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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Free and Bargain Book Roundup

I'm going to start off with some free books (self-published/backlist), then add some of the bargain books I've found today.

Up top, I have Lockdown and Deadlock, the first two titles in the Ryan Lock series by Sean Black, originally published by Bantam/Transworld. This one is free today only, so grab it while you can. In fact, I don't think the second one was supposed to be free, so it might change at any time. You can complete the series with Gridlock ($3.99 or free in the KLL).
Lockdown
New York. It may be Christmas in New York, but for ex-soldier turned elite bodyguard Ryan Lock it's business as usual: his mission is to protect one of America's most ruthless businessmen. A bloody shoot-out - suddenly gunshots ring out. People run for cover. Innocent people are mown down. Amid the chaos, Lock's hunt for the killers turns into an explosive game of cat and mouse. A deadly secret - Lock's search for the truth takes him from the rooftops of a New York skyscraper to a heavily fortified warehouse on the Hudson where he confronts one of the world's most dangerous women. As the clock ticks towards midnight on New Year's Eve, all routes into and out of Manhattan are sealed, and Lock realizes that not only is his own life in terrible danger but so are the lives of millions of others...

Deadlock
Elite bodyguard Ryan Lock has become a convicted felon, sentenced to twenty years in Pelican Bay, California's notorious supermax prison. Or at least that's what the United States Justice Department wants everyone to believe.

In reality, he's there to protect one man. Frank 'Reaper' Hays is a founding member of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood, and is about to give evidence against members of his own gang for the brutal slaying of an undercover ATF agent and his family.

And just to make an already difficult job next to impossible, Reaper refuses to go into protective custody.

In a world dominated by violent men, where alliances are constantly shifting and no one can be trusted, Lock knows that he faces the toughest assignment of his career - just to stay alive...

Next, Rob Walker offered everyone over on a yahoo group a free ebook if they would email him what type they liked. I looked at his books yesterday (most reasonably priced at 99 cents), then did a double take this morning, as several of them are now free:

Trapped, an original, full-length horror novel by Jack Kilborn (J.A. Konrath), joins several seemingly perennial freebies (including the Hatchette edition of Serial). This is the followup novel to Afraid (Hatchette), which the author calls "one of the most horrifying books ever written." This one, though, was rejected by the publisher, even with substantial rewrites (apparently, it is even more horrifying and graphic), so the author has published it himself. You get both versions (the original and the rewrite to address the publisher's concerns) and the obligatory samples of his other works (180,000 words, all total).
Book Description
TERRIFIED...
It was supposed to be a harmless camping trip. Six wayward teenagers who'd run into trouble with the law, and their court-appointed guardians, Sara and Martin Randhurst. Three nights on a small, deserted island off of Michigan's upper peninsula. A time to bond, to learn, to heal.

Then Martin told a campfire story about the island's history. Of the old civil war prison hidden in there, and the starving confederate soldiers who resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Everyone thought it was funny. They even laughed when Martin pretended to be dragged off into the woods.

But Martin didn't come back. And neither did Sara when she went in search of him.

Then the laughter stopped.

...TO DEATH
The group soon began to realize that this deserted island wasn't so deserted after all. And perhaps Martin's ridiculous story had more truth to it than anyone thought.

What's the most horrifying thing you can imagine?

This is a hundred times worse...

While on a Kilborn book page, I saw The White Angel Murder, by Victor Methos, as a recommendation.
Book Description
A killer stalks the city of San Diego, brutally murdering women on the fringes of society....

For SDPD homicide detective Jon Stanton, the body of a young woman torn apart in her bedroom is more than just another case. His former partner, Noah Sherman, was the original detective assigned to the case; before he was discovered to be one of San Diego's most ruthless serial killers.

Now part of the Cold Case Unit, Stanton must battle corruption and the ghosts of his past as he fights to uncover a killer that leaves no evidence behind, and that has turned his attention to new prey....

Scott Nicholson is another popular indie horror writer and his novella Burial To Follow is currently free.
Book Description
When Jacob Ridgehorn dies, it's up to Roby Snow to make sure his soul goes on to the eternal reward. The only way Roby can do that is convince the Ridgehorn family to eat a special pie. Lurking in the shadows is a mysterious figure named Johnny Divine, monitoring the crossroads between the living and the dead. Southern Appalachian funeral customs get crossed when Roby has to perform miracles...or else.

