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Thursday, September 15, 2011

Today's Deals and Bargain Books

Update: Price drop on Notorious Australian Women to $4.99 in the US.

The first two books that were previously only free for UK Kindle customers are now free in the US Kindle store, while four now have an EPUB format available and one is newly free on nook.

The Way of Shadows ($1.99), the first in The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day. I'd snap this one up in a second, but (for the second day in a row) I already have it in my eLibrary. The next two in the trilogy are $7.99 right now, which means the entire trilogy bought separately comes in for less than the $19.99 bundle price. I'm considering getting his latest, The Black Prism, as it is also $7.99 now that it is out in paperback; it is the start of his new Lightbringer trilogy. There is also a new novella I had not known about, Perfect Shadow, which appears to be a prequel for The Way of Shadows.
Book Description
For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city's most accomplished artist.

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly - and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.

But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics - and cultivate a flair for death.

Those outside the US usually get skipped on the Daily Deal and a lot of other bargains in the Kindle store. So, here are three just for those outside the US (those in the US, just skip down, as there are more for us further along).

Welcome to My World ($19.99 US; $0.80/£0.49 UK) and Fairytale of New York ($6.99 US; $1.60/£0.99 UK), both by Miranda Dickinson, are on sale for UK customers only (at least, so far), in both the Main and UK Kindle stores. The US pricing on the former looks to have been entered wrong by the publisher (it's double what it is for most markets), while the latter was free for US customers last year.
Welcome to My World
A travel agent who longs to travel. An intrepid explorer who just wants to find a place to call home.

And a Big Idea that changes everything….

Close your eyes and imagine the world is your oyster…And now imagine never seeing it. Welcome to Harriet Langton's world. All her life she's dreamt of travelling the globe - fate always got in the way.Working as a travel agent, the closest Harri comes to her dream destination of Venice is booking the trip for someone else. But everything changes when travel fanatic Alex drops in.

With her boyfriend Rob tied up with work, Harri is persuaded to help Alex in his quest for love. But in her attempts to help, Harri soon discovers that she's alienating those around her.

Desperate to leave her life behind, will her dreams finally come true? Or will Harri's leap of faith be her biggest mistake yet?

A gorgeous love story for fans of Sophie Kinsella and Jill Mansell.

Fairytale of New York
Are happy-every-afters made in Manhattan?Once upon a time an English girl went to New York to live out her very own fairytale…

Florist Rosie Duncan's life couldn't be better, she has a flourishing business on New York's Upper West Side and fantastic friends. Moving to Manhattan feels like the best decision she ever made. Even though at the time, it was her escape route from heartbreak . . .

For the past six years Rosie has kept her heart under lock and key, despite the protests of her closest friends - charming, commitment-phobic Ed, unlucky in love Marnie and the one-woman tornado that is Celia.

Then a blossoming friendship with publishing hot-shot Nate begins to shake Rosie's resolve at the same time as her brother arrives in the Big Apple, hiding a secret.

But a chance meeting brings Rosie face to face with her past, unravelling the mystery behind her arrival in New York. Rosie is forced to confront questions she has long been trying to ignore, including will she ever get her very own happy-ever-after?

A sparkling, romantic comedy about an English girl who finds herself in the city where dreams can come true - or so she thinks…

Notorious Australian Women ($18.99 $4.99 US), by Kay Saunders, is currently discounted for Canadian ($1.09) and Australian ($1.07) customers in the Kindle store.
Book Description
The sensational lives and exploits of some of Australia's most audacious women Notorious Australian Women celebrates the lives of some of Australia's most fearless, brash and scandalous women. There's Tilly Devine, who went from streetwalker in London to wealthy Sydney madam and standover merchant; Mary Bryant, the highway robber and First Fleeter who escaped by rowing from Port Jackson to Timor with her two children; Lola Montez, the Irish-born grande horizontale, who destroyed King Ludwig I of Bavaria; Ellen Tremaye and Marion Edwards, women who challenged the gender order and became men; and Helena Rubinstein, who rewrote her humble Polish background and became one of the most successful and astute businesswomen in the world. From bushrangers, courtesans and cross-dressers, to writers, designers and a radical or two, what these splendid rebels have in common is a determination to take their destinies into their own hands. Kay Saunders AM was Professor of History and Senator of the University of Queensland from 2002 to 2006. In 2001 she received the Medal of the National Museum of Australia, and in 2006 was the recipient of the John Kerr Medal from the Royal Historical Society of Queensland.

