Did you know that Amazon has a list of the top-selling and free sci-fi and fantasy books? The list changes constantly — authors and publishers set their books to free temporarily to promote their work, and, of course, books move up and down in the rankings. Read on to find your fun free read for this weekend! And grab the books quickly because they don’t always stay free for long.
This week’s list is completely different from those of the previous weeks. So if you’re a fan of free books, there are going to be new things to read all the time. If you want to get this list in your inbox every Friday afternoon, subscribe to the MetaStellar weekly newsletter.
There are a lot of books to go through, so this week I’m being helped out by a couple of other members of our MetaStellar community. If you’d like to join me in doing these reviews — and taping our regular Free Friday videos — email me at maria@metastellar.com.
5. The Naughty List by L. A. Kelley
This is the first of four books in the Naughty List paranormal romance series. The other books in the series are $2.99 each, but the entire series is in Kindle Unlimited. We first reviewed this book back in November of 2022, and again last November — it’s a popular holiday read!
From Maria Korolov:
David wakes up in a panic after a party. He thinks he’s forgotten to lock the vault on the other side of the building. He teleports over, and the door is open. The Book, with a capital “B,” is missing. He shudders thinking of the shame this will bring on this family. But wait — he still feels a mystical connection with the Book. It’s not too late. He can still follow the thread and find the Book and bring it back — or die trying.
After this promising beginning, we switch to the point of view of Rosalie, who works in a Florida department store that’s about to start getting ready for Christmas. She has a crush on a hot new hire there. She’s an average-looking brunette, and socially awkward, but the hot guy hasn’t hooked up with any of the flashy girls yet, so she thinks she might have a chance. She’s also hoping for a promotion, but her hopes get dashed.
Then we switch to yet another point of view. Billy, a hellhound, trying to track down David. Apparently, some gods think that David’s the one who stole the Book, and it’s Billy’s job to find him.
Then we switch back to Rosalie, who’s finally home after a long day at work. She’s alone, setting up a bedraggled artificial Christmas tree.
Then we switch back to David. He’s on his way south, flying with the wind, searching for the Book.
At the beginning of the next chapter, we’re back in the department store. The new manager has fired a bunch of people and the there’s a lot of tension in the air in the store.
I’m actually getting caught up in this. It feels a bit like a pleasant Hallmark holiday movie. Rosalie is a sympathetic character, and the store and its customers really mean a lot to her. I can see myself finishing the book this weekend.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
4. Escape by Jada Fisher
This is the first of nine books in the Rise of the Black Dragon young adult fantasy series. The other books are $0.99 to $3.99 each but are all in Kindle Unlimited. This is the author’s first time on our Free Friday list.
From E.S. Foster:
This story begins with an exciting opening and only builds up from there. Ukrah is a fourteen-year-old girl who has a strange dream of flying above fields of grass. She realizes that she is on a dragon, and they’re flying through strands of gold.
But suddenly she is woken up, dragged out of her tent, and tied up. Someone puts a sack on her head and carts her off, and no one listens to her protests. She has no idea what’s going on, but she starts to wonder if this is a prank.
When they remove the sack, it’s clear it’s not a prank. The head of the village and several others have gathered around her with torches. The leader explains that Ukrah’s soul is “corrupted” and that she must be killed.
Years before, a huge catastrophic event destroyed the climate and people developed supernatural abilities. People have since tried to kill anyone with these abilities, as they are seen as unnatural. The village is convinced Ukrah is one of these people.
Ukrah protests, but the village leader approaches with a dagger. In the blade’s reflection, she sees that her eyes are now two different colors. But instead of being stabbed, the village agrees to burn her at the stake, especially since they believe she might have water powers.
As she’s about to die, Ukrah hears a voice. She realizes that a small sparrow is speaking to her in her mind. The bird convinces her to release her anger, unleashing a power that will save her. Ukrah tries, and suddenly there is a huge burst of fiery energy and she loses consciousness.