Jumping away from horror, Christopher Smith, author of the somewhat controversial (on the Amazon boards, anyway) Fifth Avenue, has another title out in the series, From Manhattan with Love. This novella is meant as a bridge between Fifth Avenue and the upcoming Park Avenue.
Book Description
An outcast billionaire’s daughter is caught at the wrong place at the wrong time.

An international assassin questions her sanity when she falls in love with the very assassin she’s charged to assassinate.

What happens when you bring together Leana Redman from the Top 100 seven-month international best-seller “Fifth Avenue” and Carmen Gragera from the Top 100 international best-seller “Running of the Bulls”? Chaos. Murder. Love. Revenge.

And redemption.

Implant and The Righteous are both by Michael Wallace, author of The Devil's Deep and several other thrillers, with the former title co-authored by Jeffrey Anderson.
Implant
Neurosurgeon Julia Nolan places cortical implants into the brains of field operatives to record data from their auditory and visual cortices. One of her subjects, an operative named Ian Westhelle, suffers a psychotic break and kills his handler before he can be recovered.

Julia tracks Ian to an asylum where the CIA warehouses insane former soldiers, scientists, and others with security risks too great for conventional psychiatric wards. Agents from the national intelligence directorate discover her snooping and target her for elimination.

A collaboration between award-winning writer Michael Wallace and international bestselling author Jeffrey Anderson, Implant is a heart-pounding thriller that will keep readers guessing until the final, chilling conclusion.

The Righteous
When a brutal murder shocks the polygamist enclave of Blister Creek, Utah, church elders call in Jacob Christianson, a medical student and the favored son of a church elder. Jacob must solve the murder while protecting his young sister Eliza from marriage to one of three old men jostling for power within the church hierarchy.

Jacob discovers that the murdered woman has been killed in accordance with secret blood oaths taken within the polygamist temple. Together with his sister, he uncovers a plot to overthrow the church leadership, with murders that reach beyond the community and into the "gentile" world. The Righteous is a heart-pounding suspense-thriller with a depth that will haunt the reader long after the last page is turned.

The Devil's Fire, by Matt Tomerlin
Book Description
Ready the guns & set sail with this heart-pounding tale of revenge and deception. The waters of the Caribbean run red in an unflinching account of life among murderous scoundrels during the closing years of the golden age of piracy.

The life of Katherine Lindsay, a timid young woman from London, is forever altered when a nefarious band of pirates murder her husband and take her hostage. Whisked aboard a fearsome brigantine named "Harbinger", she must contend with an ambitious pirate captain who wants her for his own, and a devious quartermaster who firmly believes that women bring bad luck upon a ship. With no means of escape in sight, she quickly makes friends with a dashing young deckhand and a cowardly surgeon. As Katherine grows accustomed to life among pirates, she finds it increasingly difficult to resist her attraction to their wayward lifestyle and the thrill of high-seas adventure. But the memory of her dead husband weighs heavily on her conscience, and her rising guilt may prove to be the ultimate undoing of her kidnappers.

Pirate lovers will find no shortage of treachery, cutlass duels, ship-to-ship battles, buried treasure and much, much more.

Past Lives is by Ken McClure, a best-selling author residing in Scotland, who has brought his backlist to Kindle, with several of the Dr Steven Dunbar series titles priced under $5.00.
Book Description
PAST LIVES is a medical thriller which explores the nightmare of multiple personality disorder uncovered by American neurosurgeon John Macandrew in one of his patients after brain surgery. His patient’s agony and the dreadful revenge taken by her husband, who wrongly blames Macandrew for his wife’s condition, brings him across the Atlantic in search of answers. His quest takes him from the windswept ramparts of Culzean Castle in Scotland to a research laboratory at Edinburgh University and from there to a remote Benedictine monastery; from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to Marseilles and across the Mediterranean to Corsica and Malta. Someone knows the secret of multiple personality disorder and they’d like it to stay that way. But the sinister biblical scholar, Dom Ignatius has already found it out and plans to use the knowledge for his own selfish ends – the uncovering of an eye witness to the events of two thousand years ago.

