I’ve fallen in love with reading on my Kindle, but somehow I find discovering new writers very awkward on it. There are zillions of books available, of course, but it’s the old ‘fire hose’ problem. The few ‘recommendation’ lists I’ve tried seem to be hit or miss – I suspect they are For Pay somehow, rather than impartial opinions. Which leaves me falling back on searching for the latest books by my already-favorite authors. Which are nice to have, but not enough to sate my taste for reading.
So, how about we tell each other about what we’ve read recently that we’ve liked AND is available for Kindle reading? I suggest giving title, author, what genre it falls into, and maybe a bit about why you liked it. (No rules against suggesting the lastest Stephen King book, but that’s probably less useful.)
Here are two from me to start off:
Flesh Worn Stone by John A. Burke (thriller, non-supernatural horror elements, first of a trilogy)
A man wakes up from a kidnapping to find he’s been taken to fight in “Games” that can lead to death, rape, and dismemberment. The writing is awkward in places (you really start to appreciate professional editors once you begin reading self-published books) but the plotting and story structure are excellent and kept me guessing the whole way.
Dark and Deep by Katherine Tree (sf, ‘survival in a new world’ type. First in a series, book 2 has just been published.)
A way has been discovered for people to be transported to a new world, basically the same as Earth but for some reason humans never evolved on it. People are sent over in smallish groups with a limited amount of supplies, and then are on their own to create a new life.
Personally I’m a sucker for this type of ‘starting over’ type book – doesn’t matter if it’s a traditional ‘got there by spaceship’ novel or post-Apocalype of whatever type, I just like seeing how it works out. In this book the level of ‘technology’ is basically like that of America in colonial times. What I especially appreciated was that the interactions of the lead characters (a pair of twin brothers and the woman one of them loves) never fall into the stereotypical patterns. And at least one of the events I’ve never seen happen in any book before.
I’m having a similar issue with the Kindle Unlimited (aka “Netflix for books”) plan. It’s very rare that a book I’m actually looking for turns out to be part of Unlimited (although the brand new “What If?” book from the xkcd.com author is). It seems to be almost all self-published stuff, and a lot more miss than hit. Amazon seems to be slowly turning into a bad fan-fic site; the garbage is beginning to drown out the real stuff (particularly since they don’t identify it in any way in searches).
I just discovered an author named Susanna Kearsley. I’m reading a book by her named Mariana, and it is just sooooooo what I want to read. She’s widely published in paperback, but a lot of her stuff seems to be available via Kindle too. Mariana is, so far, a Girl Buys A House book, which I love. I picked up Mariana as a Kindle Daily Deal, so it was cheap, which is great.
A friend has been trying to get me into Courtney Milan romances, which are also widely available on Kindle. I find her story ideas intriguing, but the writing is so hard to read, I haven’t been able to enjoy them. Alas.
I read Katharine Tree, also. It’s good for Outlander fans who are tired of re-reading the Outlander books.
I’ve probably gotten more than 200 books from that site in the last six months, all free, and most from people that I have never heard of before. A few were dogs, a few were brilliant, the rest were all good, solid reads.
A couple of books I’ve read either via the Kindle First program or Amazon Prime Loan – worth the time spent IMHO.
The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg. I’d recommend checking it out if you’re into YA-style magic.
Ceony Twill just graduated from Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, and has been bound to an apprenticeship in Paper Magic, despite her desire to pursue metal magic. Her master, Magician Emery Thane, is a bit of an odd duck - but when a figure from his past comes to wreak havoc - Ceony finds herself on a quest to save her teacher’s life.
While a bit whimsical to start with, I found both the world building and the plot quite interesting, and the characters engaging. It’s a fun read overall & I’ll probably keep an eye out for potential sequels, as it’s billed as the first of a trilogy.
The Truth about Sharks & Pigeons by Matt Phillips. Similar to Douglas Adams/Tom Holt in style & substance, if not quite as high-quality. A fun read if you run with the premise - sharks & pigeons are really aliens fighting over our world; and The Chosen One from the human realm is a bit of a nebbish; even with the help of his highly-trained Protector.
Gilded by Christina L. Farley. While at first glance, it feels like a spin off of the Hunger Games/Divergent/Maze Runner fad - the Korean culture elements add something new to the plot and I found the worldbuilding fairly solid.
I’m enjoying the “Wayward Pines” series by Blake Crouch. Starts off like “Twin Peaks” and then gets a much more dangerous. He just published the third book in the series, though there are “satellite” (?) books/stories written by other authors. (I’m not sure if that’s an e-publishing trend or just something I’ve never been aware of but I notice it a lot with kindle books.) Fox or FX has a series based on the books coming out at some point. I’ve read a few of Crouch’s stand-alone titles and well and really enjoyed them.
Series trailer:
Brett Battles' "Eden" series is also very good. Imagine Stephen King's "The Stand" as an ongoing series. His characters can be underdeveloped but the action moves so fast you find yourself not caring. I think there are six or seven books in the series and I devoured them all in a matter of days; now I'm going through withdrawal waiting for more installments. As with the "Wayward Pines" series, there are a number of books/stories based on Battles' original story but written by other authors. I haven't read any of those.
I’ll second Chris Nuttall. I’m not that hot on military SF, but give his book Sufficiently Advanced Technology a shot for some nice galactic empire SF.
If you liked* Fifty Shades of Grey* and wish there were something else out there like it only better written, give “His Slave, His Princess: Collared By The Billionaire Prince” by Tanya Korval a shot. She create’s a Gor-like small nation somewhere in Europe and makes it interesting and almost believable.
I’ll also plug Anya Vossand’s Power Series. It’s a series of books about a unicorn that is abducted from a woods in 14th Century France and sold eventually to a demoness in an interstellar portal known as “The Nexus.” Intriguing characters, interesting world. I got tired of the sex scenes very early on as they are not my cuppa, but I kept reading because of the interesting characters and story. Nice writing! These books are kinky, weird and all kinds of fun. If you like lesbian SM sex slavery with a touch of furry thrown in, these books will be even MORE fun I suspect. But even if not … they’re fun and weird.
Boy, the way I started was just to go through the “Top 100 Free Kindle Books”, being the [del]cheapskate[/del] thrifty person that I am. I can’t claim that these are “great” authors, but they write exciting, and in some cases extremely moving, stories:
Mira Grant: the Newsflesh series. If you’re like me, these will rip your heart out and leave you hoping for more novels in the series.
Seanan McGuire, who is the real author behind Mira Grant (which is a pseudonym).
J. R. Rain: for good, page-turning Vampire stories, with surprisingly good character development.
Christopher Moore: humorous fantasy / SF novels set in the Bay Area often.
Richelle Meade: if you like succubus fantasy novels set in the present time. Better than I expected.
Stephen Gould: the “Jumper” series. Has features I like: an intelligent protagonist who has to figure out remarkable abilities on their own.
Neil Gaiman: the inimitable. There’s enough love for him on the web already, so I don’t need to say anything else.
Richard Castle: Very Meta: novels supposedly written by the fictional character Richard Castle on the TV show “Castle”.
John Locke: not the philosopher, the novelist. Likes writing novels with psychopaths and sociopaths as the protagonist. Not great literature, but pretty good page turners (with a lemon or two in there).
