I've moved!

I've moved!

Thanks for stopping by, but it appears you are using a (very) old address for my blog. I've moved to a Wordpress site and you'll need to update your bookmarks for Books on the Knob

I've moved!

Custom Search

Monday, January 24, 2011

Free and Bargain Book Roundup

Another day with no new free books in the Kindle store, but that doesn't mean there aren't a few free and bargain deals to be found.

On the Beach ($4.95), by Nevil Shute, is somewhat of a classic of modern apocalyptic fiction and priced at under half the paperback edition.

Book Description
Nevil Shute’s most powerful novel—a bestseller for decades after its 1957 publication—is an unforgettable vision of a post-apocalyptic world.

After a nuclear World War III has destroyed most of the globe, the few remaining survivors in southern Australia await the radioactive cloud that is heading their way and bringing certain death to everyone in its path. Among them is an American submarine captain struggling to resist the knowledge that his wife and children in the United States must be dead. Then a faint Morse code signal is picked up, transmitting from somewhere near Seattle, and Captain Towers must lead his submarine crew on a bleak tour of the ruined world in a desperate search for signs of life. Both terrifying and intensely moving, On the Beach is a remarkably convincing portrait of how ordinary people might face the most unimaginable nightmare.


Judas Kiss ($4.85), by J.T. Ellison

Book Description
It was a murder made for TV: a trail of tiny bloody footprints. An innocent toddler playing beside her mother's bludgeoned body. Pretty young Corinne Wolff, seven months pregnant, brutally murdered in her own home.

Cameras and questions don't usually faze Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson, but the media frenzy surrounding the Wolff case is particularly nasty...and thorough. When the seemingly model mommy is linked to an amateur porn Web site with underage actresses and unwitting players, the sharks begin to circle.

The shock is magnified when an old adversary uses the sexy secret footage to implicate Taylor in a murder--an accusation that threatens her career, her reputation and her relationship.

Both cases hinge on the evidence--real or manufactured--of crimes that go beyond passion, into the realm of obsessive vengeance and shocking betrayal. Just what the networks love.


All the Pretty Girls ($3.44), by J.T. Ellison

Book Description
When a local girl falls prey to a sadistic serial killer, Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson and her lover, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, find themselves in a joint investigation pursuing a vicious murderer. The Southern Strangler is slaughtering his way through the Southeast, leaving a gruesome memento at each crime scene the prior victim's severed hand.

Ambitious TV reporter Whitney Connolly is certain the Southern Strangler is her ticket out of Nashville; she's got a scoop that could break the case. She has no idea how close to this story she really is or what it will cost her.

As the killer spirals out of control, everyone involved must face a horrible truth that the purest evil is born of private lies.


The Worst Witch Strikes Again ($3.79), by Jill Murphy, is a book for young readers. (96 pages)

Book Description
It's the summer term at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches and disaster-prone Mildred Hubble is in deep trouble yet again – and all because of the new girl, Enid Nightshade, who isn't nearly as angelic as she looks.

Beware ($0.99), by Richard Laymon

Book Description
The supermarket shouldn't have been shut. It wasn't normal for Elsie to quit early, or for the guard dog to end up like hamburger meat, or for Elsie herself to feature on the butcher's slab, neatly wrapped and jointed. Residents of Oasis, like hotshot reporter Lacey Allen had better beware!

Using ancient black magic a dangerous, vindictive maniac is made all-powerful by his ability to become invisible. Raping and murdering his way around the States, he is biding his time before fulfilling his one desire - to get even with the high school belle who rejected him years before.

An invisible killer is chasing reporter Lacey Allen across Arizona, and leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.


The Mysterious Case of Doctor Octavius Plum's Incredible Ever After Machine ($0.99), by Alexander Scott

Book Description
When British children, Jennifer and Timothy Goodhew visit their grandfather on the isle of St. Mary's, they are surprised to find him missing. In his place they find a pirate captain, who has taken control of their grandfather's manor and its servants.

The captain puts the children to work—Timothy in the tumbledown graveyard at the end of the garden, and Jennifer within the manor itself. Naturally, the children are concerned about their missing grandfather, and begin to investigate his disappearance.

In the course of their investigations, they discover that the garden surrounding the manor has become wildly overgrown. Furthermore, they are told that entrance to their grandfather's laboratory is strictly forbidden. Undaunted, the children continue their investigations, and in so doing, discover a remarkable secret and a diabolical plot that will change their lives forever.

This novel will in turn, warm your heart and send chills down your spine. It leads the reader on an unforgettable journey through an eerie manor, an overgrown garden, a tumbledown graveyard, and to a gripping conclusion.

An adventure story and a mystery, it is a page-turner through and through—one that is enjoyed by children (ages 9 and up) and adults alike.