PAST LIVES was first published in the UK by Allison & Busby Ltd. in 2006.

Pelican Book Group (White Rose Publishing) has several of their romance and romantic suspense titles marked down to 99 cents for the holidays. I'm listing a few of them, but use the link above to see the entire list; most appear to be short story to novella length, while others appear to be short novels.

All Things at Once ($3.49), by Mika Brzezinski
Book Description
As the co-host of MSNBC’s popular show Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski has established herself as a leading political news journalist and beloved television personality.

But success hasn’t always come easy for Mika. Growing up the only daughter of former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, she struggled to find an identity in a family of overachievers. She worked her way up the ranks of network television to surpass even her own ambitions, reaching the very top of the ladder, only to get canned less than a year later. After an unsuccessful stint as a stay-at-home mom, Mika went back to the workplace with encouragement from her eight-year-old daughter. She decided to start all over again with a beginner’s job at age forty, a step back that proved to be a brilliant career move. Mika stumbled into Morning Joe and the rest is history. Now, in a time when many women are losing their jobs or struggling to find the perfect balance between work and home, Mika guides women of all ages to a place where they can find peace and fulfillment in their lives.

In the tradition of Gail Sheehy’s classic Passages, this illuminating book shows women how to reach their full potential in all areas of life and at every stage of their journey. Blending the personal with the prescriptive, Brzezinski’s book will address the perpetual question of how to “have it all” when it comes to work and family; the importance of remaining equally humble in the face of great success and seemingly devastating setbacks; as well as the necessity of knowing and embracing our limitations so that we may transcend them.

Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway ($2.99), by Tony O'Neill and Cherie Currie (HarperCollins)
Book Description
Cherie Currie, with her signature Bowie haircut and fishnet stockings, was the groundbreaking lead singer of '70s teenage all-girl rock band the Runaways. At the tender age of fifteen, she joined a group of talented girls—Joan Jett and Lita Ford on guitar, Jackie Fox on bass, and Sandy West on drums—who could play rock like no one else.

Arriving on the Los Angeles music scene in 1975, they catapulted from playing small clubs to selling out major stadiums, headlining shows with opening acts like the Ramones, Van Halen, Cheap Trick, and Blondie. Currie lit up the stage with the provocative teen-rebellion songs "Cherry Bomb," "Queens of Noise," and "Born to Be Bad," riding a wave of hit songs and platinum albums, all while touring around the world.

On the face of it, Currie's is a riveting story of girl empowerment and fame. But it is also an intensely personal account of her struggles with drugs, sexual abuse, and violence. She and her bandmates, runaways all, were thrown into a decadent, high-pressure music scene where on the road, unsupervised for months at a time, they had to grow up fast and experience things that no teenage girls should. Neon Angel exposes the side of the music industry fans never get to see, and chronicles the group's rise to fame and their ultimate demise.

Shocking and inspiring, funny and touching, Neon Angel stunningly re-creates a bygone era of rock and roll, all the while providing an inside look at growing up hard under the relentless glare of the public eye, and chronicling one tough woman's fight to reclaim her life.

Restless ($2.99), is William Boyd's ninth novel, published by Bloomsbury.
Book Description
It is Paris, 1939. Twenty-eight year old Eva Delectorskaya is at the funeral of her beloved younger brother. Standing among her family and friends she notices a stranger. Lucas Romer is a patrician looking Englishman with a secretive air and a persuasive manner. He also has a mysterious connection to Kolia, Eva's murdered brother. Romer recruits Eva and soon she is traveling to Scotland to be trained as a spy and work for his underground network. After a successful covert operation in Belgium, she is sent to New York City, where she is involved in manipulating the press in order to shift American public sentiment toward getting involved in WWII.

Three decades on and Eva has buried her dangerous history. She is now Sally Gilmartin, a respectable English widow, living in a picturesque Cotswold village. No one, not even her daughter Ruth, knows her real identity. But once a spy, always a spy. Sally has far too many secrets, and she has no one to trust. Before it is too late, she must confront the demons of her past. This time though she can't do it alone, she needs Ruth's help. Restless is a thrilling espionage novel set during the Second World War and a haunting portrait of a female spy. Full of tension and drama, emotion and history, this is storytelling at its finest.

