Tonight, I've found you a game, some newly discounted books and some that were discounted, then disappeared, but have returned so that those of you new to Kindle this year will have a chance to pick them up.
Claws (
$2.99 Kindle), by Ricky Sides, is 99 cents
at Smashwords, using coupon code
GR55H, thru February 21, 2011. This coupon is an exclusive that Ricky set up for readers of this blog, so feel free to send a link to this post, but please don't share the code itself on other forums. This lets the author track his advertising efforts (and encourages more coupons and deals, which is a win for all of us). Ricky sent me a review copy of this one, but I haven't had a chance to look at it, yet. As he knows, horror isn't my usual genre, although I have read and enjoyed several others he has written (sci-fi/apocalyptic), but I may have to read this one, after looking over the reviews. Note that the book is not recommended for young children.
Book Description
Alcorn Pet Food Corporation is working with an experimental cat food laced with hormones and appetite enhancers. The special food causes cats to add muscle, gain weight, and exhibit extremely aggressive behavior. When an employee threatens to expose the pet food as a threat to public safety, she finds herself out of work, her home ransacked, and all her carefully gathered proof missing. Meanwhile, animal rights activists release the cats involved in the testing because they are scheduled to be euthanized. These bigger, stronger, and more aggressive animals begin to prey on small game in the area. Then the ravenous cats turn their attention to people.
Lovers, runners, hunters, dogs, deer, rabbits, normal cats, and even motorists begin to fall victim to the predations of these enhanced felines. An unemployed scientist, a small special ops team, a grieving father, a chief of security, and a homeless veteran join forces to try to prevent a catastrophe.
When a murderer steals the secret formula that created the menace and sells it to eight foreign enemies of the United States, the stakes suddenly get a lot higher, because the most deadly biological weapon ever created has just been released. The genie is out of the bottle and the world will never be the same.
To make matters worse, the scientist discovers that the first generation offspring will be even bigger and more aggressive, and then they learn that the food also affects dogs and rats.
Disclaimer: No animals or people were harmed during the writing of this book. The author does not hate cats, dogs, women and children, animal rights activists, homeless people, hunters, runners, truck drivers, maintenance men, chicken farmers, police officers, sheriff’s deputies, women who text while driving SUVs, or the elderly. However, the author is deathly afraid of anyone who texts while driving because of several near death experiences attributable to such individuals.
Mahjong Solitaire (
$1.99), by Mobigloo, has been updated (free for those who already own it, just update via the product page) and is temporarily discounted 50%.
Book Description
Newly updated navigation! Now you can guide your cursor directly to a tile in v1.1!
Play the popular matching game Mahjong Solitaire on Kindle - anytime, anywhere.
In Mahjong Solitaire, you match pairs of identical tiles in order to remove them from the board. Only free tiles can be matched. Tiles are considered free if they do not have other tiles to either the left or right of them, or on top of them. The objective of the game is to clear all the tiles from the board. The game ends when all tiles have been removed or when there are no more free tiles left to match.
Mahjong Solitaire tracks the number of pairs of free tiles available to be matched for you. In addition, the game allows for unlimited undos, and contains a Hint feature that will give you suggestions for your next move, as well a Shuffle feature that will rearrange the tiles when you get stuck.
Mahjong Solitaire provides 10 different game board layouts to choose from. The game maintains game statistics that track your best time for each layout finished.
Beyond the Night (
$1.99), by Joss Ware, is the first in her
Envy series, the latest of which,
Abandon the Night (
$7.99), was released yesterday.
Book Description
A man with no future . . .
When Dr. Elliott Drake wakes from a mysterious fifty-year sleep, the world as he knew it is gone. Cities are now desolate, and civilization is controlled by deadly immortals. Stranger still is Elliott's extraordinary new "gift"—he has the power to heal, but it comes with fatal consequences.
A woman with a past . . .
Jade barely escaped the immortals and is now hell-bent on revenge. She trusts no one . . . until Elliott. His piercing gaze and tempting touch shatter her defenses, but the handsome doctor seems to have dangerous secrets of his own. Is it safe to trust him with her heart?
