Today’s Steals and Deals at AAR…..
We know you love WWII historical fiction. We’ve liked other books by Reay and Amazon readers give this one a whopping 4.7 stars!
Vienna, 1954
After losing everyone she loves in the final days of World War II, Ingrid Bauer agrees to a hasty marriage with a gentle Soviet embassy worker and follows him home to Moscow. But nothing within the Soviet Union’s totalitarian regime is what it seems, including her new husband, whom Ingrid suspects works for the KGB. Inspired by her daughter’s birth, Ingrid risks everything and reaches out in hope to the one country she understands and trusts—Britain, the country of her mother’s birth. She begins passing intelligence to MI6, navigating a world of secrets and lies, light and shadow.
Moscow, 1980
A student in the Foreign Studies Initiative, Anya Kadinova finishes her degree at Georgetown University and boards a flight home to Moscow, leaving behind the man she loves and a country she’s grown to respect. Though raised by dedicated and loyal Soviet parents, Anya soon questions an increasingly oppressive and paranoid regime at the height of the Cold War. Then the KGB murders her best friend and Anya chooses her side. Working in a military research lab, she relays Soviet plans and schematics to the CIA in an effort to end the 1980s arms race.
The past catches up to the present when an unprecedented act of treachery threatens all agents operating within Eastern Europe, and both Ingrid and Anya find themselves in a race for their lives against time and the KGB.
It’s on sale at Amazon for 2.99 here.
Bored of WWII historical fiction? How about a DIK set right after WWI? (We loved this one.)
It’s 1919, and twenty-year-old Kitty Weeks has been running away from her abusive father for the past four years. That means going from job to job, often under assumed names, and never staying in one place too long. She’s gutsy and independent, and even though she can never completely shake them off, she refuses to allow her past experiences to beat her down. Her latest position, in the wilds of the north of England, is as a nurse at Portis House, an imposing mansion-turned-asylum for men suffering from shell-shock. She’s not a nurse, of course, but she needs the job and wants to be somewhere she’ll be difficult to find. With falsified references of her previous experience at a London hospital, Kitty blags her way in.
The work is arduous and the days are long, as the place is terribly understaffed, but Kitty soon gets into the swing of things. Her lack of real nursing qualifications does not hinder her, and she quickly strikes up friendships with two of her fellow nurses, Martha and Nina. They gossip together and moan about sore feet and matron’s edicts. I really enjoyed the dynamics of their relationship.
An element of mystery is introduced when Kitty hears about the enigmatic “Patient Sixteen,” who never comes out of his room and whom, she discovers, one has to have special clearance to visit. Being one to take the opportunity to flout the rules, Kitty manages to meet him – and is astonished by what she discovers.
The author gradually builds a sense of menace. We hear about strange noises, the patients’ nightmares, and ghostly apparitions. There is clearly some sort of corruption going on which involves the visiting doctors and the house’s owner. There are also questions surrounding the treatment (or rather, non-treatment) of the patients at Portis House and speculation as to why the previous owners disappeared so suddenly. Bumps in the night, a patient who shouldn’t be there, possible conspiracies… Ms. St. James develops and intertwines her plot threads very cleverly, and I was utterly engrossed in the story from start to finish.
Speaking as someone who has a particular interest in the history of First World War, I found the setting (a mental institution for soldiers suffering from shell-shock) to be the novel’s true strength. Ms St. James has clearly done her homework on the way these men were viewed, treated, and so badly misunderstood: returned from one horror only to be plunged into another. Removed from family and friends and branded insane, they were locked away like criminals. All of them are well-rounded, engaging characters, and she skillfully evokes sympathy for their situations.
It’s at Amazon for 2.99 here.
Jill Marie Landis’ first contemporary novel is awesome. Her publisher is marketing the book as women’s fiction, but the story of Carly Nolan and Jake Montgomery is a great romance.
The back-story for Lover’s Lane is this: Carly Nolan has spent much of her life on the run. After running away from her last foster home as a teen, she was taken in by a retiree who nurtured her broken spirit and taught her to paint. Then she met rich playboy Rick Saunders, spent an idyllic month with him and fell in love before he went to Japan. When he returns and discovers that Carly had his son, Christopher, he proposes. Unfortunately, after he tells his parents about his son and new fiancée, he is killed en route back to them. His parents, devastated by the loss of their beloved son, try to buy their grandson, and when this fails, threaten legal action. Carly runs with her son, never to be heard from again.
Private investigator Jake Montgomery has been looking for Carly in the six years since his childhood friend Rick Saunders died. He believes his friend’s parents description of Carly as a white-trash gold-digger. During that time period his marriage failed and he started his own company after leaving the P.I. firm originally hired by the Saunders’ to find Carly. The million dollar reward could put his fledgling business in the black for years and make the company’s reputation. After all, she eluded his former employer for six long years.
Carly is not at all what he expected, and Jake’s plans go awry the minute he sees her. Their instant chemistry has him reevaluating his entire scheme. So instead of turning her in, he rents a fixer-upper for the summer and tries to get to know Carly. At first she resists because she has too much at stake to risk a chance at love. But after much soul searching she decides to take the leap into a relationship.
Both Jake and Carly have to overcome their own issues before they can truly form a lasting relationship. Jake doesn’t want to fall in love again after his first wife’s betrayal and feels guilty for falling in love with his best friend’s woman. After a lifetime of mistreatment by authority figures, Carly must learn to trust someone. Just as she does, the truth about Jake’s job is revealed.
It’s at Amazon for 0.99 here.
This too is loved by Amazon readers–over 12K of them have given this a 4.5 rating.
Based on the true story of America’s only leper colony, The Second Life of Mirielle West brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution known as Carville, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined throughout the entire 20th century.
For Mirielle West, a 1920’s socialite married to a silent film star, the isolation and powerlessness of the Louisiana Leper Home is an unimaginable fall from her intoxicatingly chic life of bootlegged champagne and the star-studded parties of Hollywood’s Golden Age. When a doctor notices a pale patch of skin on her hand, she’s immediately branded a leper and carted hundreds of miles from home to Carville, taking a new name to spare her family and famous husband the shame that accompanies the disease.
At first she hopes her exile will be brief, but those sent to Carville are more prisoners than patients and their disease has no cure. Instead she must find community and purpose within its walls, struggling to redefine her self-worth while fighting an unchosen fate.
It’s at Amazon for 2.99 here.
You can see all our current deals at our Amazon storefront here.
As an Amazon Affiliate, we earn a very small percentage of whatever you buy using our links. And remember, we get a percentage of EVERYTHING in your cart when you’ve begun your shopping with our links. That tiny sliver of money is what enables us to stay on line, so please, visit our links and click through to Amazon. Thanks!