Fleshmarket Alley ($1.99), is the fifteenth in the Inspector Rebus series by Ian Rankin
Book Description
On a notorious street where propriety and decadence clash, in the basement of a newly renovated bar, the bones of a woman and child are discovered beneath a cement floor. It's an unusually gruesome find, even for Fleshmarket Alley. When Inspector John Rebus is called to investigate, every fact he finds unleashes a host of new questions. Are the bones those of a mother and child? Are they actual human remains or fakes? Were they planted there - and if so, why?

It could be nothing more than a ruthless and enterprising pub owner looking to create a local legend that will help lure trade. Or it could be something far worse - something as grisly as the death of a recent immigrant found brutally murdered at a local housing project, or the murder of Donald Cruikshank, a recently paroled rapist whose body is found just as a young woman goes missing. The missing girl is a friend of Inspector Rebus's colleague Detective Siobhan Clarke, and Siobhan is shocked to find herself in the same intricate web of murderers as Rebus - all somehow tied to that pile of bones under Fleshmarket Alley.

In a race to stop the killings before more bodies turn up - even as the possibility of romantic entanglements distracts and entices them - Rebus and Siobhan plumb the darkest corners of their beloved city and confront the lawless, conscienceless men who dwell there. Writing with the unstoppable narrative force that has made him one of the bestselling writers in the world, Edgar Award-winner Ian Rankin delivers his most explosive and surprising mystery yet.

The Perfect Christmas ($3.99), by Debbie Macomber, should prove a bit lighter reading that the one above.
Book Description
What would make your Christmas perfect?

For Cassie Beaumont, it's meeting her perfect match. Cassie, at thirty-three, wants a husband and kids, and so far, nothing's worked. Not blind dates, not the internet and certainly not leaving love to chance.

What other options are there? Well…she could hire a professional matchmaker. Simon Dodson has quite a reputation, but he's very choosy about the clients he takes on—and very expensive. Cassie considers him a difficult, acerbic know-it-all, and she's astonished when he accepts her as a client.

Claiming he has her perfect mate in mind, Simon assigns her three tasks to complete before she meets this paragon. Three tasks that are all about Christmas: being a charity bell-ringer, dressing up as Santa's elf at a mall and preparing a traditional turkey dinner for her neighbors (most of whom she happens to dislike). Despite a number of comical mishaps, Cassie does it all—and then she's finally ready to meet her match.

But just like the perfect Christmas gift, he turns out to be a wonderful surprise!

The Christmas Cantata ($2.99) is by Mark Schweizer, author of The Liturgical Mysteries (many of which are still 99 cents each). This one's fairly short (98 pages), but just in time for the season.
Book Description
St. Germaine, North Carolina was in a crabby mood. Yes, the whole town. If a temperament could affect an entire populace, "crabby" was what St. Germaine was. Noylene's new personal Christian astrologer, a woman named Goldi Fawn Birtwhistle, blamed it on the convergence of Pluto and the third moon of Jupiter.

Pete Moss, the owner of the Slab Café, thought that the crabbiness might have something to do with the increasing levels of positive ion bombardment from outer space. Also included in Pete's theory were sunspots, an ever-widening hole in the ozone layer, the federal deficit, CNN election coverage, armadillo migration, and the cancellation of two long-running soap operas.

Usually in St. Germaine, the three weeks before Christmas were marked by an increase in good feelings toward one's fellow man. Not this year.

St. Germaine's police chief, Hayden Konig, and all the usual suspects, return in this heartwarming Christmas tale. When a long-lost cantata is found in the basement of the courthouse, a Christmas Eve performance is the order of the day. What happens next is anyone's guess.

A St. Germaine Christmas Entertainment
The Christmas Cantata
It's not what you expect...
it's even funnier!

Holly's Jolly Christmas ($4.99), by Nancy Krulik and John & Wendy (Illustrators), is priced a dollar above most of the Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo series, but appears to contain two stories in one volume (164 pages). If your kids can't get enough of Katie, you can also pick up A Katie Kazoo Christmas: Super Super Special, with three more stories (244 pages).
Holly's Jolly Christmas
What’s better than getting one new Katie story? Getting two! With this newest Super Special, kids can get into the holiday spirit by following Katie’s latest misadventures, first at a Christmas tree farm and then at a Santa’s Workshop theme park, where she switcheroos into . . . Well, we won’t spoil the surprise, but here’s a hint: she doesn’t have a red nose but she sure has antlers!