Timothy Frost has The Abigail Affair and Final Passage both marked down to 99 cents

Book Description
Toby Robinson is twenty-two and broke. He lands a job as junior steward on a Russian billionaire's motor yacht in the Caribbean, and feels his luck is about to change.

It is, but not in the way Toby hoped. On his first night aboard he is framed for the murder of a guest. And that's just the start of his problems. His attractive crewmate Julia seems to be the only one on his side. But can he trust her?

With his mobile phone confiscated, armed only with a winning smile and a flair for mixing cocktails, can Toby clear his name, stay alive - and foil the sinister international conspiracy that threatens to entangle him?

It's New Year's Eve and something terrible will take place at midnight. Time is running out, and so are Toby's options ...

'The Abigail Affair' is a fast-paced suspense thriller and a UK Kindle bestseller. Download today to take advantage of the special offer discounted price.


90 Minutes in Heaven: My True Story and 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death & Life, by Don Piper, are both marked down to $2.99. The former is a special edition for younger readers, while the latter was briefly free last April.

90 Minutes in Heaven is the runaway bestseller about one man's experience with death and life. As Baptist minister Don Piper drove home from a conference, his car collided with a semi-truck that had crossed into his lane. Piper was pronounced dead at the scene. For the next 90 minutes, he experienced the glories of heaven, where he was greeted by those who had influenced him spiritually, and he experienced true peace. Back on earth, a passing minister who had also been at the conference felt led to pray for the accident victim even though he was told Piper was dead. Miraculously, Piper came back to life, and the pleasure of heaven was replaced by a long and painful recovery. For years Don Piper kept his heavenly experience to himself. Finally, friends and family convinced him to share his remarkable story. An inspiring and encouraging account, 90 Minutes in Heaven continues to touch and comfort millions of people around the world as it offers a glimpse of inexpressible heavenly bliss.

Einstein's Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe ($3.89), by Evalyn Gates

Book Description
Cutting-edge astrophysics that builds on Einstein's theories to find the unseen matter that fills the Universe.Dark energy. Dark matter. These strange and invisible substances don't just sound mysterious: their unexpected appearance in the cosmic census is upending long-held notions about the nature of the Universe. Astronomers have long known that the Universe is expanding, but everything they could see indicated that gravity should be slowing this spread. Instead, it appears that the Universe is accelerating its expansion and that something stronger than gravity-dark energy-is at work. In Einstein's Telescope Evalyn Gates, a University of Chicago astrophysicist, transports us to the edge of contemporary science to explore the revolutionary tool that unlocks the secrets of these little-understood cosmic constituents. Based on Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravitational lensing, or "Einstein's Telescope," is enabling new discoveries that are taking us toward the next revolution in scientific thinking-one that may change forever our notions of where the Universe came from and where it is going.

I thought I had posted Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel ($1.99), by Michio Kaku, already, but I don't see it in a search.

Book Description
Teleportation, time machines, force fields, and interstellar space ships—the stuff of science fiction or potentially attainable future technologies? Inspired by the fantastic worlds of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Back to the Future, renowned theoretical physicist and bestselling author Michio Kaku takes an informed, serious, and often surprising look at what our current understanding of the universe's physical laws may permit in the near and distant future.

Entertaining, informative, and imaginative, Physics of the Impossible probes the very limits of human ingenuity and scientific possibility.


Eden ($0.99), by Andy Merritt

Book Description
Deep beneath the frozen tundra of Siberia lies a secret. Hidden for millennia, its discovery forever alters the lives of a group of scientists, forcing them to face their greatest fears, and throwing them into a fight for their very survival.

Sandy Martindale believes that the discovery she and her research team has made will catapult her to instant academic fame. A frozen mammoth tucked away from time beneath the Siberian ice has been discovered, complete with proof that this animal didn’t die a natural death. When one of their team falls into a hole in the ice they make a startling discovery that flings them into a world of unexpected surprise and terror. Suddenly this academic exercise has become a fight for survival.


Cutting for Stone ($5.00), by Abraham Verghese

Book Description
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.

Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.


Water for Elephants ($5.00), by Sara Gruen

Book Description
As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.

A Friend of the Family ($4.39), by Lauren Grodstein

Book Description
Pete Dizinoff, a skilled and successful New Jersey internist, has a loving and devoted wife, a network of close friends, an impressive house, and, most of all, a son, Alec, now nineteen, on whom he has pinned all his hopes. But Pete hadn’t expected his best friend’s troubled daughter to set her sights on his boy. When Alec falls under her spell, Pete sets out to derail the romance, never foreseeing the devastating consequences.

In a riveting story of suburban tragedy, Lauren Grodstein charts a father’s fall from grace as he struggles to save his family, his reputation, and himself.


Sweet Dreams ($2.99), by Aaron Patterson, the first in his The Justice of Revenge series.