If they are to survive in this dark new world, Jade and Elliott must work together to fight the forces that take them beyond danger.
Beyond desire.
Embrace the Night Eternal (
$3.99), by Joss Ware, is the second in her
Envy series.
Book Description
Everything they knew is gone.
From the raging fires, five men emerge with extraordinary new powers. They must learn how to survive this dark, ravaged world . . . but they cannot do it alone.
Simon Japp will never forget his violent past. But when civilization is all but destroyed, he sees his chance for redemption. Blessed with a strange "gift," he's determined to help the resistance against the Strangers, the mysterious force that stalks them at every turn. He can't afford to get distracted, even by the stunning, soft-spoken woman fighting by his side . . . Sage Corrigan has learned to be careful where she places her trust. But she sees something good in Simon, even if he can't see it in himself. Posing as lovers to infiltrate a group key to their fight, they find that their staged affection soon develops into a desire that will leave them fighting for their lives in the night eternal . . .
Dying for Mercy with Bonus Material (
$1.99), by Mary Jane Clark
Book Description
For a limited time, discover Mary Jane Clark's New York Times bestselling novel Dying for Mercy, including an exclusive letter from Mary Jane and an early excerpt from her new novel, To Have and to Kill
The recently renovated Pentimento, located in New York's exclusive moneyed enclave of Tuxedo Park, is no ordinary estate. Strange secrets have been ingeniously built into its fountains, frescoes, statues, and architecture—clues to a bizarre mystery that is first brought to light when the owner commits suicide during a lavish gala.
Eliza Blake, co-anchor of the popular morning television show KEY to America, is present when the party is cut short by the host's sudden, macabre death—and she's the first to discover that Pentimento is a giant "puzzle house." But each piece is leading Eliza and her KEY News colleagues—producer Annabelle Murphy, cameraman B. J. D'Elia, and psychiatrist Margo Gonzalez—deeper into darkness, toward a killer who believes that some puzzles must never be solved. And it soon becomes shockingly clear that no amount of wealth or privilege can keep the residents of Tuxedo Park safe . . . and alive.
Bulls Island with Bonus Material (
$1.99), by Dorothea Benton Frank, appears to be a new ASIN/edition for this title -- I have it in my library, but it doesn't link to this edition.
Book Description
For a limited time, discover Dorothea Benton Frank's Bulls Island for a special price, including an exclusive excerpt from her new novel, Folly Beach, available this summer.
Elizabeth "Betts" McGee loved those lazy afternoons on pristine Bulls Island in the Carolina Lowcountry. But everything came crashing down when tragic fate—coupled with nasty rumor and innuendo—ended her engagement to Charleston golden boy J.D. Langley of the fabulously wealthy (and fabulously snooty) Langley clan. Betts left soon after, and she hasn't been back in nearly twenty years.
Successfully reinventing herself in New York City, Betts is now a top banking executive and heading up the most important project of her career, but it'll transform the untouched island she loved in her youth into something unrecognizable. And it's forcing her to return to the bosom of her estranged family, where she may not be welcomed with open arms. Worse still, it's uniting her with ex-flame J.D., who's changed . . . but perhaps not enough.
And then there's that crazy alligator . . .
The Breach with Bonus Material (
$1.99), by Patrick Lee
Book Description
For a limited time, discover New York Times bestselling author Patrick Lee's The Breach, including a special note from the author and an exclusive excerpt from the hotly anticipated sequel, Ghost Country, available December 28th.
Thirty years ago, in a facility buried beneath a vast Wyoming emptiness, an experiment gone awry accidentally opened a door.
It is the world's best-kept secret—and its most terrifying.
Trying to regain his life in the Alaskan wilds, ex-con/ex-cop Travis Chase stumbles upon an impossible scene: a crashed 747 passenger jet filled with the murdered dead, including the wife of the President of the United States. Though a nightmare of monumental proportions, it pales before the terror to come, as Chase is dragged into a battle for the future that revolves around an amazing artifact.
