Do you feel in the mood for snuggling up and reading but don’t want to spend the money? Get some great free books to pass the Christmas holidays with:
- at Project Gutenberg
- at DailyLit
- at ManyBooks
- at The Book Depository
- at Free e-books
- at amazon for Kindle (in German)
Happy Reading!
McCafe von McDonalds kooperiert momentan mit libri.de und bietet Gutscheine an für kostenlose Hörbücher. Offenbar bekommt jeder McCafe Kunde ein Kärtchen mit einem Gutscheincode, mit dem man auf einer speziellen Seite von libri.de unter drei verschiedenen Hörbüchern auswählen kann.
Die drei Titel sind:
- “Eisfiber” von Ken Follett
- “Der Nobelpreis” von Andreas Eschbach
- “Lügen, die von Herzen kommen” von Kerstin Gier
Die Aktion läuft bis 31.12.2010.
Blurb:
Time in Iraq cost Michael Ritter some of his hearing and a friend whose death he feels responsible for. He’d left Alabama hoping to escape a dull, small-town life, but now, four years later, he’s returning, lugging a duffle full of personal demons. Engineering student Jay Ortiz attends college in a place where his heritage and orientation aren’t widely accepted. While adjusting to new surroundings he found a soldier’s picture. During lonely times he confided in the image of the somber young man, giving his heart away to a stranger. Now that stranger is coming home…
My thoughts:
After bitching and moaning for the last weeks about stories that are too short for their topic I went and read another novel by a new author – new for me anyway. On Goodreads Kassa recommended Eden Winters to me and I gave her novel "The Telling" (I think it is her first one) a try. The story is available for free at the GLBT Bookshelf and it is well worth the read.
It is a rather quiet story about Michael and Jay falling in love and Michael slow healing process with only little interference from outsiders. Nothing exciting or dramatic, but incredibly sweet and lovely. Jay is absolutely perfect (I’d almost say too perfect. But his obsession with Michael before he even meets him makes him human after all), Michael, however, has issues to resolve. Together they are a good couple.
The side characters were almost all supportive and well drawn. I can’t say I was too fussed about Angie, Michael’s sister, though. I have no siblings, so I don’t really know anything about typical big sister behaviour but she seemed overly meddlesome to me. Too meddlesome for me anyway. The constant prodding for information, the matchmaking and telling Jay and Michael what to do or not to do really got on my nerves. In the scene when she comes to Michael’s house while Jay was still sleeping I would have just told her to bloody leave. Geez!
The story is quite long, almost 70.000 words and I finished it in half a day. I started reading in the afternoon and was done sometime at night. That should tell you all you need to know, considering that I usually I am a very slow reader. It’s that good.
If you are not familiar with Eden Winters, go and read it!
| Title | The Telling |
| Author | Eden Winters |
| Publisher | Free download |
| ISBN | — |
| Download link | Get The telling for free at the GLBT bookshelf (scroll down a bit) |
I’m not a great fan of Ravenous Romance. Like I said in my review of “Blood and Sex, vol. 1”, I think their customer service sucks. But I’m sure there are people out there who like the shop. Now it has started its own Facebook page and they are giving away a free e-book to a random reader / fan every time they reach a certain number of fans. So, if you want a chance to win a book of your choice from Ravenous Romance, become their fan on Facebook!
I blogged quite some time ago about the first three stories about David and Seth by Jessica Freely. “Hero”, “Stay” and “Scars” were available at Torquere books, but now only the last one is still up for sale. The fourth story “Rust Belt” is due to come out in a few weeks at Loose ID, and Jessica has generously offered the now out of print stories as freebies on her yahoo group. Right now “Hero” is there to download, “Stay" will follow a bit later. Plus, there is another free story called “Feast” about the two guys available. If you’d like to get them all, just sign up for Jessica’s yahoo group.
I found the link to this story at Whispered Words. The person who submitted it, falconer, added a short blurb: “The narrator has just accepted the fact that he is gay, after about 20 years of denial. Now the Copier Guy may well the one to help him embrace his sexuality.” He/she added that the plot reminded him/her somewhat of “mw smoker seeks seclusion”, a story I blogged about some time ago.
This is not totally far fetched, but for me the similarities ended on the second or third page. Yes, the first person narrator is gay, works as a secretary and sounds lonely at first, but he’s neither such a terrible cynic as Clyde, nor nearly as snarky or as misanthropic. Actually he is a really nice person and falls for the guy who comes to repair the copy machine – and vice versa. That bit reminded me again a bit of “Special Delivery” by Cassandra Gold. But all that aside, this is a really sweet story. Mike and Scott are such lovable, great characters. They meet by chance, meet again with the help of (clumsy) machinations of Mike and fall in love. This all takes place between Thursday and Sunday. I loved it.
You can get the story for free at Nifty.org or ladiesweb.net.
Clyde, a chain smoking, snarky, misanthropic secretary falls slowly and against his will in love with Sam who worms his way into Clyde’s life. The story is told completely in first person from Clyde’s POV and in present tense. Clyde doesn’t change that much in the course of the book, he’s still the guy who hates people in general and his colleagues in particular. The only difference now is that he’s in love with Sam. I absolutely loved it. At a word count of almost 83.000 words it is a long read, so make sure you set apart some reading time.
Get or read it for free at Fictionpress
This is a story that I found through a link at Uniquely Pleasurable.
David gets mugged on the way home from a party. He’s got no money on him and – as compensation – he offers the mugger a blowjob…
Think this sounds like a fantastic story? You got it right. It is.
David is a complete arsehole. A cynic who treats everybody like shit. He’s jaded and uncaring. Jazz, the mugger, is a talented pianist, who was out for some money to buy a suit at a thrift store in order to find a job. He is getting more and more emotionally involved with David, he moves in with him (sort of) and believes they have a thing going on. David doesn’t think so.
This kept me enthralled from start to finish. The slow and subtle change for David from a total jerk to an ok guy was done perfectly. He didn’t even want it himself, it just happened.
If you like intense stories, rough sex scenes, an original plot and great characterization, pick this one up! Best of all – it’s free!
I must admit that I don’t get Live Journal at all. I have no clue how it works, but I think in this case if you go to Shousetsu Bang*Bang’s Live Journal homepage (or whatever it is called) there is more to be discovered.
Available at the LJ of s2b2
I already mentioned those free stories in my review of “Zero at the Bone”, but it’s time to give a little update. Jane has been busy and put a third free story up on her website Jane Seville Books. By now she offers three stories, all of which just give us a small glimpse into the guys’ life after the novel ends. I really liked the first two and will get the third one later tonight and read it all snuggled up. I hate reading on the computer, so the story will have to wait for a bit.
And of course, I’ve got to go and pick up Conflict in blood later on and see what fun there is to be had at Ariel’s party.
Lara Adrian is giving away the first story in her popular Midnight Breed series as an e-book for free. “Kiss of Midnight” is the first of so far five books with the sixth one “Ashes of Midnight” coming out later this month. If you like vampires, romance and a story arc this might be a good series for you. Want to give it a try? Then go and download your free copy of Kiss of Midnight.