A Taint in the Blood ($9.99 US), the first title in the Shadowspawn series by S. M. Stirling, is marked down to $3.24 in several non-US regions: Asia & Pacific, India, Lat. Am & Carribean and Middle East.
Book Description
Eons ago, the powerful Homo Nocturnis ruled the earth. While their numbers have been greatly reduced, they still exist-though not as purebreds. Adrian Breze is one such being. Wealthy and reclusive, he is more Shadowspawn than human. But he rebelled against his kind, choosing to live as an ordinary man. Now, to save humanity, he must battle the dark forces of the world-including those in his own blood...

The Spellman Files ($1.99), starts off the Spellman series by Lisa Lutz
Book Description
Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors -- but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman.

Part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry, Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. Duties include: completing assignments from the bosses, aka Mom and Dad (preferably without scrutiny); appeasing her chronically perfect lawyer brother (often under duress); setting an example for her fourteen-year-old sister, Rae (who's become addicted to "recreational surveillance"); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed "Lost Weekends"). But when Izzy's parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzy's new boyfriend), Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there's a hitch: she must take one last job before they'll let her go -- a fifteen-year-old, ice-cold missing person case. She accepts, only to experience a disappearance far closer to home, which becomes the most important case of her life.

Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear: A Novel ($1.99), by Katharine Weber
Book Description
Harriet Rose, 26, is an American photographer just winning recognition for her work. A travel fellowship brings her to visit her best friend and former roommate, Anne Gordon, in Switzerland. In an ongoing letter to her boyfriend, Harriet reports on strange developments in Anne's life, most notably her affair with a much older married man, which seems to be leading to a disastrous conclusion. Before she can rescue Anne, events take a series of unexpected turns, and Harriet must reexamine her own life and past, and come to terms with the difficulties and possibilities of human relationships.

Already excerpted in The New Yorker, Katherine Weber's witty first novel of attraction and deception, a tale with the sensibility of a Margaret Atwood, pulses with cultural references and word games that echo Nabokov.

Murder on the Eiffel Tower ($2.99) is the first in the Victor Legris Mystery series by Claude Izner. This dropped on a price match with Sony and the price there has already gone back to $9.99.
Book Description
The brand-new, shiny Eiffel Tower is the pride and glory of the 1889 World Exposition. But one sunny afternoon, as visitors are crowding the viewing platforms, a woman collapses and dies on this great Paris landmark. Can a bee sting really be the cause of death? Or is there a more sinister explanation? Enter young bookseller Victor Legris. Present on the tower at the time of the incident, and appalled by the media coverage of the occurrence, he is determined to find out what actually happened. In this dazzling evocation of late nineteenth-century Paris, we follow Victor as his investigation takes him all over the city and he suspects an ever-changing list of possible perpetrators. Could mysterious Kenji Mori, his surrogate father and business partner at the bookstore Legris operates, be involved in the crime? Why are beautiful Russian illustrator Tasha and her colleagues at the newly launched sensationalist newspaper Passepartout always up-to-date in their reporting? And what will Legris do when the deaths begin to multiply and he is caught in a race against time?

Murder on the Eiffel Tower is painstakingly researched, an effortless evocation of the glorious City of Light, and an exciting opening to a promising series of eight books featuring Victor Legris.

Community Organizing for Conservatives: A Manifesto for Localism in the Tea Party Movement, by Lorie Medina, and First, Do No Harm: The President's Cousin Explains Why His Hippocratic Oath Requires Him to Oppose ObamaCare, by Milton Wolf, are two of eight political treatises for the Tea Party, published by an imprint of HarperCollins, Broadside Books. ($1.99 each)
Community Organizing for Conservatives
Lorie Medina explains how she became involved with the Tea Party movement and how her background prepared her for her important role. She shares with the reader how to start a local grassroots organization and helps to prepare them for many of the challenges they will face. Lorie uses real people and real situations to explain best practices for local tea party groups. Throughout the book, Lorie focuses on the necessity of local groups to truly affect lasting change in America.