Allied with a beautiful covert operative whose life he saved, Chase must now play the role he's been destined for—a pawn of incomprehensible forces or humankind's final hope—as the race toward Apocalypse begins in earnest.Because something is loose in the world.
And doomsday is not only possible . . . it is inevitable.
If you haven't read
The Good, the Bad, and the Undead with Bonus Material (
$1.99), by Kim Harrison, then you need to grab this one quick. I read the entire series on paper and still bought this, so it would be easier for me to re-read.
Book Description
For a limited time, discover Kim Harrison's The Good, the Bad, and the Undead including an early excerpt from her new novel, Pale Demon, on sale February 22, 2011.
It's a tough life for witch Rachel Morgan, sexy, independent bounty hunter, prowling the darkest shadows of downtown Cincinnati for criminal creatures of the night.
She can handle the leather-clad vamps and even tangle with a cunning demon or two. But a serial killer who feeds on the experts in the most dangerous kind of black magic is definitely pressing the limits.
Confronting an ancient, implacable evil is more than just child's play -- and this time, Rachel will be lucky to escape with her very soul.
The Indispensable Employee (
$3.99), by Eric Weber
Book Description
When it comes to job security, there are no guarantees. But there are ways to beat the odds. To become a key player. To become irreplaceable. Now, at a time when people are losing their jobs at an alarming rate all across America, bestselling author Eric Weber’s updated edition provides the basic tools to keeping your job.
- Five ways to become indispensable
- The one thing that impresses your boss the most
- How to tell your boss about the good work you're doing (without bragging)
- Three easy ways to get up to 100% more work done in a single day
- How to increase your business smarts
- How to help your company save money
- And much more.
You don't have to use ruthless tactics or intimidation to get ahead. There's a better way. It's easy to understand, easy to do, and it works. And you can begin to do it, right now.
Call Down the Hawk: The Bryan Factor (
$1.24), by Richard Folmar
Book Description
In June of 1912 delegates to the Democratic national convention arrived in Baltimore to find an oppressive humidity and the best opportunity in sixteen long years to unseat the Republicans from the presidency. Two weeks before, the Republican convention in Chicago had come apart with the walk out of Teddy Roosevelt and his Bull Moose faction. It essentially would have two candidates, Roosevelt and President Taft. Major hopefuls for the Democratic nomination, were Champ Clark of Missouri, Judson Harmon, Ohio, Oscar Underwood, Mississippi and Woodrow Wilson, New Jersey. There were also, in the event of a deadlock, and no way to be described as a dark horse, the three times party nominee, William Jennings Bryan.
Seth Cane, a small town Oklahoma lawyer and son of the late wealthy and powerful Texas rancher, Warren Cane, arrived in Baltimore as a member of the Oklahoma delegation. He was tired and irritable being a few days late because of his wife having just left him with hints of making it permanent. He found himself immediately involved with Bryan's strategy to throw the gauntlet in the face of Tammany Boss, Charles Murphy and his plans to spike Bryan's guns. The battle, for which Bryan told the press he was sending home for his fighting clothes to stop the "reactionary" Judge Alton B. Parker from being the temporary chairman and key note speaker, was the first shot that would escalate into fist fighting in the aisles, intemperate threats against Bryan's life, hints of a possible Bull Moose type of walk out and devastation in the view of all candidates of a deadlock allowing Bryan to again stampede the convention into his fourth nomination.
Lies My Teacher Told Me (
$4.51), by James W. Loewen
Book Description
A tenth anniversary commemorative edition of James W. Loewen’s classic retelling of American history. The national bestseller and winner of the American Book Award, thoroughly updated for the first time since its initial publication to include textbooks written since 2000 and featuring a new chapter on what textbooks get wrong about 9/11 and Iraq.
Since its initial publication in 1995, Lies My Teacher Told Me has gone on to win an American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship, and to sell one million copies in its various editions.
