Kindle Deals on Good Books {March. 28, 2018 Edition}

It's like following a treasure map -- you find one great Kindle book on sale, and soon you're following the trail to a dozen more delicious books on sale for just a few dollars (or less!). Instead of just hoarding all these discounted Kindle books for myself -- which, I assure you, I still am doing -- I thought I'd also share my findings. Here are my discoveries, current as of March 28, 2018.

The Paper Magician Series by Charlie N. Holmberg

Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she’s bonded to paper, that will be her only magic…forever.

Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined—animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.

An Excisioner—a practitioner of dark, flesh magic—invades the cottage and rips Thane’s heart from his chest. To save her teacher’s life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane’s still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.

From the imaginative mind of debut author Charlie N. Holmberg, The Paper Magician is an extraordinary adventure both dark and whimsical that will delight readers of all ages. Grab your copy here.

This is Just My Face by Gabourey Sidibe

Gabourey Sidibe—“Gabby” to her legion of fans—skyrocketed to international fame in 2009 when she played the leading role in Lee Daniels’s acclaimed movie Precious. In This Is Just My Face, she shares a one-of-a-kind life story in a voice as fresh and challenging as many of the unique characters she’s played onscreen. With full-throttle honesty, Sidibe paints her Bed-Stuy/Harlem family life with a polygamous father and a gifted mother who supports her two children by singing in the subway. Sidibe tells the engrossing, inspiring story of her first job as a phone sex “talker.” And she shares her unconventional (of course!) rise to fame as a movie star, alongside “a superstar cast of rich people who lived in mansions and had their own private islands and amazing careers while I lived in my mom's apartment.” 
 
Sidibe’s memoir hits hard with self-knowing dispatches on friendship, depression, celebrity, haters, fashion, race, and weight (“If I could just get the world to see me the way I see myself,” she writes, “would my body still be a thing you walked away thinking about?”). Irreverent, hilarious, and untraditional, This Is Just My Face will resonate with anyone who has ever felt different, and with anyone who has ever felt inspired to make a dream come true. Grab your copy here.

The Restaurant Critic's Wife by Elizabeth LaBan

Lila Soto has a master’s degree that’s gathering dust, a work-obsessed husband, two kids, and lots of questions about how exactly she ended up here.

In their new city of Philadelphia, Lila’s husband, Sam, takes his job as a restaurant critic a little too seriously. To protect his professional credibility, he’s determined to remain anonymous. Soon his preoccupation with anonymity takes over their lives as he tries to limit the family’s contact with anyone who might have ties to the foodie world. Meanwhile, Lila craves adult conversation and some relief from the constraints of her homemaker role. With her patience wearing thin, she begins to question everything: her decision to get pregnant again, her break from her career, her marriage—even if leaving her ex-boyfriend was the right thing to do. As Sam becomes more and more fixated on keeping his identity secret, Lila begins to wonder if her own identity has completely disappeared—and what it will take to get it back. Grab your copy here.

The Designer by Marius Gabriel

1944, newly married Copper Reilly arrives in Paris soon after the liberation. While the city celebrates its freedom, she’s stuck in the prison of an unhappy marriage. When her husband commits one betrayal too many, Copper demands a separation.

Alone in Paris, she finds an unlikely new friend: an obscure, middle-aged designer from the back rooms of a decaying fashion house whose timid nature and reluctance for fame clash with the bold brilliance of his designs. His name is Christian Dior.

Realising his genius, Copper urges Dior to strike out on his own, helping to pull him away from his insecurities and towards stardom. With just a camera and a typewriter, she takes her own advice and ventures into the wild and colourful world of fashion journalism.

Soon Copper finds herself torn between two very different suitors, questioning who she is and what she truly wants. As the city rebuilds and opulence returns, can Copper make a new, love-filled life for herself? Grab your copy here.

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

The game is once again afoot in this thrilling mystery from the bestselling author of The House of Silk, sanctioned by the Conan Doyle estate, which explores what really happened when Sherlock Holmes and his arch nemesis Professor Moriarty tumbled to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls.

Internationally bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s nail-biting new novel plunges us back into the dark and complex world of detective Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty—dubbed the Napoleon of crime” by Holmes—in the aftermath of their fateful struggle at the Reichenbach Falls.

Days after the encounter at the Swiss waterfall, Pinkerton detective agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York. Moriarty’s death has left an immediate, poisonous vacuum in the criminal underworld, and there is no shortage of candidates to take his place—including one particularly fiendish criminal mastermind.

