tale, or as a collection of dark fairy tales. The description reads like a cross between Beauty and the Beast and 1,001 Arabian Nights, with a little bit of steampunk and the alchemy of the Brothers Grimm thrown in for good measure. Because this version of the Beauty and the Beast story involves a group of travelling players who are lost at the “Beast’s” castle, and not just the titular “Beauty”, the reader gets several stories told by the players in addition to the romance. More than enough reviewers found this mix of shape-shifting with fairytale haunting enough to push this book into the number two slot.

Carina dedicated the week of March 19 to publishing male/male romance titles. All of the books published that week caught the attention of reviewers. and readers. Brook Street: Thief by Ava March is the start of a historical romance trilogy that did well with reviewers. But not quite as well as Moving in Rhythm by new author Dev Bentham. Lucky 13 reviews and all of them really terrific! Everyone loved this book. There was something about the idea of a gorgeously handsome but painfully shy hero that grabbed all the readers and wouldn’t let go of their heartstrings.

Moving in Rhythm may be a book about dancing lessons, but from the sound of it, the love story sings to every reader.

That’s our three hits for this week from Carina. Ebook Review Central will be back next week to feature the March titles from Dreamspinner Press.

 

 

Review + Giveaway of Isadora Daystar

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> ebook giveaway> ebooks

As a human being, Isadora Daystar barely managed to a half-assed job at every single thing she tried in her life. But being the title character of this science fiction novel by P.I. Barrington, this one time, Isadora Daystar finally manages to come up aces.

The reader’s introduction to Isadora has a familiar feel to it. Isabella is a soldier, and she’s in the brig for screwing up. Her commanding officer is paying her a visit, disappointed that she’s messed up, again.

At first, Isabella reminded me of Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica. Starbuck also screwed up a lot, but had incredible potential. The difference was that Starbuck fulfilled hers, however strangely that turned out.

In the very opening of Isadora Daystar, Isadora’s life takes a different path. In her memory (and it is obvious that she is remembering something in her past) Isadora’s commanding officer Renan, chews her out, expresses his disappointment, turns off the cameras in her cell, and kisses her senseless.

And that’s the last good memory Isabella seems to have.

Isabella’s present is a mess. She’s not in the military any longer. She not fit to serve. Isadora Daystar has fallen from being a Sergeant-Major to being a drug addict. One who will do anything to get her next fix. And since the military taught her how to kill, Isadora Daystar has become an assassin.

But she’s not terribly good at it. She admits that to herself in her coherent moments. She tells herself that she wasn’t all that great of a soldier, and she’s not all that great of an assassin, either. But she needs the money. For the drugs.

Beggars can’t be choosers. Assassins who don’t complete their assignments don’t get to pick their targets. They don’t get to negotiate terms, either.

Isadora takes what she knows is a bad job on the planet Nova Cheiros. It’s a place where too many people in too many low places remember her none too fondly. But she has to take what she can get.

The contractor is a liar and a cheat, and she knows it. But she needs the money. The target, well, she thinks she got him. But nobody told her he was a cop. So she has to get off planet, and fast.

Then her ride off-planet gets shot out from under her, and her fellow crash victim is a teenage girl with a whole lot of attitude; the daughter of that cop Isadora killed.

Are they going to save each other, or kill each other? And who shot the ship?

Escape Rating B: Isadora’s story is not for the faint of heart. She starts out at the bottom, and she knows she’s hit bottom. The worst part is, she doesn’t think there’s anything left for her except complete degradation and death. We see her memories and know that Isadora believes she deserves her fate.

When the Isadora’s escape ship crashes, fate intervenes. Of course saving the girl she’s stranded with keeps her alive. That’s a story we expect. But quite a bit of how that story resolved was a surprise. Guilt is easy and forgiveness is hard.

In spite of the scene in Isadora’s memories with her commanding officer kissing her senseless, this is not a romance in any way, shape or form. It’s science fiction, but that’s probably more of a setting than an actual necessity. This is a redemption story that happens to be set in a science fiction world. The space travel is a nice bonus.