What started out as a survey of the twelve leading American history textbooks has ended up being what the San Francisco Chronicle calls "an extremely convincing plea for truth in education" beginning with the pre-Columbian period and ranging over characters and events as diverse as Reconstruction, Helen Keller, the first Thanksgiving, and the My Lai massacre.
In this revised and updated edition, James Loewen surveys six new high school history textbooks written since the first edition of Lies was published. In his inimitable style, he adds material to each chapter noting where the new books have gotten more accurate and where they are still fatally flawed. Loewen also writes at length about the way these textbooks treat the 2001 terrorist attacks and our "response" in Iraq. In fact, while researching this new edition Loewen made the front page of the New York Times in 2006 when he discovered that publishers were passing off as original virtually identical passages on important recent events in a number of history books. And in yet another example of the failure of American history textbooks, he found that "celebrity" historians whose names appear as authors in some cases have never read, let alone written, the texts attributed to them.
PS, I Love You (
$3.96), by Cecelia Ahern
Book Description
A young married couple, Holly and Gerry, have a joke between them: If anything ever happened to him, he’d have to write her a list or else she’d never be able to cope without him. “The List” grew to encompass advice for any eventuality, a joke all their friends shared. When Gerry’s severe headache is diagnosed as brain cancer and Holly tragically loses him in a few short months, she is devastated and unmoored. She hasn’t just lost her husband, she’s lost her very identity. And then it arrives: a package marked “The List.” Gerry has kept his promise, and inside this package are ten envelopes to be opened over a period of ten months. Each letter offers specific instructions to guide Holly through grief, and ultimately grant her permission to return to life. Of course each letter ends with PS, I Love You.
Uniform Justice and
Doctored Evidence, by Donna Leon, the twelfth and thirteenth in her
Commissario Brunetti series, are both $4.80.
Uniform Justice
For more than a decade Donna Leon has been a bestseller in Europe with a series of mysteries featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti. Always ready to bend the rules to solve a crime, Brunetti manages to maintain his integrity while maneuvering through a city rife with politics, corruption, and intrigue.
In Uniform Justice, a young cadet has been found hanged, a presumed suicide, in Venice’s elite military academy. Brunetti’s sorrow for the boy, so close in age to his own son, is rivaled only by his contempt for a community that is more concerned with protecting the reputation of the school, and its privileged students, than with finding the truth. The young man’s father is a doctor and former politician. He is a man of an impeccable integrity who inexplicably avoids talking to the police. As Brunetti pursues his inquiry, he is faced with a wall of silence. Is the military protecting its own? Or has Brunetti uncovered a conspiracy far more sinister than that of a single death?
Doctored Evidence
Donna Leon's riveting new novel, Doctored Evidence, follows Commissario Guido Brunetti down the winding streets of contemporary Venice as he throws open the doors of a case his superiors would rather leave closed. When a miserly spinster is found brutally murdered in her Venice apartment, police immediately suspect her Romanian housekeeper. They are certain their job is done after the immigrant dies while fleeing arrest, but weeks later; a neighbor comes forward to defend the innocence of the accused. The only investigator who believes the alibi is Brunetti, who will have to go behind the backs of his superiors to vindicate the Romanian and find her employer's actual killer. As always, the indispensable hacking skills of the ever-loyal Signorina Elettra are the perfect complement to Brunetti's meticulous detective work. She discovers mysterious deposits in the old woman's bank account, but who made them? As Brunetti investigates, his wife, at home, reads him teachings on the Seven Deadly Sins. In a modern world of intrigue and nebulous morality, how do they relate to the murder at hand? Doctored Evidence is charged with suspense and evokes a contemporary Venice with Donna Leon's masterful flair.
Russell Wiley Is Out to Lunch (
$3.99), by Richard Hine, is one of the titles from AmazonEncore on sale this month.
