Past Kindle Book Deals but Still Must Read Books!
Looking for must read books you missed the first time around? You’re in the right place. This is where all of our past Kindle book deals live—the ones good enough to click, even if the discount’s gone. Every book here was hand-picked by our team, featured in a daily deal, and still earns a spot on your TBR.
No filler. No bots. Just actually good books at prices that might still be suspiciously low.
Why Check Out Past Deals?
Didn’t grab it when you should have? These past picks are still worth your time.
Still discounted? Some deals stick around longer than you'd think.
Fuel your TBR guilt-free. Add more, regret nothing.
Browse Past Deals
These Books Earned Our Seal of Approval—Snag Them Before They Vanish (Again)
Looking for spicy fantasy? Cozy mystery? A nonfiction rabbit hole? Use the filters below to search by genre, mood, or chaotic book-buying impulse.
Each book comes with retailer links. Just tap “Get Deal” and you’re off.
*Apropos Books is an affiliate marketer, which means we may earn advertising fees from qualifying purchases. These fees are paid by the retailer or affiliate partner, not added to your purchase price, so there’s no extra cost to you.*
Browse by genre
128 past books matching First Contact
When the pandemic leaves Jamie Gray stuck in gig work, a chance encounter leads to a job with a mysterious team caring for creatures in an alternate dimension—giant…
The Kaiju Preservation Society
Sci-Fi · Alien Invasion · First Contact
Our take
When the pandemic leaves Jamie Gray stuck in gig work, a chance encounter leads to a job with a mysterious team caring for creatures in an alternate dimension—giant kaiju roaming a world free of humans. But others have crossed over with reckless intentions, threatening both realities. John Scalzi delivers a sharp, high-energy standalone adventure filled with peril and wonder.
Choose your retailer
About the book
The Kaiju Preservation Society is John Scalzi's first standalone adventure since the conclusion of his New York Times bestselling Interdependency trilogy.
When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls “an animal rights organization.” Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on.
What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm, human-free world. They're the universe's largest and most dangerous panda and they're in trouble.
It's not just the Kaiju Preservation Society who have found their way to the alternate world. Others have, too. And their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.
Purchases through these links may earn Apropos Books a commission at no extra cost to you. Check the retailer for current price and availability.
Ideal for fans of steamy sci fi romance with dominant alien heroes and determined heroines.
Plundered
Romance · Sci-Fi · First Contact
Our take
Hunting the raiders who stole her sister, she is captured by a Vandar warlord whose strength and desire upend her mission. He holds the knowledge she needs, but earning his aid draws her into danger, passion, and shifting loyalties that test her resolve. Ideal for fans of steamy sci fi romance with dominant alien heroes and determined heroines.
Choose your retailer
About the book
She has chased the shadows of a raider horde across the stars, driven by guilt and the promise she made to the sister she lost. Every battle brings her closer to the warlord who tore their lives apart, yet fate delivers her into the hands of another Vandar warrior whose power and intensity threaten every boundary she swore to protect.
Taken aboard his warship, she expects cruelty, not a captor who studies her with challenge and heat. Desire rises where distrust once lived, forcing her to confront the pull between them. He knows where her sister was taken, but gaining his help requires surrendering more than she intended to give.
Perfect for readers who enjoy dominant alien warriors, fierce heroines, and slow building enemies to lovers tension in sci fi romance.
Purchases through these links may earn Apropos Books a commission at no extra cost to you. Check the retailer for current price and availability.
Space trucker Jake McGraw hauls freight along the Skyway, an endless alien-built road linking the stars.
Starrigger
Sci-Fi · First Contact · Space Opera
Our take
Space trucker Jake McGraw hauls freight along the Skyway, an endless alien-built road linking the stars. When word spreads that he holds its secret map, every rival in the galaxy gives chase. Starrigger by John DeChancie is a Locus Award–nominated sci-fi classic packed with grit, speed, and unforgettable cosmic adventure.
Choose your retailer
About the book
Some roads never end, especially when they run between the stars.
Independent space trucker Jake McGraw hauls cargo across the Skyway, an ancient highway built by unknown hands that connects countless worlds. With his father’s mind wired into the rig and a mysterious hitchhiker riding shotgun, Jake stumbles into a conspiracy that could change the galaxy.