Chase and Scotland Yard Inspector Athelney Jones, a devoted student of Holmes’s methods of investigation and deduction originally introduced by Conan Doyle in “The Sign of Four”, must forge a path through the darkest corners of England’s capital—from the elegant squares of Mayfair to the shadowy wharfs and alleyways of the London Docks—in pursuit of this sinister figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, who is determined to stake his claim as Moriarty’s successor.

A riveting, deeply atmospheric tale of murder and menace from one of the only writers to earn the seal of approval from Conan Doyle’s estate, Moriarty breathes life into Holmes’s dark and fascinating world. Grab your copy here.

You've Got 8 Seconds by Paul Hellman

Every day at work, people do three things: talk, listen, and pretend to listen. That’s not surprising—the average attention span has dropped to 8 seconds. To get heard, says high-stakes communications expert Paul Hellman, you need to focus your message, be slightly different, and deliver with finesse.

Through fast, fun, actionable tips, You’ve Got 8 Seconds explains what works and what doesn’t, what’s forgettable and what sticks. With stories, scripts, and examples of good and bad messages, the book reveals three main strategies.

You’ll discover practical techniques, including the Fast-Focus Method™ that the author uses with leadership teams; how to stand out in the first seconds of a presentation; and 10 actions that spell executive presence.

Whether pitching a project, giving a speech, selling a product, or just writing your next email, with You’ve Got 8 Seconds you’ll get heard, get remembered, and get results. Grab your copy here.

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That's all I've got for now. Watch the blog for another list next week.

What great Kindle deals have you seen on good books? Share in the comments!

When In Doubt, Go On the Adventure

I bought the ticket on a whim, just a few weeks before departure. After dreaming of a trip to England for most of my life, I saw an opening, felt the chill of winter at the back of the wardrobe, and ran after it.

I like to know things. I like to know what is coming next. But I also cherish the unknown, the mystery of how a whole universe spins around us every day. I crave adventure.

At first, in the days after my ticket purchase, I felt like a badass. Like a woman who takes charge of her own damn destiny. But of course that quickly gave way to fear (we'll come back to that in a minute).

And then a conversation with a new friend, in which I found myself making excuses for my passions and how I haven't been pursuing them. I am made to write, I said, sipping at a pint of Porter, but there's no time.

There's always time, though. And also never time. We only have now, and in the now, we have all the time we need.

I bought the ticket because I'm thirty-five years old and if not now, when? I never believed I was immortal, but lived as if I had no end. There was always plenty of time, endless time, until, like the rest of us, I learned the hard way that that's not the case.

Life ends and begins in a moment, and if I have the time and the willingness and the dream to do a thing, a thing that brings joy and that challenges and delights and grows the self -- why am I not doing it now? Why am I waiting for tomorrow, which may never come?

I bought the ticket.

I haven't begun writing again (unless you count this post), but I feel the words calling.

I am afraid.

Afraid that the flesh and blood adventure I'm taking, the trip that has turned into something of a pilgrimage, won't stand up to the one I've dreamed of for decades. That I'll be crippled by anxiety or laid low by depression (these fears are not unfounded). Afraid that the words will come out stilted and broken, that they don't matter, that nothing matters in the end.

I am writing this from the airport, where the unknown stories of the travelers traipsing, the different skin tones, the slow dance of the planes outside both soothe and excite me.

I am here, taking the first steps of the adventure. I am writing, perhaps stilted, perhaps broken.

In the end, I will have gone on the trip and returned. I will have picked up the proverbial pen and used it. I will not have to wonder "what if," and although the fear is real, my gut says that even if this is all that these ventures give me, it will be enough.

Tell Me Your Secrets

I sit down at the coffee shop. There are only a few long, wide tables, and all the patrons gather around them like we're family, like we know each other.

I sit across from two older women, skin wrinkled by life and joy and sorrow and sunshine, women with fire in their words and eyes and fingers. They clink mugs, talk about their book club, their loved ones

and I want to scream at them,

"How do you do it? How have you survived this world all this time, a planet whose beauty and power is raped by the rich, by those fed with silver spoonfuls of lies, by those who are never satisfied, never empathetic, never never never.

How can you fucking stand it?

How are you not in the streets in sackcloth and screams, rending your hair and burning it on the front steps of our capitals?

And I know, today's world is not unique in its ruin. There have always been dictators and hand-crafted poverty and men who relish standing on the souls of others.

But god, when I read about yesteryear, I thought if it became today I would feel stronger, more awake, that each free breath I take wouldn't be so profoundly exhausting.

So how do you do it? How do you refrain from setting the strongholds of toxic masculinity on fire? How do you smile at any man? How do you stop yourself from encasing your heart in ice seven inches thick so you don't have to feel the weight of all this ugliness?

Tell me your secrets. I wish to learn."