Speaking of bonuses, this review is part of the Isadora Daystar blog tour from BTS Virtual Tours. I have 2, yes 2 e-copies of Isadora to give away. The giveaway will be open until 12:01 am EDT the morning of April 10, 2012 and I will announce the winners on April 11, 2012. All you have to do fill out the Rafflecopter form below:


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ebook Review Central, Amber Quill, Astraea Press, Liquid Silver Books, Riptide Publishing, February 2012

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Ebook Review Central> ebooks

March went out like a lamb in this part of the country. February is going out here at Ebook Review Central. This is the four-in-one post, featuring titles from all of the Amber Quill houses, Astraea Press, Liquid Silver Books and last but definitely not least this month, Riptide Publishing for the month of February 2012.

Before we get to the featured books, let’s talk about the publishers for just a second, because we have more than one. This issue is always different, because the featured titles can move around from publisher to publisher, depending on who has the “hottest” titles in any given month.

But there are definitely some trends.

Astraea Press hired a review coordinator a few months ago. Opal Campbell is doing a bang-up job. Every Astraea Press title gets reviewed.

Amber Quill is…not doing as well. Or they are and they aren’t. Amber Quill is an umbrella name for three houses, Amber Quill for more general fiction, Amber Heat for erotic m/f fiction, and Amber Allure for m/m fiction. The titles they publish from Amber Allure always get reviewed. The Amber Quill and Amber Heat, not so much. This month, the Amber Heat titles, not at all. Whoever or however they do it on the Amber Allure side of the house, please replicate it on the Amber Heat side! It’s not good to see this many books from one publisher with no reviews.

But Riptide Publishing seems to be doing everything right. I have yet to see one of their titles not get reviewed. In at least four places and usually more! Also, from the perspective of the person researching Ebook Review Central every week, Riptide’s website is an absolute gem. Not just because they have a complete entry for every book with all the data readily available in one place, but also because they track the reviews! (I always find a few more, but it is so helpful to have a starting point.)

Riptide published three titles in February 2012. Those three titles each received at least twice as many reviews as the next nearest competitor. Not only did they get the most reviews, they were all pretty darn good ones, too.

Featured title number one for this all-Riptide issue is Dark Soul Vol. 4 by Aleksandr Voinov. This is a collection of three shorter works, Dark Rival I, Dark Rival II and Dark Temptation. These stories involve Silvio, Stefano, the Russian mafia, and whether a man involved in a crime family can afford to be himself without hurting the ones he loves the most. This series has been described as obsessive, dangerous, compelling and delicious. Repeatedly. Notice that this is volume 4 and plan your reading binge accordingly.

The second entry on the Riptide hit parade is The Heart’s Greater Silence by Anne Brooke. This is not a story with an HEA, or even a Happy for Now. Mark loves Craig, but he’s having sexual affair with Richard. Richard is a minister, and is married to his vocation, but he’s having his sexual needs attended to by Mark. When Craig is confronted by Mark’s betrayal, Mark’s world falls apart. This is a moving story about someone who throws away his chance at a happy ending.

But the third featured title in this all-Riptide ERC does end this issue on a much lighter note. Few Are Chosen by Storm Grant is an Urban Fantasy, but this story is one that every single reviewer said they laughed through. Any story about virgin teenage demon hunters who squabble over tighty-whities not being proper super-hero undies and which of them is more the “Chosen One” than the other has a leg up on funny. The reviewers say that the story pokes some gentle fun at Buffy, but with one of the boys wearing a black leather duster, it sounds like my favorite Chicago wizard, Harry Dresden, has some fun thrown his way as well. Harry’s a big wizard, he can take it. (Few Are Chosen sounds like one I’d like to read!)

I never know which titles will be featured until I finish searching for all the reviews. To have all the featured titles in this issue be from the same publisher was a surprise until the very end.

Next week the cycle comes back around to Carina Press’ March titles. Time marches on!

Ebook Review Central, Samhain Publishing, February 2012

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Ebook Review Central> ebooks

Samhain Publishing’s list for February 2012 is, as usual, long and extremely diverse.

On the one hand, we have the sweetness that Samhain’s Retro Contemporary romances bring to the line in Kane and Mabel. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, or perhaps at several opposite ends, we have the chills and thrills of their Horror line, represented by Genesis of Evil, and the naughtier sides of romance, from their Red Hots (I wonder, do they want us to think of hot dogs, or not, with that particular warning label?) like Off Limits and Reckless Territory. Those titles even sound hot.

