Book of the Month Subscription Review + 50% Off – Jan 2016

Book of the Month is a monthly book subscription box. Each month, 5 curators pick out their favorite new hardcover books, and you can choose which one you want to receive on the first of the month. You can also add up to 2 additional books for only $9.99 each.

They are currently having an amazing deal on 3-month subscriptions (deal details below), so I had to sign up. (Plus I love book subscriptions so I probably would have signed up for this one with or without a deal!)

My Subscription Addiction pays for this subscription. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes).

The Subscription Box: Book of the Month

The Cost: $16.99 a month ($8.99 a month with 12-month subscription).

The Product: Subscribers get to pick from a selection of hardcover books each month.

Ships to: US Only

Check out all of my Book of the Month reviews!

Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wish list!

For January, subscribers picked from the following 5 books:

Honestly, I could have picked all 5, but since you only get to add 2 more at the special $9.99 pricing, I limited it to three!

My first selection:

The Verdict by Nick Stone – Retail Value $25.95 (On Amazon for $20.85)

When Terry Flynt gets the chance to defend a millionaire accused of murder he knows that the case could make his career, but the accused man is Flynt’s greatest enemy―can he defend a man who ruined his life?

Terry Flynt is a struggling legal clerk, desperately trying to get promoted. And then he is given the biggest opportunity of his career: to help defend a millionaire accused of murdering a woman in his hotel suite.

The only problem is that the accused man, Vernon James, turns out to be not only someone he knows, but someone he loathes. This case could potentially make Terry’s career, but how can he defend a former friend who betrayed him so badly?

With the trial date looming, Terry delves deeper into Vernon’s life and is forced to confront secrets from their shared past that could have devastating consequences for them both. For years he has wanted to witness Vernon’s downfall, but with so much at stake, how can Terry be sure that he is guilty? And what choices must he make to ensure that justice is done?

Each book is selected by a judge, and each judge includes a brief letter on why they selected the book. This note has made me even more excited to start this book. My husband Eric and I binged watching Making a Murderer over the holidays, and it sounds like this will have the same addicting quality.

Bohemian Gospel by Dana Chamblee Carpenter – Retail Value $25.95 (On Amazon for $20.28)

Set against the historical reign of the Golden and Iron King,Bohemian Gospel is the remarkable tale of a bold and unusual girl on a quest to uncover her past and define her destiny.

Thirteenth-century Bohemia is a dangerous place for a girl, especially one as odd as Mouse, born with unnatural senses and an uncanny intellect. Some call her a witch. Others call her an angel. Even Mouse doesn’t know who―or what―she is. But she means to find out.

When young King Ottakar shows up at the Abbey wounded by a traitor’s arrow, Mouse breaks church law to save him and then agrees to accompany him back to Prague as his personal healer. Caught in the undertow of court politics at the castle, Ottakar and Mouse find themselves drawn to each other as they work to uncover the threat against him and to unravel the mystery of her past. But when Mouse’s unusual gifts give rise to a violence and strength that surprise everyone―especially herself―she is forced to ask herself: Will she be prepared for the future that awaits her?

A heart-thumping, highly original tale in the vein of Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian, Bohemian Gospel heralds the arrival of a fresh new voice for historical fiction.

This book interested me 50% just by the cover, and 50% by the summary – another one I can’t wait to start!

Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy – Retail Value $28 (On Amazon for $17.62)

On a warm spring evening in South Los Angeles, a young man is shot and killed on a sidewalk minutes away from his home, one of the thousands of black Americans murdered that year. His assailant runs down the street, jumps into an SUV, and vanishes, hoping to join the scores of killers in American cities who are never arrested for their crimes.

But as soon as the case is assigned to Detective John Skaggs, the odds shift.

Here is the kaleidoscopic story of the quintessential, but mostly ignored, American murder—a “ghettoside” killing, one young black man slaying another—and a brilliant and driven cadre of detectives whose creed is to pursue justice for forgotten victims at all costs. Ghettoside is a fast-paced narrative of a devastating crime, an intimate portrait of detectives and a community bonded in tragedy, and a surprising new lens into the great subject of why murder happens in our cities—and how the epidemic of killings might yet be stopped.

I like this letter! And after seeing that Ghettoside is on almost every “Best Books of the Year” list, I had to get it.

Verdict:  I’m very pleased with the value of my Book of the Month subscription. The prices are way better than Amazon for new hardcover releases – I don’t know how they do it! Plus I love the curated selection each month and getting to pick a book (or more than one) each month. It pushes me out of my reading comfort zone, and gets new books on my radar!

What do you think of the Book of the Month subscription? Which book (or books) did you pick this month? (FYI – Book of the Month has extended the selection window for the January boxes. You can sign up for a subscription and start with a January book selection, now through 1/15).