First, Do No Harm
The discussion what role—if any—the government should play in regulating and dictating the delivery of health care in the United States has become ground zero in the much larger age-old struggle between statism and individual liberty. Personifying this struggle is the conflict between the big government schemes of President Barack Obama and the free market principles of the President's own cousin, the private practice physician Milton R. Wolf, M.D. When Barack Obama and Dr. Milton Wolf met for the first time in May 2010, it marked the beginning of a new phase in this all-American family feud. In this work, Dr. Wolf takes the gloves off and describes the results of decades of government intervention in health care, the disastrous doubling down on failure of ObamaCare and finally the alternative free market reforms that will save our system and ultimately our nation.

The Zoo on the Road to Nablus: A Story of Survival from the West Bank ($4.32), by Amelia Thomas
Book Description
In a unique zoo in one of the world's most turbulent regions, one man wages a strange and heroic battle for its animals' survival.

The last Palestinian zoo stands on a dusty, deadend street in the once prosperous farming town of Qalqilya, on the very edge of the West Bank.

The zoo's bars are rusting; peacocks wander quiet avenues shaded by broad plane trees; a teenage baboon broods in solitary confinement; walls bear the pockmarks of gunfire. And yet the zoo is an extraordinary place, with a bizarre, troubling and inspiring story to tell. At the center of this story is Dr. Sami Khader, the only zoo veterinarian in the Palestinian territories. Family man, amateur inventor, and dedicated taxidermist, he is fiercely independent, apolitical, and resourceful in times of crisis. Dr. Sami dreams of transforming the zoo into one of an international caliber.

In The Zoo on the Road to Nablus, Amelia Thomas brings the reader into a world rarely glimpsed from the outside, weaving the stories of the zoo's animals, its staff, and its visitors into a rich, colorful chronicle of the indomitability of the human--and animal--spirit.

Katie Macalister has several of her backlist/self-published titles marked down to 99 cents. The first two are the first and third in her Noble romance series; the second isn't on Kindle (at least, not yet). The third is a novella in her Dark Ones series (the first title of which, A Girl's Guide to Vampires, is still free for Australians only, courtesy of HarperCollins). The last one is a stand-alone novel, just published this year.
Noble Intentions
Noble Britton suffered greatly at the hands of his first wife, and he refuses to fall into the same trap again. This time he intends to marry a quiet, biddable woman who will not draw attention to herself or cause scandal. Gillian Leigh’s honest manner and spontaneous laughter attract him immediately. It matters little that she is accident-prone; he can provide the structure necessary to guide her.

But unconventional to the tips of her half-American toes, his new bride turns the tables on him, wreaking havoc on his orderly life. Perpetually one step behind his beguiling spouse, Noble suffers a banged-up head, a black eye, and a broken nose before he realizes Gillian has healed his soul and proven that their union is no heedless tumble, but the swoon of true love.


The Trouble With Harry (aka Noble Pursuits)
Just What is the Trouble With Harry?

1. He is Plum’s new husband. Not normally a problem, but when you consider that Harry advertised for a wife, and Plum was set to marry his secretary, there was cause for a bit of confusion.

2. He has a title. Plum has spent the last twenty years hiding from the ton, and now Harry wants her to shine in society? Horrors!

3. He doesn’t know about her shocking secret. How is she going to explain about the dead husband who isn’t a husband…and who now seems to be alive again?

4. He’s fallen in love with her. And yet, the maddening man refuses to confide in her. For Plum knows the real trouble with Harry is that he’s stolen her heart.


Bring Out Your Dead
Battling a demon lord is all in a day’s work for the Dark One named Sebastian. But now he must take on a horde of unhappy zombies and an obnoxious teen vampire if he wants to win the hand of the one woman who can make him whole.

Ysabelle is a woman with a past, and not a whole lot of future if a certain demon lord has his way. With zombies, demons, and a little thing like death standing in her way, will she find happiness in the man who’s seen more darkness than she can imagine?

Note: this novella was published in 2006 and again in 2010 in the Just One Sip and My Zombie Valentine anthologies, respectively. Readers should be aware that this is a republishing of a previously published novella.


Suffragette in the City
Cassandra Whitney is a New Woman, from her forward-thinking attitudes toward women and society, right down to her determination to take a lover—just as soon as she can find one who doesn’t dribble soup, or yell at her for her involvement with the suffrage movement.

