BookBub

I’ve been sort of sulking over Kinsey suddenly discovering Dorothy Sayers and being able to read all of her books for the very first time, and wishing that I could discover some amazing new author like that, too. Then I ran across BookBub a few weeks ago, and while I’m not saying it is bringing me any Sayers-quality books, I’m having an enormous amount of fun with it!

BookBub is basically a site that lists the many, many free and discounted ebooks available through various venders. You can sign up to get daily emails with recommended deals, and I currently look forward each day to seeing what is on tap! Even if most of the books look terrible, I still love reading the little blurbs about them, and I’ve already downloaded five new books to try out, cost-free! Out of those, I’ve read two, and enjoyed both quite a bit, so I’m two-for-two, so far!

My first free download was The Last Necromancer, by C. J. Archer. Set in Victorian London, Charlie is a young woman who has been living as a boy on the streets for the past five years after her vicar father threw her out after discovering she could raise the dead. She is kidnapped by a secret society trying to track down all necromancers for an unknown purpose. The secret society, of course, is headed by a handsome and fascinating man, who unfortunately turns out to be a very problematic love interest, the weakest part of the book. It sounds ridiculous, and it is, but I still got a kick out of it!

Maids of Misfortune, by M. Louisa Locke, is actually a good book, set in Victorian-era San Francisco, where Annie Fuller runs a boarding house and a small clairvoyance business out of it, in order to make ends meet. Right of the bat, it is charming, with wonderful details about both businesses and the various characters she meets through them. The characters are all so well written, with nuanced and realistic humanity, that it completely made up for the somewhat predictable mystery. It continually surprised me with little realistic details that most books brush right over, and which I appreciated a lot. I not only highly recommend it, I’m looking forward to continuing the series.

I excitedly told Rebecca about this, and she hasn’t had quite the positive experience I have. For one, she was lazier about setting up her account, so she wasn’t getting as interesting recommendations. She has also been not quite so fortunate in her downloads, though I’m ascribing at least some of that to a lack of discrimination. She downloaded thirteen, started five, finished three, and mildly enjoyed one. She’s sticking with it, though, for the love of browsing and then getting free books.

Honestly, the best thing about it is how completely risk-free it is: no cost and no clutter!