Ukrah wakes back up in her bed without any wounds from the burning. She finds the bird waiting for her. She also discovers that her village has been burned to the ground.
I really liked the beginning of this story. It had incredible description in it, and I was immediately sucked into the story. I also liked the character of Ukrah. She felt very dimensional for a younger character, and I wanted to see what happened to her. I think I’ll stick around with this one!
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
3. The Perfect Sister by Desiree
This is a standalone dystopian mystery. It’s billed as “Book One.” I can’t find the series that it’s part of, but I did find The Perfect Sister 2. The sequel is $7.99 but it is in Kindle Unlimited. This is the author’s first time on our Free Friday list.
From E.S. Foster:
This story starts with a televised interview that quickly morphs into a debate between the leader of a cult, Torri, and the cop investigating it, Khalin. Torri insists that she founded the organization for black women who are being abused and that they have the tools necessary to provide women with education, housing, and income, though they only seek to help black women. She also states that the organization is not a cult, despite what people might think.
Khalin, on the other hand, sees things differently. He points out how the community very much sounds like a cult, especially since they’ve been trying to cover up the fact that women are required to give away any sons and raise daughters only. He knows this because he was, in fact, one of those children. He also states how women aren’t allowed to leave the organization and the women he has helped rescue have been brainwashed into extreme beliefs regarding feminism. The moderator abruptly cuts the interview.
This is where things got extreme for me. The story immediately cuts to Khalin assaulting Torri, but it’s depicted as if Torri enjoys it, while Khalin clearly is doing it to assert his dominance as a man and hurt her. So I now have two characters to dislike.
Khalin then gets a call from a woman asking for his help. She explains that she gave birth to twins, but one daughter became ill and had to be taken to the hospital. She was told by doctors that she had passed away, but the woman discovered that she was taken. The agency the twin was given to is part of the cult Khalin is trying to take down. The woman also explains that Khalin’s aunt, who left the cult, told her that the baby was going to be given to a woman named Celeste, likely Khalin’s mother since they have the same name.
This is where I stopped reading. I was intrigued by the premise of this story, but I didn’t expect it to get so extreme, especially in the beginning. I won’t personally continue reading it.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
2. The Final Crossing by Clay Wise
This is a standalone book of post-apocalyptic survival, but if you like the author’s style, he’s got a lot of similar books on Amazon, all of them in Kindle Unlimited. In fact, this author is a regular on our Free Friday list.
From Alex Korolov:
This one’s an EMP book, where an electromagnetic pulse — in this case from a solar flare — wipes out electronic devices like cell phones and computers, as well as modern cars, trucks, and planes. I feel like most EMP books I’ve reviewed take place from the third-person perspective, but here’s one from the first-person narrative.
In the first chapter, Kat is driving a big rig truck with an empty trailer. She does a video call — while driving — with her nine year old daughter Zoe. She tells her daughter that she’s going to be driving for four days before she comes home. Then Kat talks to her boss on the phone. He asks her to pick up some medical equipment from a location, which she does. Kat delivers the medical supplies and then gets back on the road. She stops at a hotel for the night and goes to a diner to get some grub.
In the next chapter, Kat’s back on the road. She talks with her daughter Zoe who tells her all about this big solar flare that’s coming. She does a lot of trucking stuff this chapter, and finally near the end the solar flare goes off. Her truck loses power and she pulls over. There’s an explosion and some smoke somewhere nearby. Kat assumes the solar flare knocked out her truck and probably other vehicles too. She grabs a gun and gets ready to go out and see what’s going on.
This book was a little too slow for my tastes, and the first-person perspective didn’t make it any more interesting. The step by step run down of Kat doing her job as a trucker doesn’t particularly interest me, and I feel like we could’ve gotten to the main plot a lot faster. I’m going to put this one down and won’t keep reading.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
1. Vagabond by Tim Rangnow
This is the first of four books in The Guild Series, a space opera series. The other books are $4.99 each, but are all in Kindle Unlimited. The author has been on our Free Friday list before.