Unfortunately, the only candidate she’s found worthy is the annoying, but sinfully attractive, Griffin St. John. It’s just too bad he appears to be central in a plot to destroy everything she’s worked for…

Veneer: Living Deeply in a Surface Society ($0.99), by Timothy D. Willard and Jason Locy, is marked down courtesy of HarperCollins imprint Zondervan.
Book Description
The world has a love affair---with itself. Armed with Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, we think of ourselves as mini celebrities, and we use consumption and technology to convince our friends that this facade is who we are. Veneer illustrates that consumption is more than just acquiring more stuff; it is a potentially dangerous mindset---a mindset turning everything, even people, into products.According to authors Timothy Willard and R. Jason Locy, there is evidence of consumption in all channels of culture---even the church. Most Christian commentators suggest that the church should speak the language of the congregants. Willard and Locy suggest the opposite approach: if congregants are steeped in a culture of consumption, the church should not speak their language at all.Veneer encourages the church to become a refreshing voice amidst a veneered world, inviting you to lead an unveneered life of freedom, honesty, and beauty. Taking on an original concept that addresses the potential dangers of consumption and technology, Veneer speaks to many Christians who are unsure how to live with true meaning among the ever-changing trends and technology our culture offers.

Karin Slaughter's Kindle Single Thorn in My Side is currently half price, at $0.99. She is also featured in a short story collection that Macmillan has marked down and two of her novels at HarperCollins are also being discounted.
Thorn in My Side
It could have been just any night, and they could have just been any two brothers--but it wasn't, and they weren't. The scene is an Atlanta bar. The music is loud and the dance floor is packed. The good-looking brother picks up a girl. But when dark deeds ensue out in the parking lot, what happens next can only be described in two words: vintage Slaughter. From the opening scene to the last line, Thorn in My Side is as wicked as it is entertaining--an unforgettable piece of writing from one of the most beloved storytellers working today.

First Thrills: Volume 3 ($2.99)
New York Times bestselling author Lee Child and the International Thriller Writers, Inc. present a collection of remarkable stories in First Thrills. From small-town crime stories to sweeping global conspiracies, this is a cross section of today’s hottest thriller-writing talent. This original collection is now split into four e-book volumes, packed with murder, mystery, and mayhem!

First Thrills: Volume 3 contains stories five original stories by: Jeffery Deaver, Karin Slaughter, Rebecca Cantrell, Gregg Hurwitz and Theo Gangi


A Faint Cold Fear Grant County series #3 ($3.99)
An apparent student suicide has brought medical examiner Sara Linton to the local college campus, along with her ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver. But a horribly mutilated corpse yields up few answers. And a suspicious rash of subsequent "suicides" suggests that a different kind of terror is stalking the youth of Heartsdale, Georgia -- a nightmare that is coming to prey on Sara Linton's loved ones.

A small town is being transformed into a killing ground. And the key to a sadistic murderer's motive and identity may be held in the unsteady hands of a campus security guard -- a former police detective driven from the force by the hellish memories that will never leave her. Lena Adams survived the unthinkable and has paid a devastating price. Now the survival of future victims may depend upon her ... when she can barely protect herself.


Indelible Grant County series #4 ($1.99)
Two armed men enter the police station in tiny Heartsdale, Georgia, and open fire. When the shooting stops, an officer is dead, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver is seriously wounded, and the survivors -- including a class of grade-school children and medical examiner Sara Linton -- are held hostage. In a tense standoff that could erupt at any moment into more bloodletting -- with her ex-husband on the threshold of death -- Sara must search for answers and an escape in the memories of a time at the start of their relationship when another brutal, shocking crime shattered their small-town world. Because the sins of the past have caught up with Sara and Jeffrey ... with a vengeance.

Circle Series 4-in-1 ($14.41), by Ted Dekker, gives you all four books in the Books of History Chronicles at $3.60 each, at a lesser cost than just the first three in Black/Red/White (The Circle Trilogy 1-3) ($14.49), which is what I picked up a few years ago. I'll have to look for a good deal on Green, which is the only one I'm missing.
Book Description
Rare is the story that takes readers out of this world and into another.

Rarer still the story that captures heart, soul, and mind...leaving the reader forever transformed.

This is that story.

Dive deep and enter the Circle.

The Circle is an epic story of evil and rescue, betrayal and love, and terrorist threat unlike anything the human race has ever known.

It beings when a man named Thomas hunter finds himself being chased down an alley after working the late shift at a coffee house. When a bullet grazes his head, he awakens in an entirely different reality. Now every time he falls asleep, he wakes up in the other reality--and every choice he makes impacts the fate of two worlds.

At long last, all four novels in this groundbreaking series have been brought together in one adrenaline-laced volume.

Four novels. Two Worlds. One Story.