But which titles will be featured this week? Let’s see what we have here…

The number one title stole the top spot and the souls of its readers. The hero, or perhaps anti-hero is a better term, is a soul collector who lands himself on demon death row for betraying his demon boss. His attempt at suicide by demon hunter results in a rescue by a virgin white witch looking to rid herself of a curse that guards her virginity. And she’s found the one demon hunter who would be more than happy to help. If this sounds familiar to you, that’s because it’s Getting Familiar With Your Demon, by Jodi Redford, and reviewers (and there were plenty) gave it high marks. Be prepared to lose yourself in Redford’s series That Old Black Magic, because Demon is book 4. But this looks like a great place to get lost.

If romantic comedy is more your style, then check out the number two selection for this month, Tamara Morgan’s Love is a Battlefield. This first book in her Games of Love series (yeah, a first book in a series!) is a tale about two sets of re-enactment fanatics fighting over the same territory for their “games” who end up having some games of their own. This sounds utterly delicious, the Jane Austen Regency Re-Enactment Society going to war with the Highland Games athletes, with the men in kilts. What does a proper Highlander wear under his kilt? This story provides a sexy, and funny answer to that question.

The last title featured is acclaimed by all the reviewers for its charm, its emotional depth and the painstaking research that went into it. The book is A Private Gentleman by Heidi Cullinan. This historical male/male romance takes place in the mid-19th century, and is much more than a simple love story. Or even more than a complicated love story, for that matter. The story is about love that reaches beyond class boundaries, but even that’s been done before. What captivated the reviewers was the way this story dealt with issues of disability, addiction and childhood abuse, and how the love between the two heroes eventually helped them come to terms with their pasts, their present and their possible future.

Ebook Review Central will be back next week with our four-in-one issue. We’ll see begin April by highlighting February from Amber Quill, Astraea Press, Liquid Silver and Riptide Publishing.  Come back next week!

Ebook Review Central, Carina Press, February 2012

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Ebook Review Central> ebooks

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Just kidding! But if it feels like all that “springing ahead” this weekend for daylight savings time has you running behind, welcome to the Carina Press February 2012 feature titles at Ebook Review Central.

There was never any question which title would be the number one featured title this month.

The first featured slot, undeniably and without a doubt, goes to Undeniably Yours by Shannon Stacey. Not only is this the second title in her Kowalskis series, it’s the second month in a row that Ms. Stacey and her series has been the first place finisher at ERC for Carina. The Kowalskis series is a contemporary romance series with an engaging cast of characters–not just the lead romantic couple in each book, but the extended family that surrounds them. Readers love the whole Kowalski family. Some reviewers had mixed feelings about the girl who marries into the Kowalski family in Undeniably Yours.

Cinderella goes to the ball again in the second featured book. A Waltz at Midnight by Crista McHugh is a sweetly romantic play on Cinderella. A former Southern belle turned housemaid (very Cinderella-ish) works in a school for ladies. One of said “ladies” pays her to write letters for her to an unwelcome suitor. The lady in question wants Cinderella, oops, I meant Susanna, to let the suitor down. Instead, Susanna and the wealthy suitor fall in love with each other through the letters. But when the wealthy suitor wants to meet his correspondent, Susanna has to reveal her duplicity, she is the maid and not the rich young lady he thinks he’s been corresponding with.

The final featured book this month is the cyberpunk science fiction romance Synthetic Dreams by Kim Knox. Synthetic Dreams takes place in a future world that looks a lot a fully immersive version of Facebook. Or perhaps a version of the Matrix where all the players are not just conscious that the mental universe they are living and working in isn’t really real, but are actually counting on that knowledge. One Corporation controls the best, the most expensive, the most immersive Mind Tiers. But what fuels the layers of those Tiers? How does it all really work? One genius hacker is determined to find all the Corporation’s secrets. Why? Because the Corporation destroyed her life. Now she needs to destroy them. Because they are out to get her. Again.

Take a look for yourself at the Carina Press list for February. What would your top titles be for the month?

And don’t forget to come back next week to see the featured titles for Dreamspinner Press for February 2012!

Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Big 6 publishers> ebooks> ebooks in libraries> libraries

And now libraries know that Random House is planning to use real silver for that lining.

The problem with Random House’s plan is that libraries don’t have all that much silver to give them  in this era of shrinking budgets.

On February 2, Random House, the only one of the “Big 6” publishers to provide ebooks to libraries without restrictions, made an announcement that they would continue their generous policy, but that there would be a price hike to deal with some of the issues surrounding permanent access to ebooks.

Most libraries probably expected the price to rise somewhere in the neighborhood of 50%. Maybe double.

