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. Dinosaur Lake by Kathryn Meyer Griffith
This is the first book in the eight-book Dinosaur Lake sci-fi adventure series. The other books are $4.99 to $7.99 each, and are not in Kindle Unlimited. The author has been on our Free Friday list before. In fact, we reviewed this very book back in June of 2021.
From Melody Friedenthal:
Henry Shore is a park ranger. Recently promoted to chief, he misses the interactions with park visitors so sometimes he relieves his hard-working crew and leads a tour. Today he’s showing some tourists the very deep Crater Lake, which was formed by volcanic activity thousands of years ago and is filled now with icy cold water from rain and snow melt.
The only living things in the lake are moss and some fish species the park has populated it with. Or so Henry believes.
The first chapter gives us some geological and historical information and some background about Henry. He’s a retired New York City policeman and he’s married to a woman who’s a reporter. They have a daughter and a granddaughter. Henry and his wife both love the park but Henry is devoted to it. Then there’s an earthquake, and the land splits and Henry and his tour group see bones. Really big bones. Bones bigger than humans. Bones bigger than bears. Then the rangers start finding dead animals.
Hmm. This is getting interesting. I’ll be reading more of this.
Get the Kindle e-book free from Amazon here.
4. A Shift in Shadows by Maddox Grey
This is the first of seven books in the Lost Legacies paranormal fantasy series. The other books are $2.99 to $5.99 each and are not in Kindle Unlimited. The author has been on our Free Friday list before. In fact, we reviewed this very book this past April.
From Terri Wells:
This book features an all-too-common trope that I love to hate: enemies-to-lovers. On the plus side, it requires serious character growth and development to come off convincingly, and the Amazon description includes supernatural creatures and dark magic. I’m always intrigued to see how an author interprets and mixes these elements, so let’s dig in.
Our heroine, Nemain, is a 400-year-old feline shapeshifter and magic user who a century ago used to love Sebastian, a warlock. Now she’s been trying to kill him for decades. We get a clue as to why in chapter two, though what he does to her in the prologue, long after she’s started her vengeance obsession, would have been reason enough.
An old friend, a vampire named Magos, rescues her and they must fight their way out past the vampires who have been holding Nemain captive and torturing her, all on Sebastian’s orders.
Some time passes. Nemain is now free but suffering from PTSD — she’s having nightmares and panic attacks. Every time she has a panic attack, her magic tries to bust out and she’s not always able to control it. She has destroyed more than one house as a result.
Magos stayed with her to help her heal. He’s not a romantic interest — he’s more like an uncle to her. Nemain is staying in a place that was pretty much custom built to accommodate her by a daemon, a former lover of hers who is now one of her best friends. It includes a lot of space for sparring, with lots of different weapons on the wall that Nemain has accumulated in the time she’s been free again.
We see Nemain and Magos sparring. He always beats her, even though she’s been doing martial arts since she was big enough to hold a weapon. Magos is a vampire, and Nemain thinks he might be over 600 years old, which would make him one of the first vampires.
Vampires aren’t well liked in the magical community, which includes warlocks, shape shifters, fae, and daemons. Nemain grew up in the human realm and has been to the other ones and now she tends to stay in the human realm to avoid fae and daemon politics.
Near her birthday, which would be the first anniversary of when Sebastian kidnapped her, Nemain decides she wants to see her friends, but, in the back of her head, she fears she’ll be kidnapped again.
I enjoy urban fantasy, and this one seems to have some interesting world building. I’m not sure how I feel about Nemain. She has her share of flaws, but I can cut her some slack due to her mental state. I really hope that Sebastian doesn’t end up being the enemy that becomes her lover again. After what he’s done, I don’t see how he can be redeemed. And honestly, I’m not sure if I will stick with this book.
If you like romances with kickass but emotionally damaged protagonists, urban fantasy with some interesting worldbuilding, and some pretty intense action and conflict, you might enjoy this book.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
3. Fractured Winter by Carter Woods
This is a standalone book of EMP survival. But if you like this author, they’ve got several other similar books on Amazon, including a few that are part of the 90-book EMP Survival in a Powerless World series. The author has been on our Free Friday list before.
From Alex Korolov:
This one’s an EMP story, which means an electromagnetic pulse wipes out all electronic devices, including cell phones, computers, and most modern vehicles. Usually, chaos ensues. Let’s see how this one goes.
We meet Virginia and Keith in chapter one. They’re a married couple who’ve been travelling in an RV with their friends Tony and Adam for five weeks. Tony and Adam are also a couple and they’re about to have a little girl, so the RV trip is a celebration. They’re all hanging out around a fire together somewhere in Oklahoma, talking and drinking and staying up to see the sunrise.
Everyone’s watching the sunrise at the beginning of the next chapter when Virginia notices that it’s brighter than usual. The light then becomes overbearingly bright, and then all their cellphones make a weird beep. A voice announces over their phones that there is an inbound threat, a national curfew is in place, and all air travel has been suspended. All military personnel are also being called in to report to their commanding officer.
A high pitched ringing comes from outside. Everyone covers their ears until the ringing goes away, and then a strange wind comes at them. It shakes the camper violently and causes their black cat Skittles to run off. After the wind goes away, we learn that all electronics have been fried.
That’s as far as I got, but I like this one as far as EMP books go. The first chapter does a good job of introducing the characters, and the second chapter introduces the EMP blast in a unique way. There’s a good buildup before the blast hits, and the EMP blast itself is a physically violent force that shakes things up before knocking everything out. In a lot of EMP stories, the EMP just sort of happens with no physical evidence or warning, so I like the unique approach this book took. As far as EMP books go, I’d keep reading this one.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
2. A Twist of Fate by Kelley Armstrong
This is the second of four books in the A Stitch in Time time travel romance series by a New York Times bestselling author. The other books are $6.99 each, and are not in Kindle Unlimited. This is the author’s first time on our Free Friday list, but I’ve mentioned her a lot in my reviews, comparing other authors to her!