From Maria Korolov:
Space operas are my favorite books — I just read several series back-to-back. (Read my review here.) So I was pretty stoked to review this, going in.
We start right out with our protagonist, Erik, making a risky approach to Luna. He’s the captain and owner of a guild freighter, and the ship is shaking because it badly needs a full refit.
He can’t afford the maintenance, so, right away, I don’t like him. He’s not just putting himself and his cargo at risk — the ship has a full crew. He needs to step up his game. Maybe cutting expenses, improving his sales and marketing — sorry, I write about business in my day job and that’s where my mind goes automatically.
And I see right away one of the problems. Erik’s father ran with a smaller crew, and handled the cargo himself. Erik hired a sixth crew member so he could “focus on the ship and crew as a whole.” Yeah right. Sounds like he’s just lazy. He should be doing the cargo work himself, and putting the money saved towards maintenance. He also has a full-time medical officer. For just a handful of people? The medical officer would be sitting around not doing anything most of the trip. Couldn’t one of the other crew members be cross-trained as a medic?
He also has a full-time engineer to manage the ship’s engine and a fulltime computer guy.
Then we get some political history, a war between superpowers back on Earth, domes built on the moon, rise of big corporate powers.
Then Erik’s ship lands safely, and there’s a bunch of routine shipping business that needs to be done. While picking up new gigs, a guild representative offers Erik a black site shipment. More risk — but also higher pay. It would add a month to his route, and the location would be disclosed only to the ship’s AI, to keep it secret. He takes the gig. Back outside, he notices an increased military presence. There’s been an assassination attempt on the prime minister.
When he gets back to the ship, his cargo master is mad at him for accepting the black site job. The rumor is that they keep their locations secret by killing anyone who comes across them.
Then they had back into space, and the cargo masters tells Eric that the reason she was upset with the secret shipment was that her brother had been on a freighter with a mysterious cargo that looked exactly the same as the one Erik agreed to take to the black site — and her brother and the ship he was on were destroyed. Maybe she should have said this before they left?
We also learn that the AI is capable of flying the ship on its own — but they still have a full-time pilot. Yes, I’m still hung up on Erik’s personnel issues.
In chapter three, something finally happens — the ship’s engines malfunctions, and one of the crew members is hurt but the sudden acceleration.
But they fix it just in time, and the rest of the ship proceeds smoothly.
This book is moving much too slowly for my taste. I’m up to chapter four and it’s still not clear what the plot is going to be. Their first stop, at a colony on an asteroid, goes routinely, except that the local guild office warns Erik that other ships that have taken black site contracts have also vanished. Other than that, nothing much of note happens.
Then the AI tells them all that she’s taking over the ship for the next stage of the trip. But the doctor isn’t back from leave yet, so the pilot, her husband, decides to stay back as well instead of leaving his wife behind. The other crew members all decide to stay on board.
But I’m not particularly interested in seeing what happens next. I don’t have much of a feel for Erik as a character, or for the other crew members, and I’m not really invested in the story. So I won’t be sticking with it.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
See all the Free Friday posts here. Do you have other free books for us to check out? Comment below or email me at maria@metastellar.com.
Have you read any of these books? Are you planning to? Let us know in the comments!
Or watch Maria and Emma discuss all five books in the video below:
MetaStellar editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist, writing stories set in a future virtual world. And, during the day, she is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@metastellar.com. She is also the editor and publisher of Hypergrid Business, one of the top global sites covering virtual reality.
MetaStellar news editor Alex Korolov is also a freelance technology writer who covers AI, cybersecurity, and enterprise virtual reality. His stories have also been published at CIO magazine, Network World, Data Center Knowledge, and Hypergrid Business. Find him on Twitter at @KorolovAlex and on LinkedIn at Alex Korolov.
E. S. Foster is a writer and graduate student at the University of Cambridge. Her work has been featured in a variety of literary journals and small presses. You can find out more about her and what she does on her blog, E. S. Foster and her personal website E. S. Foster - Author