The hammer fell March 1. Hammer as in auction hammer. Or the hammer of doom.

Yesterday, Random House tripled the prices of their ebooks. You read that right. An ebook that cost a library $15 on Monday, costs $45 today. The libraries are reeling from the sticker shock.

But what will this mean?

Library budgets are not growing, they are flat or shrinking. Public libraries are creatures of local government, and tax revenues at the local government level are still sucky. Let’s be blunt here.

If the per-title price rises significantly, as it has just done. and the budget stays flat, what will happen? In most cases, libraries will buy fewer titles with the same dollars. Some will rearrange their budgets as much as they can, but very, very few will be able to triple their ebook budgets.

What gets purchased in this scenario? High-demand titles get purchased, so the hold queues get filled. Or at least stay tamed. John Grisham does not lose many library sales out of this.

What doesn’t get purchased? Mid-list authors and debut authors, because there is very little money left in the budget with which to take a chance. And the next John Grisham and Nora Roberts and James Patterson have to come from somewhere. Some of them will come from self-publication Cinderella stories like Amanda Hocking, but some will still come from the mid-list. If they get the chance.

Unlike V.C. Andrews, most authors do not write from beyond the grave. What are the publishers planning to do when the current crop of bestselling juggernauts decide to retire?  The number one way that readers decide to purchase a book is because they liked the author’s last book. The trick seems to be to get people to read an author the first time. And with the demise of more and more bricks-and-mortar bookstores, that trick is getting harder all the time.

But protecting their authors is not what this move is about. Revenue numbers from 2011 are starting to come in from the major publishers, and the picture that emerges is very interesting. Sales of print are down, digital is up and profitability is up. Think about it for a minute. Digital books have no inventory, no print costs, and very low distribution costs. Most of the infrastructure to produce them already exists. For the publisher, they are almost pure profit.

Profitability is in no way a bad thing. It’s required for a business to remain in business. But let’s not pretend. Random House is charging more for their ebooks to libraries because Random House believes:

that pricing to libraries must account for the higher value of this institutional model, which permits e-books to be repeatedly circulated without limitation. The library e-book and the lending privileges it allows enables many more readers to enjoy that copy than a typical consumer copy. Therefore, Random House believes it has greater value, and should be priced accordingly.

In other words, because they can.

Ebook Review Central, Samhain Publishing, January 2012

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Ebook Review Central> ebooks

It’s time to warm up a cold winter’s night by taking a look at the titles released by Samhain Publishing during the month of January 2012.

And the reason I said warm up is because all of the featured titles for this month’s issue carry Samhain’s “Red Hots!!!” label. The stories favored by the reviewers for this month were all steamy enough to heat up the coldest winter night.

The other thing that this month’s hits all have in common is that they were all series entries.

The first featured entry this week, is Devon’s Pair, by Jayne Rylon. This is the fourth book in her Powertools series, and the “warning” in the description calls it the first “m/f/m/f/m/f/m/m/f” they think. Call this a ménage with a fairly big crew. Which is part of the point of the story. The Powertools series is about a crew of home renovators that seem to share everything, their tools, their company, and their spouses. By the time this fourth book in the series comes around, every relationship between ever possible combination of partners, triples, etc. is up for exploration in hot and loving detail. And based on the reviews, readers keep eating each new addition to the mix.

Hidden Fire by Jess Dee is part of the Red Hot Weekend series. It is also the sequel to Winter Fire, a novella in the same series from January 2011. In Winter Fire, Rachel Ashberg and Garreth Halt spend one night together, as he indulges her fantasy of being with a man she can never have.  Two years later, it is Garreth’s story, and he is trapped for the weekend with Janna Brooks, the woman he loves but who has always been out of reach. Reviewers must have begged for Garreth’s story, and been thrilled when they finally got it!

Vivian Arend’s Rocky Mountain Heat was a November featured title, and she has continued to heat up the mountains with her Six Pack Ranch Series. Book two at the Six Pack Ranch, Rocky Mountain Haven, captured the reviewers hearts this month. Haven not only contains Arend’s signature wit and heated love scenes, but also captures a complicated second-chance-at-love story between an intelligent and interesting characters. The reviews make this sound like a strong entry in what is shaping up to be a very interesting romantic and erotic series.

Next week will be the January 4-in-1 post, so we’ll look at Amber Quill Press, Astraea Publishing, Liquid Silver Books and Riptide Publishing.