Book Description
Russell Wiley is in deep trouble. A media executive for the failing Daily Business Chronicle, his career is teetering on the brink of collapse, and his sexless marriage is fast approaching its expiration date. With his professional and personal lives floundering, it’s no wonder Russell is distracted, unhappy, and losing faith in himself. Making matters worse are his scheming boss, a hot-shot new consultant determined to see Russell ousted, and the beguiling colleague whose mere presence has a disconcerting effect on Russell’s starved libido. Disaster seems imminent…and that’s before he makes a careless mistake that could cost the paper millions. Russell realizes he must take drastic action if he is going to salvage his career, his love life, and what little remains of his self-respect. Sardonic, edgy, and true to life, this gripping novel offers an insider’s view into a newspaper's inner sanctum and the people who oil the wheels of the "old media" machine.
The Stamp of Glory (
$3.91), by Tim Stafford, is published by the nation's largest Christian book publisher, Thomas Nelson.
Book Description
Amid continuing debate over just how "Christian" are the Christian roots of the United States, The Stamp of Glory is the first book in a multigenerational family saga where the main characters interact with actual historical Christians who helped changed America for the better. The story of a fictional southern family intertwines across three decades with key historical figures at the heart of the abolitionist movement in the United States.
Second Chance (
$1.38), by Zbigniew Brzezinski
Book Description
America's most distinguished commentator on foreign policy, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, offers a reasoned but unsparing assessment of the last three presidential administrations' foreign policy. Though spanning less than two decades, these administrations cover a vitally important turning point in world history: the period in which the United States, having emerged from the Cold War with unprecedented power and prestige, managed to squander both in a remarkably short time. This is a tale of decline: from the competent but conventional thinking of the first Bush administration, to the well-intentioned self-indulgence of the Clinton administration, to the mortgaging of America's future by the "suicidal statecraft" of the second Bush administration. Brzezinski concludes with a chapter on how America can regain its lost prestige. This scholarly yet highly opinionated book is sure to be both controversial and influential.
Hemlock Lake (A Catskill Mountains Mystery) (
$0.99), by Carolyn J. Rose
Book Description
For generations only a few families held title to land in the isolated Catskill Mountain community of Hemlock Lake. But with the turning of the century one man, lured by easy money, sells his inheritance to a developer of luxury homes. As the contractor bulldozes farmland and forest, neighbors cry environmental rape, and someone threatens to burn what is built.
Hoping to stop the arsonist, but tormented by personal demons, Sergeant Dan Stone reluctantly returns to his family home on the shores of the lake. The previous autumn his wife died in its dark waters and his brother put a bullet in his brain. That tragedy sent Dan’s father drifting toward death.
Isolated by his pain, Dan is thrust into the no man’s land between newcomers and longtime residents who stonewall his investigation into threats, graffiti, theft, and a blaze that nearly kills the construction foreman. Townspeople blame outsiders, eco-terrorists, a ragged tramp haunting the woods and the mysterious creator of rock cairns that often mark the sites of crimes to come. But as summer sizzles on, the arsonist turns killer, and Dan suspects it’s someone he knows well: a firefighter, a friend, or a woman with a killing in her past.
A Little Death In Dixie (
$1.99), by Lisa Turner, was briefly free last August, but is marked down to a good price for those that missed it.
Book Description
The Blues were born out of need, anger and pride. Murder comes from those same dark places. Memphis has both. One of Memphis' most seductive and notorious socialites has vanished. Either she's off on another drunken escapade or the disappearance is something much more frightening. What begins as an ordinary day's work for Detective Billy Able quickly grows into a complex spider's web of tragedy, mystery, suspicion, and sordid secrets including a few of Billy's own. With the help of Mercy Snow, the estranged sister of the missing socialite, Billy follows a twisted trail of human frailty and corruption to disturbing truths that undermine everything he thought he knew about himself and the people he loves.
The Risk of Infidelity Index (
$1.35), by Christopher G. Moore, is the first in his
Vincent Calvino mystery series.
