There are some authors who are an auto-one click, buy the book IMMEDIATELY for me. Sarina Bowen is one of those. Her stories are smart, wryly funny and real, not to mention smoking hot–and although her Ivy Years books were definitely how I found her, I think her True North books are my new favorites.
So I had really mixed feelings this week: I am now back to writing under deadline after my hiatus, and I have to hunker down and get serious about hitting word counts. But the newest True North BOUNTIFUL released last week, and there is was on my iBooks app, just taunting me. I’ve been waiting for this book for a long time!
BOUNTIFUL became my reward at the end of each day of writing. I didn’t let myself open the iBooks app before bedtime, and I was (mostly) disciplined about that.
Mostly.
The good news is that I managed to stretch out the book and really savor it all week. The bad news is that I finished the book this morning (yes, I cheated and read the end before I got out of bed today. Sue me.).
I also have to send an iBooks shout-out about the reading comfort. This was something that’s been going on for a while, but I hadn’t really noticed it. When I read in the dark, the screen automatically goes to black background with white print–and then it flips back to white background with black print when the light in the room is bright. I like this. So do my aging eyes!
Now, let’s talk about BOUNTIFUL. I’m not usually a fan of surprise baby books. While there are a few in my own backlist (THE FIRST ONE, TEMPORARY DUTY and just a side character in THE POSSE), it’s not a trope I seek out to write or to read. But I’d been reading Zara’s story as a side dish to the other characters’ books in the True North series, so I couldn’t wait to find out about the father of her baby.
And what made this even better? There’s a sweet crossover from Sarina’s Brooklyn Bruisers series in this book. Hockey and Vermont? It just doesn’t get any better.
If you haven’t discovered Sarina’s books, stop what you’re doing and go get them . . . now. I promise you won’t be sorry.
And buy them on iBooks!
Here’s my iPhone screen. You can see that the iBooks icon is right there, with its open book. Touch it, and the app opens.
That’s great, of course, but to have a library, first you need to find some books to buy or download. How do you do this? Just look down. See options on your bottom bar? The star is FEATURED books, basically the home page for the iBooks Store. Or you can touch TOP CHARTS to see the best-selling books. Or if you know the author/title/category of the book you want to read, touch SEARCH.
You’ll see that I typed in football, and I got a list of suggestions: football books, football romance and more. I can add more keywords to further define the search.
Of course, I clicked FOOTBALL ROMANCE. And this is my results page. Hmmm, there’s some seriously good stuff here! Liz Matis, Julie Brannagh and Bella Andre . . . so hard to choose what to read next.
details, the reviews and the ‘related’ (more books by the author, more books in the series, also-boughts, more books like this and top books in the genre). You can also hit the SAMPLE button to get a taste before you purchase, or you can click the price button to BUY THE BOOK. If the book is free, instead of a price you’ll see the word GET there. And GET it you should!
Once you buy your book, it goes into your library, and all you have to do is touch the title in order to read it. The first page might look something like this. The blue arrow I drew points to the iBooks blue arrow–which takes you back to your library. The green arrow I drew points to the book’s table of contents. And I circled in green where you can adjust font size, search the book or bookmark a page.
