If you enjoy discovering great books before they’re officially released, SoonABook is a platform worth exploring. It gives readers access to ARC ebooks before their publication date, allowing them to read them for free in exchange for an honest early review.
But what exactly is an ARC? ARC stands for Advance Review Copy. It’s an early edition of a book that an author or publisher provides to selected readers before its official release. This gives readers the chance to discover a book ahead of everyone else while helping authors receive valuable feedback and early reviews.
Here are our top picks for free books you can download and read now:
- The Merge by Jesse Neo
Jarvis Lumen is a PhD candidate in linguistics at MIT who believes in facts and evidence, but when he is accused of faking his research, his future begins to fall apart. Soon, his mind and body start to betray him, making his everyday life frightening and confusing as he begins seeing strange faces everywhere. At first, he thinks he is hallucinating and tells himself it is just stress, but the faces keep appearing. He eventually discovers a secret cult that believes people’s lives are controlled by the stars—and that its members will kill anyone who resists them. Then Jarvis realizes the faces he thought were watching him are not strangers at all. They are his own. He has been part of the cult for much longer than he ever knew. As the cult closes in, Jarvis must make a difficult choice: follow the path the stars have set, or fight to keep his free will.
- Global Vice by Andrew Rafkin
Ben Alexander is a highly trained and experienced security operative. Nickolas Zelenko is a computer genius. They own a bleeding-edge security firm called COMSEC, and things have suddenly become dangerous… even deadly. What looked like a straight case of insurance fraud has blown up into an international scandal: organ smuggling, human trafficking, and murder. Are Ben and Nickolas up to the challenge? They’ve got a few unbeatable secret weapons: Allison McBride-a beautiful, brilliant partner who completes her tasks with superior skill. A team of former Navy SEALs and Special Ops soldiers who do not let rules or red tape slow them down. And EVE-the most advance artificial intelligence on the planet, with creatively acquired access to every database, security cam, satellite, and news feed around the world. EVE can put COMSEC and its action team anywhere, anytime, to do whatever it takes to save the day and protect freedom. The heroes of COMSEC take the war against human traffickers from LA. to New York, from hidden prisons in gold mines throughout the world, to depraved island resorts in the West Indies and Seychelles. The goal is to bring it all down. Join the COMSEC heroes on a globe-trotting adventure filled with action and intrigue. You’re in for a hell of a ride.
- BlackFyre by Daniel Welynn
Book I, The Shattered Shards, is a contemporary dark fantasy about the daughter of the Seelie Queen and Goblyn King, passing as a human girl in San Francisco, whose life detonates the night she finally lets herself care about someone.Branwen is the secret heir carrying a sentient apocalyptic fire, BlackFyre, inside her, kept barely in check by an ancient talisman called the Wayfairer. After a quiet year of passing as a mortal student, walking home through Mission District fog with her new best friend Daphne and pretending she’s just another girl, assassins serving her Goblyn‑queen half‑sister smash into Daphne’s apartment to steal the Wayfairer and drag Branwen back.Panicking, Branwen unleashes the BlackFyre to protect Daphne and her mother Elaine, obliterating their attackers but shattering the Wayfairer into nine shards scattered across the human city, the Seelie Roads, and the starving Goblyn realm. With nowhere safe left, the three of them flee to the only shelter they have: the warded Forest Hill house of Bram, the battle‑scarred knight who’s raised Branwen in hiding for centuries.Holed up together, they become an uneasy found family trying to stay half a step ahead of the Goblyn Princess’s Handmaidens while tracking the shards that might be the only thing keeping Branwen from burning the world. Each piece she recovers (beginning with the drowned Aventurine shard in the wrecks beneath the Bay) makes her stronger but tightens the bond between her, the BlackFyre, and the sister who hunts her through dreams and cracks in the city’s bones.As the Princess presses in and the fire whispers that everyone is safer if she lets it loose, Branwen has to decide whether she can stay human enough—for Daphne, for Elaine, for herself—while carrying a power designed to end Courts. The book ends with the Wayfairer only partly rebuilt, the Goblyn Court fully aware their lost heir lives in San Francisco, and Branwen and her makeshift family committed to finding the remaining shattered shards before the Princess does.
- Elara by Michael Evans
“A haunting story of rescue, survival, and the moment a woman begins to remember who she was before the world renamed her.” Based on true events, Elara is the story of a woman rescued in Miami Beach after years of losing herself to survival, duty, and the belief that sacrifice was the only way to love her family. Told through the voice of Michael Evans, Elara follows one unforgettable night of rescue and the long road that follows, from Dr. Chen’s office in Florida to a safe house in Washington, D.C. Along the way, Elara begins to tell the truth about North Korea, China, America, and the quiet ways a person can disappear long before anyone notices. Created as part of a mother-daughter healing project for women and girls, Elara is accompanied by a 90-minute cinematic story experience featuring narration by Michael Evans, voices and music from Asian performing artists, and the emotional figure skating of Polina Korobova. Featuring voices and music by: Dia (Performing Artist, South Korea); Seunghee (Performing Artist, South Korea); Kim’s Note Family (Performing Artist, South Korea); Ruby (Performing Artist, Vietnam); and the emotional figure skating of Polina Korobova (Figure Skater, Ukraine). With contributions by Brian Fitzgibbons, a nationally renowned missing person investigator who has dedicated his life to finding and rescuing missing girls alongside Michael Evans through Kingsman, their charitable private security and intelligence contracting organization. With real-world guidance from Eunhee Park, North Korean defector and author of The Courage to Die, and Zhang Miaomiao, Voice Artist, China, this project grows from the mission that built a community of more than 3 million female subscribers through The REAL Matrix Reloaded: A Map for Escaping the Prison You Can’t See. FOR EVERY WOMAN WHO BECAME WHAT OTHERS NEEDED AND FORGOT WHO SHE WAS, ELARA IS THE ROAD BACK HOME.
- The Shroud of Saint Markos by Michael Shaw
When American professor Michael Shaw at the Catholic Institute in Paris receives a mysterious letter regarding one of the world’s best-known religious artifacts, the Shroud of Turin, its contents may shake the foundations of Christianity. The document sparks a perilous treasure hunt for two long-lost objects—the seven hundred-year-old diary of the shroud’s first-known owner, fourteenth-century French knight Geoffroi de Charny, and the contents of a two thousand-year-old earthen jar found in the Judean wilderness containing an eyewitness account of the crucifixion and resurrection. Joined by Israeli archeologist Nava Meyer, Shaw is compelled to navigate ancient waters of religious fanaticism as well as the dark underbelly of black-market antiquities. Is the Shroud of Turin authentic? If not, where is the real shroud? What is the connection to a fifteen-hundred-year-old monastery Saint Markos in the remote mountains of southern Israel? When sinister forces with money, power, and eternal glory as their motive and little regard for human life join the hunt, what follows is a 9-mm rollercoaster ride of subterfuge, deceit and murder. Shaw and Meyer make a formidable team. So do those who pursue them. The game is on. The search begins. Last one standing wins.