Book Description
Mark Appleton faces his worst nightmare as he hunts a killer, but little does he know that he is the one being hunted. Kirk Weston is a detective with the Detroit police department. His life, although not going as planned finds himself investigating a mysterious group known only as the WJA. Just when he is about to make a breakthrough on the case something terrible goes wrong? He finds exactly what he is looking for!

Never Let Me Go ($5.00), by Kazuo Ishiguro

Book Description
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day comes a devastating new novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss. As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.

Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special–and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together. Suspenseful, moving, beautifully atmospheric, Never Let Me Go is another classic by the author of The Remains of the Day.


The Sense of Honor ($3.39), by Ashley Kath-Bilsky

Book Description
"What would you do to protect the people you love?" CHRISTIANA TATUM will do anything. But when a handsome stranger comes to Bellewyck Abbey looking into guarded secrets of the past, she finds herself not only trapped in a web of deception, but falling in love with a man who could destroy everything she has struggled to save. DEVLIN GRAYSON, the 'Duke of Pemberton', learns the estate he's inherited is in ruins. Even worse, Bellewyck's ward is missing. Certain of treachery, Devlin probes into the shadows of Bellewyck Abbey. The woman who thwarts him at every turn, yet steals his heart, makes him question the foundations of everything he's grown to believe. Will he be able to win her trust in time to save her-or will the sense of honor that guides her actions end in her death?

Crown Duel ($3.99), by Sherwood Smith

Book Description
Over their father’s deathbed, young Meliara Astiar and her brother Branaric promise to lead their people against the evil King. The impoverished count and countess discover that even when the cause is right, leading a war is much tougher than it appears. When Meliara falls into the hands of the elegant Marquis of Shevraeth, the enemy commander, she knows she has to either escape or die. After a desperate chase across country, she discovers that she and Bran are not alone—but the alliance is offered by the person she hates the most.

Once the king is gone, she faces a new type of battlefield: not muddy fields and sharpened steel, but marble palaces. The weapons now are fashion, manners, and the subtle and secret language of fans. Finally, there is the toughest challenge of all, courtship. For how do you defend yourself when the one who draws your eye, and your heart, is your worst enemy?

Crown Duel, once published as Crown Duel and Court Duel, was put together with an added story by Firebird in 2003, and has remained in print ever since. This new edition has been edited, with the addition of several scenes from the hero’s point of view.


Out of the Black ($2.99), by Lee Doty

Book Description
It is the end of a nearly perfect society. Beautiful, happy people still drive electric cars to fulfilling jobs like any other day, but no one noticed that the Apocalypse began a few weeks ago.

Now the perfect society's misfits are its only hope for salvation, but they're barely keeping it together on a normal day:
- A homicide detective burdened by an unforgivable failure investigates an impossible murder.
- An overweight nurse comes out of her shell exactly long enough to be attacked by a dead man.
- An introverted computer genius and his insecure girlfriend are marked for death by a conspiracy so ancient it predates written history.

Each of these damaged strangers holds a piece of the puzzle, but as they begin to find each other, they realize they are being stalked by a methodical killer with the pure heart of a child.

Now they must piece together the mystery and find the courage to stand together against an ancient, hungry apocalypse.
Now they must learn to trust each other and trust themselves.
Now they must become the heroes the world needs before the darkness falls forever.

Sometimes destiny falls unexpected into the most broken lives, like a stone fallen out of the clear black sky.


Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools ($2.99), by Victoria Twead

Book Description
If Joe and Vicky had known what relocating to a tiny mountain village in Andalucia would be like, they might have hesitated...

They have no idea of the culture shock in store. No idea they'll become reluctant chicken farmers and own the most dangerous cockerel in Spain. No idea they'll help capture a vulture or be rescued by a mule.

Will they stay, or return to the relative sanity of England?

Awarded the HarperCollins Authonomy 'Gold Star'.


A Teacher's Night Before Christmas ($2.99), by Sue Carabine and Shauna Mooney Kawasaki (Illustrator), is just one in the Before Christmas series, 29 of which are under a dollar.

Book Description
Santa lost his list of who's been naughty and who's been nice. What is he to do? Mr. Claus suggests he talk to all the teachers--because they know what children have been good or bad.

The Amaranth Enchantment ($4.88), by Julie Berry

Book Description
When a mysterious piece of jewelry and a strange visitor arrive in the jewelry shop where she works for her evil aunt, Lucinda's course takes a surprising turn. With the help of the Amaranth Witch, a young (and harmless) con-artist, and a prince, Lucinda uncovers secrets about her own royal past. A strong seller in hardcover, this original fairytale marks an exciting debut from a lyrical new voice. Can one magical moment lead to happily ever after? Julie Berry grew up in western New York. She holds a BS in communications from Rensselaer and an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College. She now lives in eastern Massachusetts with her husband and four young sons, and works as a director of software sales and marketing for a technology startup. This is her first book.

