Reposting this review from last summer because Through the Door and the sequel Into the Fire are on sale for $1.99 (audiobooks are only $0.99 with purchase of the kindle book) as part of the Kindle Daily Deal for Feb 16th only. The third book in the series is available as a pre-order for only $4.99.
Summary: Modern fantasy using Celtic lore as a basis for the storyline.
Book discovery is the biggest problems for authors in a world that has an over abundance of free or cheap ebooks. No reader has to ever pay for a book again if they choose. Every day there are literally hundreds of free books available through Amazon or other ebook providers. This is in addition to the thousands of public domain books and library books available.
This is why being chosen for Amazon’s Kindle Daily Deals is so important. Almost every Kindle Daily Deal book breaks into the top 100 for at least the day of the deal and often for several days after.
I rarely buy books from the Kindle Daily Deals, not because they are not great deals but because I have have hundreds of books already purchased and unread already on my kindle.
But for some reason I picked up Through the Door when it was a Kindle Daily Deals and also picked up the accompanying audiobook (so kindle book and audiobook were $3.98 total).
Through the Door is another modern fantasy using the Irish fairy tales as the jumping off point. Neil Gaiman, Rick Riordan, Michael Scott, Orson Scott Card and many other authors have already used the ancient stories to mine ideas for new books. While the ideas are not completely original, the execution is pretty good.
Cedar McLeod is a single parent. Her boyfriend of two years disappeared without a word 7 years ago. Cedar was left pregnant (he did not know yet). She has worked hard to make a good life for herself and her daughter, Eden. Cedar’s overbearing mother is always around to help with Eden, but also is sure to include a generous helping of guilt.
When her friend offers to find her missing boyfriend (because of a concern for Eden) Cedar realizes that everything she thought she knew was false. There is a whole extended family that Cedar did not know about. And Cedar’s mother has known all along.
While the book is pretty good, Cedar is a bit hysterical at times and the book starts a little slow. If it were an independent author, I would probably rate it a bit higher. But it is a book from Amazon’s own science fiction/fantasy imprint 47North. So I think it should have had a bit more polish. It is good enough that I will probably pick up the second book that has a scheduled release date of December 2013.
Through the Door Purchase Links: Kindle Edition, Paperback, Audible.com Audiobook Audiobook is discounted to $0.99 with purchase of Kindle Book