Rumors of a hidden map to the full Skyway put every power on his trail—from alien hunters to human warlords and one ruthless rival who wants him dead. Now Jake must keep his wheels turning through the infinite dark or risk losing everything, including his freedom.
Starrigger by John DeChancie is a Locus Award–nominated space adventure fueled by danger, mystery, and momentum.
Purchases through these links may earn Apropos Books a commission at no extra cost to you. Check the retailer for current price and availability.
When alien ships appear over Earth, the Overlords bring an end to war and suffering.
Childhood’s End
Sci-Fi · First Contact · Galactic Empire · Speculative Fiction
Our take
When alien ships appear over Earth, the Overlords bring an end to war and suffering. Humanity enters an age of peace, but perfection hides a purpose no one can imagine. Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End is a haunting, prophetic masterpiece about evolution, utopia, and the cost of surrendering control to those who promise salvation.
Choose your retailer
About the book
They came in silence, their ships shining above every city on Earth. They promised peace. They delivered something else.
When the Overlords arrive, humanity’s wars end overnight. Poverty, cruelty, and hunger vanish, replaced by a new golden age. Yet beneath this perfect order lies a mystery no one can unravel. The Overlords rule with unseen power, their true purpose hidden behind their calm benevolence.
As decades pass, a chilling truth emerges: their plan for humanity’s future will change the species forever.
Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End is a visionary masterpiece of science fiction, exploring the price of utopia, the limits of progress, and the destiny of a civilization that dares to dream beyond itself.
Purchases through these links may earn Apropos Books a commission at no extra cost to you. Check the retailer for current price and availability.
A rescue crew arrives on an alien moon to find survivors living beneath the ice and a mystery that is killing them.
The Minotaur
Sci-Fi · First Contact · Hard Sci-Fi · Space Exploration
Our take
A rescue crew arrives on an alien moon to find survivors living beneath the ice and a mystery that is killing them. As deaths mount, understanding the alien life becomes a matter of survival. This thoughtful first-contact novel blends suspense and psychology, earning 4.5 stars on Amazon and praise for its classic science fiction sensibility.
Choose your retailer
About the book
Life has been found beneath the icy shell of the moon of a gas giant orbiting a red dwarf at a distance of 11 light-years from Earth. When the crew of the original exploration mission crashes on the alien moon, a rescue ship is launched. Arriving decades later, the crew of the Kelvin finds a colony of survivors living in the labyrinth of caves beneath the surface of the moon. When people start dying, they realize they need to unravel the secrets of this alien world and the mystery of the minotaur.
The Minotaur is a tribute to the 1961 classic Solaris, written by Stanislaw Lem, and considers the psychological impact of examining an exotic alien life form unlike anything ever encountered on Earth.
FIRST CONTACT is a series of stand-alone novels that explore humanity's first interaction with extraterrestrial life. This series is similar to BLACK MIRROR or THE TWILIGHT ZONE in that the series is based on a common theme rather than common characters. This allows these books to be read in any order. Technically, they're all first as they all deal with how we might initially respond to contact with aliens, exploring the social, political, religious, and scientific aspects of First Contact.
Peter Cawdron is a fan of such classic science fiction writers as Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Crichton and their influence on his style and storylines is readily apparent. His forays into hard science fiction could best be described as informative science fiction or enjoyable science fiction. They focus on character and plausibility.
Purchases through these links may earn Apropos Books a commission at no extra cost to you. Check the retailer for current price and availability.
After Earth’s near-destruction, humanity survives on a distant world built from desperation.
Seeds of Earth
Sci-Fi · First Contact · Space Colonization · Space Opera
Our take
After Earth’s near-destruction, humanity survives on a distant world built from desperation. Generations later, hidden truths awaken an ancient intergalactic struggle that threatens everything the colonists believe is safe. This epic space opera blends alien politics, buried history, and high-stakes survival, earning 4 stars on Amazon and strong genre recognition.
Choose your retailer
About the book
Merciless. Relentless. Unstoppable.
The first intelligent species to encounter mankind attacked without warning. Merciless. Relentless. Unstoppable. With little hope of halting the invasion, Earth's last roll of the dice was to dispatch three colony ships, seeds of Earth, to different parts of the galaxy. The human race would live on . . . somewhere.