From Maria Korolov:
Kelley Armstrong is probably best known for her 13-book Women of the Otherworld urban fantasy series, a series which I’ve read and loved. Probably read more than once, in fact. Ten years ago, SyFy turned that series into a three-season television show. Which I just learned, and now will have to go and find it!
Okay, I found it. The series is called “Bitten” — after the name of the first book — and SyFy has a few sneak peeks online but not full episodes. They’ve also got a bunch of short clips up on YouTube. But all three seasons are available for sale on Amazon Prime. (Many episodes are free with an Amazon Prime subscription.) And the episodes also seem to be available for free on a streaming service called Philo which I’ve never heard of before.
Kelley Armstrong also has other series up on Amazon, which you can find on her author page.
But back to today’s review.
I couldn’t do it.
Not because I couldn’t get into the book — but because the book is the second in the series. I can’t do the book dirty like that.
Luckily, the first book, A Stitch in Time, is also available through Overdrive, and I was able to borrow it from my library. If it wasn’t there, you bet your sweet patootee I would have just bought it.
So what follows is a review of the beginning of the first book in the series, not the second book.
When the book starts, the protagonist, Bronwyn, inherited a haunted house in Yorkshire — and the ghosts in it. The last time she’s been in the area was when she was fifteen. Bronwyn is now 38, and a history professor in Toronto. And she’s also a widow — her husband died eight years earlier.
As she drives up the house, it looks abandoned. But then, it’s always looked abandoned, even when it wasn’t.
The caretaker meets her and leads her inside. Bronwyn plans to spend the summer at the house, but the caretaker has doubts that she’ll make it.
The caretaker offers to do some maintenance. Bronwyn’s aunt has left the caretaker money in her will — five years’ worth of wages.
That night, Bronwyn gets woken up by a strange face. Or is it just the moon? And why is the window open? Maybe a draft? Then there’s a whisper. She must have imagined it, too. Then she hears a yowl. And the sound is coming from the small bedroom where she used to stay when she visited her aunt and uncle as a child. Using her phone’s flashlight, she goes into that room, and finds a kitten under her old bed.
After feeding the kitten, she decides to reclaim her old room, finds a mattress, makes the bed, and goes back to sleep.
When she wakes up again, there’s a naked man in bed with her and they’re making out. She thinks its a dream. But then the man sees her face and jumps out of the bed and asks her who she is and what she’s doing there.
And she recognizes his face — and his voice. It’s a boy she knew way back when, now all grown up. The man disappears.
And we get the back story. The boy, William, was her imaginary friend. Or maybe not imaginary at all. He was someone who’d lived 200 years ago, and when she visited, they used to play together and, when she was a teenager, they’d fallen in love. She was told that the boy was a response psychological trauma of her parents’ separation. Just a figment of her imagination. And how he’s back — and grown.
So she goes back to bed again.
In the morning, she rides a bike to the village and buys some groceries.
I’m three chapters into the book now, and not much is happening, but it’s very cozy. A very cozy romantic ghost story with possible time-travel in it and a cute kitten. Actually, do I really need anything else?
It’s not my thing, to be honest, but I love the author’s writing, and I’ve really enjoyed her other books, so there’s a good chance I’m going to stick with this one. Plus, I’ve got book number two already on my Kindle.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
1. Yestertime by Andrew Cunningham
This is the first of four books in the Yestertime time travel series. The other books are $2.99 to $5.99 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 a journalist, Ray, on his way to a ghost town. His best friend had just died of cancer, and his request was that his ashes be spread somewhere that people would find interesting. Ray decides on a ghost town named Hollow Rock.
He arrives and spreads the ashes. Just as he finishes up, storm clouds arrive and it starts pouring down rain. He hurries up a slope and shelters in a cave. While hiding out, Ray discovers a box. It contains a driver’s license, some memory cards, and a note. The note explains that the author, Stan, will die in 1870 despite being born in 1970. Curious, Ray takes the trunk back to his car when the rain stops and drives back to his hotel.
Ray delves into his research. On the memory card, he finds a picture of Stan living in Hollow Rock, but it’s no longer a ghost town. It looks like the 1870s, just as Stan described in his note. The second memory card contains an image of a dead man.
Ray goes to the local library and finds more information on the town as well as Stan. One clue is a missing persons report from 2011, with a picture of Stan. It seems like he really was born one hundred years after dying. But as Ray tries to make sense of everything, two men show up at his door, asking to speak to him about Stan.
I love time paradox stories, so this one intrigued me when I picked it up. I enjoyed the mystery behind this piece, but it was the writing style that I couldn’t get behind. It was written as telling what was happening rather than showing, so I don’t think I will continue with this story.
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.
Melody Friedenthal is a librarian at a public library and a copyeditor for MetaStellar. In her spare time she's the chief bottle-washer for To Tell A Tale Writers' Group and is an affiliate member of the SFWA. Her work has been published in Tales From Shelf 804: an anthology, N3F, Bardsy, MetaStellar, and New Myths. She believes writing is a gateway drug, alpacas are cute, and dark chocolate is heaven.
Terri Wells (she/her) has been writing stories ever since she could hold a pencil, and editing written work of all kinds for nearly half her life. When not editing, she can be found eyeballs-deep exploring other worlds, or elbows-deep in her latest fibery project.
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