The Mysterious Benedict Society Collection ($9.99), by Trenton Lee Stewart, is a 3-in-1 anthology for pre-teens, priced at only $3 over the cost of the first volume alone.

Book Description
In this set of the first three adventures of the NYT bestselling The Mysterious Benedict Society series, join Reynie, Kate, Sticky, and Constance as they embark on their daring missions in The Mysterious Benedict Society, The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Perilous Journey, and The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Filled with page-turning action and mind-bending brain teasers, these wildly inventive journeys are sure to delight.


The Renovation: Carter Mansion ($4.54), by Terri Kraus, the first in the Project Restoration series.

Book Description
Ethan Willis has made a career out of restoring old houses like the Carter Mansion so he’s an expert with doors and windows. He knows his way around a toolbox, a construction site, and anything else having to do with rebuilding. If only he could do the same with his own life. Tragically widowed and left with a young son, he’s done the best he could, but now that Chase has become a teenager that best somehow isn’t quite good enough.

For his part, Chase doesn’t know what he’d do without baseball, his best friend Elliott and the secret hideaway even his dad doesn’t know about. What he does know is that the reporter lady who suddenly started chatting with his dad can’t be a good thing.

In a small town where everyone knows everything, does an outsider—a young, cute, ambitious reporter-kind-of-outsider like Cameron Dane—even have a prayer of getting to know the handsome but moody builder? Does it matter that they both hold secrets from their pasts? And can Chase ever be freed from the hidden guilt of his mother’s death? Only time, and a special kind of patience, will tell.


Their Finest Hour ($0.99), by Winston Churchill

Book Description
The second volume of Churchill's Nobel-Prize winning six-part chronicle of World War II. Their 'finest hour' refers to Britain that struggled alone to survive overwhelming German advantage; detailed reconstruction of the bombing of London, the Battle of Britain. Churchill, here wartime Prime Minister, incorporate contemporary documentation and his own reminiscence.

The Expanded Bible New Testament ($3.47), by Thomas Nelson Publishing Staff. et al

Book Description 
The Expanded Bible: New Testament reflects the latest scholarship, current English, and the needs of contemporary students of the Bible. This new testament includes a multitude of study aids right in line with the text. 
  • Expanded translations and other helps make it possible for you to study the Bible while you read
  • Expanded translations bring out the meaning of words and offer alternatives.
  • Literal meanings of terms from the original languages are included where they can provide more understanding.
  • Traditional wordings assist recollection of familiar terms and expressions.
  • Comments explain passages that can be understood better with a brief remark.
  • Useful references supply rewarding opportunities for comparing other Scriptures.
  • Variants display additional wording in some of the original language texts.

Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War: Authentic Accounts of the Strange and Unexplained ($3.79), by Christopher K. Coleman

Book Description
From haunted battlefields to phantom soldiers, this book is a fascinating collection of chilling and intriguing stories of Civil War ghosts. It contains thirty-six such stories, including an encounter by both Teddy Roosevelt and First Lady Grace Coolidge with Abraham Lincoln in the White House.

The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday ($2.82), by Neil MacFarquhar

Book Description
Since his boyhood in Qadhafi's Libya, Neil MacFarquhar has developed a counterintuitive sense that the Middle East, despite all the bloodshed in its recent history, is a place of warmth, humanity, and generous eccentricity. In this book, he introduces a cross-section of unsung, dynamic men and women pioneering political and social change. There is the Kuwaiti sex therapist in a leather suit with matching red headscarf, and the Syrian engineer advocating a less political interpretation of the Koran. MacFarquhar interacts with Arabs and Iranians in their every day lives, removed from the violence we see constantly, yet wrestling with the region's future. These are people who realize their region is out of step with the world and are determined to do something about it ... on their own terms.

I also dug up a few books that are free over on Smashwords. All but one require a coupon code (and those can expire), so just check that the price is reduced in your cart before clicking to Checkout.

Wasteland, by Keith Crews (no code required)
Spooks and Magic, by Jack Sorenson, coupon code RB99T
The Dark Rose, by Bev Bevan, coupon code YF79K
Friends of Choice, by Linda Nelson, coupon code PY78D
Where the Sun Sets, by Ann Marie, coupon code SY34P
Immortalis Carpe Noctem, by Katie Salidas, coupon code MR87F
Pilate's Cross, by J. Alexander Greenwood, coupon code HH22P
Short Stories, Satires, 'N Such, by Mark Collins (no code required)
Leave me alone: Memoirs of an Ex-Mormon, by B.E. Hewson (no code required)
Insight, by Jamie Magee (no code required)