A Katie Kazoo Christmas: Super Super Special
Katie can’t wait for the holidays. There are so many things to look forward to! Her motorcycle-riding grandma is coming to visit, class 4A is having a Secret Santa grab bag, and it’s almost time for Cherrydale’s annual holiday lights display contest. But even the busy holiday season doesn’t stop the magic wind! Join Katie in these three separate holiday stories and find out how she handles the holiday hijinks!

Suzanne Collins's Gregor the Overlander Collection ($19.22), may look a bit pricey at first, but it contains all five titles in this pre-teen series, shaving nearly seven dollars off the cost of buying the titles one at a time.
Book Description
Read all five books in the New York Times bestselling Gregor: The Underland Chronicles!

When Gregor follows his little sister through a grate in the laundry room of their New York apartment building, he hurtles into the dark Underland beneath the city. There, humans live uneasily beside giant spiders, bats, cockroaches, and rats--but the fragile peace is about to fall apart.

Gregor wants no part in this conflict, but again and again, he and his family are drawn into the Underland. Gregor must find his place in the frightening prophecies he encounters, the strength to protect his family, and the courage to defend against an army of giant rats.

In this action-packed and masterful series, Suzanne Collins unfolds the fate of the Underland and its great warrior, Gregor the Overlander.

Faerie Wars ($2.51), the first title in the Faerie Wars Chronicles by Herbie Brennan, is for your tween readers.
Book Description
When Henry Atherton helps Mr. Fogarty clean up around his house, he expects to find a mess and a cranky old man; what he doesn't expect to find is Pyrgus Malvae, crown prince of the Faerie realm, who has escaped the treacherous Faeries of the Night by traveling to the human world through a portal powered by trapped lightning. An egomaniacal demon prince, greedy glue factory owners Brimstone and Chalkhill, and the nefarious Lord Hairstreak, leader of the Faeries of the Night, all dream of ruling the Faerie realm and are out to kill Pyrgus. Enlisting the help of his sister, Holly Blue, and his new friend, Henry, Pyrgus must get back to the Faerie world alive before one of his many enemies gets to him instead. But how many portals are open, and can Pyrgus find the right one before it falls into the wrong hands?

Conjuring scenes filled with vivid color, unforgettable detail, and fearless characters, author Herbie Brennan brings readers to the Faerie world, where nothing is ever what it seems and no one can be trusted.

Elsewhere ($2.99), a 2006 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year by Gabrielle Zevin, jumps up to your teen readers (grades 7-10).
Book Description
Is it possible to grow up while getting younger?

Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It’s quiet and peaceful. You can’t get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere’s museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe’s psychiatric practice.

Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver’s license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. And now that she’s dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn’t want with a grandmother she has only just met. And it is not going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward? This moving, often funny book about grief, death, and loss will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

Raised by Wolves ($3.27) is the start of Jennifer Lynn Barnes' young adult series. I grabbed a sample based on the review by Melissa Marr and ended up buying the book this morning.

It reminds me of the Mercy Thompson series, but with a slightly younger audience. (Ooooh, look: Ms. Briggs has a new title coming out in March, Fair Game, which will be the third book in her Alpha and Omega series)
Book Description
At the age of four, Bryn watched a rogue werewolf brutally murder her parents. Alone in the world, she was rescued and taken in by the mysterious Callum, the alpha of his werewolf pack. Now fifteen, Bryn’s been raised as a human among werewolves, adhering to pack rule (mostly). Little fazes her.

But the pack’s been keeping a secret, and when Bryn goes exploring against Callum’s direct orders, she finds Chase, a newly turned teen Were locked in a cage. Terrifying memories of the attack on her mom and dad come flooding back. Bryn needs answers, and she needs Chase to get them. Suddenly, all allegiances to the pack no longer matter. It’s Bryn and Chase against the werewolf world, whatever the consequences.

An exciting new paranormal adventure, with a heroine that rivals Buffy, Raised by Wolves will leave you howling for more.
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