FREE & BARGAIN EBOOKS – {05-09-2021}

Living with the In-Lawsby Nolan Yuma

Nolan Yuma, an untamable wild child, moves into his in-laws’ dustless and GMO-free house. Well, they’re not his in-laws (they only refer to themselves as such)––they’re his girlfriend’s parents who have semi-adopted this aspiring actor. He goes from sharing a one-bedroom apartment with a family of three to a multi-million-dollar townhouse on a golf course. Familial frictions snowball as Nolan returns home from stripping gigs, becomes obsessed with academia, travels to Asia and Europe with his girlfriend, and discovers the family’s rocky past. Through this semi-autobiographical collection of essays, Nolan Yuma’s unmistakable voice and brutal self-honesty leave you laughing and wanting more.

Caughtby Lisa Moore

The acclaimed author of February “combin[es] the complexity of the best literary fiction with the page-turning compulsive readability of a thriller” (National Post).

Lisa Moore, a “Canada Reads” winner and a New Yorker Best Book of the Year author, introduces a dangerously appealing new protagonist unlike any she’s imagined before: a modern Billy the Kid . . .

Caught begins with a prison break. Twenty-five-year-old David Slaney, locked up on charges of marijuana possession, escapes his cell and sprints to the highway. There, he is picked up by a friend of his sister’s and transported to a strip bar where he survives his first night on the run. But evading the cops isn’t his only objective; Slaney intends to track down his old partner, Hearn, and get back into the drug business. Along the way, Slaney’s fugitive journey across Canada rushes vibrantly to life as he visits an old flame and adopts numerous guises to outpace authorities: hitchhiker, houseguest, student, lover. When he finally reunites with Hearn just steps ahead of a detective hell-bent on making a high-profile arrest, their scheme sends Slaney to Mexico, Colombia, and back again on an epic quest fueled by luck, charm, and unbending conviction.

In Caught, “Moore combines the propulsive storytelling of a beach-book thriller with the skilled use of language and penetrating insights of literary fiction. She pulls it off seamlessly, creating a vivid, compulsively readable tale” (Penthouse).

“Propulsive, adrenalin-drenched.”–The Globe and Mail

“Exhilarating . . . a memorably oddball and alluring novel that’s simultaneously breezy, taut, funny, and insightful.”–The Vancouver Sun

Living in Cleveland With the Ghost of Joseph Stalinby Marc Sercomb

It’s the summer of 1953. Calvin Jefferson Coolidge is thirteen years old when the ghost of Joseph Stalin appears to him in his Aunt Evelyn’s cluttered Cleveland attic and wants to dictate his memoirs to him.
“I want to tell my side of the story,” Uncle Joe tells him. “They’re giving me one year to set the record straight, so we need to get started right away.”
Calvin’s life is falling apart at the seams. He’s a misfit and loner whose only friends are famous dead people. He loves polka music and Westerns and sometimes wonders what it would be like to kiss a girl. His con man father is in Florida looking for his bipolar runaway mother. His cousin Buck is abducted and experimented on by aliens. The lady next door wants to coach him in the ways of love. His pastor thinks he’s headed straight for Hell. His English teacher thinks he’s a savant. The school psychologist wants to have him committed. His shrink thinks he’s just plain nuts. Sometimes, Calvin believes it too.
Everybody’s trying to figure out what makes Calvin tick in this quirky, fast-paced metaphysical romp through the heart and soul of 1950’s America.

Windfall: A Henry Lysyk Mysteryby Byron TD Smith

Henry has hit rock bottom. A fifty-year old mystery could save him – or finish him off.

“…a masterful work of mystery, drama, and criminally good writing.” (K.C. Finn, ReadersFavorite.com)

Henry Lysyk’s life is a mess.

With his marriage over and his accounting career marred by scandal, he retreats to the anonymity of a rented suite in a house shared with strangers. But the trail of a decades-old crime leads a murderous treasure hunter to his doorstep, and Henry is baffled by his neighbors’ cover-up.

An unexpected visit from his adventure-hungry niece, Frieda, further complicates Henry’s efforts to lay low. With his houseguest refusing to stay away from the danger, Henry’s terrified they’re about to expose secrets someone would kill to protect. Not knowing who to trust, they must choose which parts of the past to uncover, and which to leave buried.

A real-life ransom, a shadowy past, unlikely allies, and ruthless murder. Can Henry unravel this cold case before he and Frieda become its next victims?

If you enjoy absorbing mysteries, original characters, and a dash of true crime, then you’ll love Byron TD Smith’s clever “What if…” solution to the most captivating unsolved heist of the twentieth century. 

Windfall is the first instalment in the Henry Lysyk Mystery series.