150 years later, the planet Darien hosts a thriving human settlement, which enjoys a peaceful relationship with an indigenous race, the scholarly Uvovo. But there are secrets buried on Darien's forest moon. Secrets that go back to an apocalyptic battle fought between ancient races at the dawn of galactic civilization. Unknown to its colonists, Darien is about to become the focus of an intergalactic power struggle where the true stakes are beyond their comprehension. And what choices will the Uvovo make when their true nature is revealed and the skies grow dark with the enemy?
Purchases through these links may earn Apropos Books a commission at no extra cost to you. Check the retailer for current price and availability.
Michel Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things is a profound blend of science fiction and spiritual meditation.
The Book of Strange New Things
Dystopian · Sci-Fi · First Contact · Speculative Fiction
Our take
Michel Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things is a profound blend of science fiction and spiritual meditation. Called “a masterpiece” by David Mitchell, it follows Peter, a missionary sent across galaxies, even as his wife struggles on a collapsing Earth. With a 4.2 out of 5 stars rating, this extraordinary novel explores faith, distance, and devotion.
Choose your retailer
About the book
Peter is a man of faith, chosen for the mission of a lifetime. His calling takes him across galaxies, far from his wife Bea, to a world where the native population hungers for his teachings. To them, his Bible is the “book of strange new things.”
The planet is strange but welcoming. The work is vital. Yet as Peter grows closer to his congregation, Bea’s letters from Earth become increasingly dire. Natural disasters, collapsing governments, and crumbling faith plague a world falling apart. The distance between them grows wider with every message.
Torn between devotion to his mission and love for his wife, Peter faces a choice no scripture can resolve. This is a story of faith, sacrifice, and love stretched to breaking.
Purchases through these links may earn Apropos Books a commission at no extra cost to you. Check the retailer for current price and availability.
Alone in the dark is one thing.
Ship of Fools
Sci-Fi · Alien Invasion · First Contact
Our take
Alone in the dark is one thing. Following a signal toward something far worse is another. In Ship of Fools, the generation ship Argonos drifts through deep space until a transmission leads its crew to the remains of a ruined colony and a mystery that only grows more disturbing the closer they get. A bleak, unsettling sci-fi horror story with theological weight and creeping dread.
Choose your retailer
About the book
“[Russo] is not afraid to take on the question of evil in a divinely ordered universe...This is an ambitious novel of ideas that generates considerable suspense while respecting its sources, its characters, and most important, the reader.”—The New York Times
Home to generations of humans, the starship Argonos has wandered aimlessly throughout the galaxy for hundreds of years, desperately searching for other signs of life. Now, a steady, unidentified transmission lures them toward a nearby planet, where the grisly remains of a former colony await the crew.
Haunted by what they have seen, the crew has no choice but to follow when another signal beckons the Argonos into deep space—and into the dark heart of an alien mystery...
Purchases through these links may earn Apropos Books a commission at no extra cost to you. Check the retailer for current price and availability.
Elyse Douglas’s Visit is a pulse-pounding blend of alien mystery, political suspense, and heart-stopping emotion.
Visit
Sci-Fi · First Contact
Our take
Elyse Douglas’s Visit is a pulse-pounding blend of alien mystery, political suspense, and heart-stopping emotion. When a UFO crash leads to the abduction of the president’s daughter, one mother must risk everything to save her child and stop global chaos. With a 4.5 out of 5 stars Amazon rating, this sci-fi thriller is captivating and unforgettable.
Choose your retailer
About the book
An alien ship crashes near a quiet American town. Within hours, President Maggie Lawson faces the crisis every world leader dreads. The wreckage is dangerous, the military is on alert, and then her worst nightmare strikes—her teenage daughter vanishes.
Evidence reveals the unthinkable: extraterrestrials have abducted her child. Lawson must decide whether to bury the truth to keep global panic at bay or risk exposing humanity’s first contact to save the girl she loves.
Her only ally is Curt Holt, a former Army intelligence officer with knowledge of unexplained phenomena and secrets of his own. Together, they race against time as governments falter and alien demands grow bolder.
The fate of one child—and perhaps the entire world—hangs in the balance.
Purchases through these links may earn Apropos Books a commission at no extra cost to you. Check the retailer for current price and availability.
Rosewater begins with a city built around an alien presence, where hope, exploitation, and fear gather at the edge of the unknown.