Book Description
Christopher G. Moore's internationally-acclaimed, prize-winning series starring Vincent Calvino, disbarred American lawyer turned Bangkok P.I. finally comes to North America with The Risk of Infidelity Index, a gripping novel set in a superbly textured, masterfully rendered Bangkok. When his surveillance of a major drug piracy ring ends in definitive video evidence, it looks like Vincent Calvino's fortunes are about to turn. But when the client dies of a heart attack and Calvino finds the body of a murdered massage girl downstairs, the authorities get suspicious of the farang who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. To make matters worse, with the dead client unable to pay, Calvino is desperate and forced to take on a job he doesn't want: following husbands for jealous expat housewives. Featuring a brilliant cast of characters including a wealthy Thai celebrity protected by important political connections, a lawyer with perfect memory, a Shakespeare-quoting police colonel, and Calvino's loyal assistant, Ratana, The Risk of Infidelity Index is a thrilling read from an important name in literary crime fiction.
All Torc'd Up ($2.99 Kindle), by Nell Gavin, free on Smashwords using coupon code JS33K.
Paper Ghosts ($4.99 Kindle), by AJ Davidson, free on Smashwords using coupon code SP83R.
Vanished ($3.99 Kindle), by Kristi Holl, is free at B&N courtesy of Christian publisher Zonderkidz.
I Love You This Much: A Song of God's Love ($9.99 Kindle), by Lynn Hodges and Sue Buchanan, is free at B&N courtesy of Christian publisher Zonderkidz.
Lydia Bennet’s Story: A Sequel To Pride And Prejudice ($7.99 Kindle), by Jane Odiwe, previously free on Kindle, is now free in both the Border's and Kobo stores. Currently, the free version is currently only compatible with their Kobo reader and apps (no EPUB), although you can read it on the web page at Kobo. BTW, if you show your Border's reading app on your phone, you can get a free hot coffee or tea in their bookstore cafe.
Sheet Music: Uncovering the Secrets of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage ($8.35 Kindle), by Kevin Leman, is free in the B&N store, courtesy of Christian publisher Tyndale House. This one was free on Kindle last May (and likely will be again in a day or two).
Amazon's Video Game Deal of the Day is a $3.95 download of Two Worlds, by Southpeak. You can also order the PC edition at the same price and get it on DVD (free shipping with Prime) or the Standard XBox edition for $12.98 and a Collector's PC/Mac edition at $12.23. Looks like they are clearing out some overstock (but not of the XBox Collector's edition), but most of the editions show good reviews.
Stick Dog Wants a Hamburger ($1.99 Kindle), by Tom Watson, the first in the illustrated children's series from publisher BookBaby, is free in the B&N & Sony stores and on iBooks.
The Nook Rechargeable Battery Kit ($29.95 B&N), is on sale in Best Buy stores (but not online) for $9.95. This will fit any of the nook Classics (but not the nook Color) and makes you wonder if Best Buy just over-ordered or this is another sign of trouble with the nook, on top of the widespread rumors that the nook 3G has been discontinued without a replacement and that only WiFi based nooks will be sold once the current supplies are depleted.
Darkstar ($2.99), by Christopher R. Howard, whose first novel, Tea of Ulaanbaatar ($9.17 paperback pre-order), "a story about the Peace Corps, Mongol hordes, hallucinogenic tea, and American nightmares", is due to be released in May.
Jodi Picoult's Leaving Home: Short Pieces ($2.99) is an example of the work that many authors have hiding in their office, unpublished due to the perception that there isn't a market for short story collections (and, truthfully, there probably isn't for even mainstream bookstores that specialize in bestsellers, let along discount stores that also carry books).
The $500 Diet: Weight Loss for People Who Are Committed to Change ($2.99), by Ian Ayres, is definitely not your mom's diet book.
Piano Demon: The globetrotting, gin-soaked, too-short life of Teddy Weatherford, the Chicago jazzman who conquered Asia ($1.99), by Brendan I. Koerner
Chinese Dreams ($2.99), by Anand Giridharadas
Long Island Shaolin ($1.99), by Darin Strauss
