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After writing my blog entry The Joy of Reading Indie a while back, I bought a Kindle so that I didn’t need to read books off my computer. It was a wise decision. I waded through Twitter, Amazon reviews, and websites I stumbled onto and picked a number of indie books to read. Some were misses. (Yes, I really do mind grammar and spelling errors because they take me out of the story. And please stay on target with your plot.) Some were simply okay. Other people might have enjoyed them better than I did. That’s fine. Here, I prefer to focus on the ones I enjoyed and will read again:
Fantasy
Innkeeper Chronicles
Start with book one, Clean Sweep, by the husband-and-wife writing team Ilona Andrews. They put their book on their website chapter by chapter as it was written, then removed it, polished it, and offered it for sale. By the time I found this book it was for sale only, so I took a chance and was very glad I did.
I read the sequel Sweep in Peace online but decided to buy it as soon as it became available. It’s a strong urban fantasy that includes a few elements of science fiction and high fantasy as well.
The main character of Dina is an innkeeper on Earth whose inn caters to aliens from other planets. The inn must stay secret from the general population and her guests are usually predators. And she owns a cute little dog.
Mystery
The Cherry Blossom Murder by Fran Pickering
Book one in a series that’s both fun and informative. I had never heard of Takarazuka and it was woven well into the murder mystery. (And yes, I’ll be reading book 2.) From Amazon:
Down-to-earth Londoner Josie has a great life in Tokyo with her new Japanese boyfriend and her friends in glamorous actress Tammy’s fan club. What could possibly spoil it? Finding the strangled body of a fan club helper under the cherry blossom, that’s what.
I had hoped to add more books to this entry but I ran out of reading time.
What indie books are you reading?
*Image courtesy of adamr at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The last truly indie book I read was Colm Herron’s The Wake. His writing is fantastic and he’s a very witty and lovable Irish gent!
I love how brave and imaginative indie writers can be.