Rosewater
Sci-Fi · Dystopian · First Contact · Hard Sci-Fi · Post-Apocalyptic
Our take
Rosewater begins with a city built around an alien presence, where hope, exploitation, and fear gather at the edge of the unknown. Kaaro, a government agent with a criminal past and psychic abilities, wants distance from the biodome, but a pattern of deaths forces him back toward its secrets. This is science fiction shaped by alien mystery, political pressure, and unsettling transformation.
Choose your retailer
About the book
Rosewater is the start of an award-winning trilogy set in Nigeria, by one of science fiction's most engaging voices.
*Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, winner
*Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel, winner
Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry, and the helpless -- people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumored healing powers.
Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn't care to again -- but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realization about a horrifying future.
Tade Thompson's innovative, genre-bending, Afrofuturist series, the Wormwood Trilogy, is perfect for fans of Jeff Vandermeer, N. K. Jemisin, and Ann Leckie.
Praise for Rosewater:
"Smart. Gripping. Fabulous!" —Ann Leckie, award winning-author of Ancillary Justice
"Mesmerising. There are echoes of Neuromancer and Arrival in here, but this astonishing debut is beholden to no one." —M. R. Carey, bestselling author of The Girl with All the Gifts
"A magnificent tour de force, skillfully written and full of original and disturbing ideas." —Adrian Tchaikovsky, Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of Children of Time
Purchases through these links may earn Apropos Books a commission at no extra cost to you. Check the retailer for current price and availability.
Ideal for readers drawn to classic science fiction about alien manipulation, immortality, and the consequences of treating humanity as entertainment.
The Heaven Makers
Sci-Fi · First Contact · Hard Sci-Fi · Space Opera
Our take
Immortal aliens have spent centuries observing Earth for entertainment, but when boredom leads them to manipulate human lives and create their own disasters, Investigator Kelexel is sent to examine their forbidden interference, with a 3.9-star average from more than 230 Goodreads ratings. Ideal for readers drawn to classic science fiction about alien manipulation, immortality, and the consequences of treating humanity as entertainment.
Choose your retailer
About the book
Idle immortals, hungry for entertainment, turn their attention to humans in this science fiction novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of Dune.
Immortal aliens had observed Earth for centuries, making and viewing full sensory movies of wars, natural disasters, and horrific human activities . . . all to relieve their boredom. Then they finally became jaded by ordinary, run-of-the-mill tragedies, and found ways to create even more inventive spectacles to keep themselves amused.
But interfering with human activities is forbidden, and by the time Investigator Kelexel arrives to investigate, things are really getting out of hand . . .
Purchases through these links may earn Apropos Books a commission at no extra cost to you. Check the retailer for current price and availability.
James D. Prescott’s The Fifth Kind: Arrival is a pulse-pounding sci-fi thriller where ancient aliens, buried secrets, and modern conspiracies collide.
The Fifth Kind: Arrival
Sci-Fi · Alien Invasion · First Contact · Hard Sci-Fi
Our take
James D. Prescott’s The Fifth Kind: Arrival is a pulse-pounding sci-fi thriller where ancient aliens, buried secrets, and modern conspiracies collide. With 4.4 out of 5 stars on Amazon, it follows an exobiologist and an intelligence officer racing to stop a revelation that could destroy humanity. Fans of The X-Files and Ancient Aliens won’t be able to look away.
Choose your retailer
About the book
Deep beneath the sands of Egypt, archaeologists uncover something impossible: a mummified body sealed in a tomb, wearing a space suit. Half a world away, Dr. Katherine Shepard and Colonel Devon Peters investigate a crashed UFO and find one of its passengers still alive—and unmistakably human.
Their discoveries link to a truth buried across millennia: aliens have walked among us, shaping Earth’s history from the shadows. Worse, they are still here. A secret war rages between factions older than civilization itself, and humanity is collateral damage.
As Shepard and Peters chase answers through shifting allegiances and hidden agendas, they realize survival depends on unraveling the aliens’ plan before it unravels them. Some revelations can’t be contained. This one could end the world.
Purchases through these links may earn Apropos Books a commission at no extra cost to you. Check the retailer for current price and availability.
Don’t Want to Miss Another Deal?
Get the best Kindle book deals delivered straight to your inbox. We feature new must read books every day—always hand-picked, never random—with links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo. Some discounts disappear fast, others linger (or come back around), so it’s worth keeping an eye out.