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Friday, September 30, 2011

Buy a Mystery & Thriller Title for $1 (KSO)

This offer is only for those with a Kindle with Special Offers (including the brand new $79 Kindle).

Buy one of 100 Mysteries & Thrillers titles for $1

To take advantage of this offer:
  1. First, turn on your Kindle with Special Offers, click Menu, then View Special Offers.
  2. Find the offer: Buy one of 100 Mysteries & Thrillers titles for $1. Click on it, then on the link to Email Me This Offer.
  3. You will get an email from Amazon with your promotional code, right away.
  4. Once you have the promotion code (and have selected your book; see below), click this link, then on the button labeled Enter Your Code, at any time up to the expiration date of November 3.
  5. Enter your code and follow the directions.
  6. Choose any of these books and you'll pay only $1.
You'll have a promotion code on your account that will apply to the FIRST book you buy (from the list) after that. Note that even if the book is free, you'll pay a dollar, so be careful which one you pick after you enter the code -- make sure you don't grabbing a low cost title by accident, which can happen if you apply the code right away, before you are ready to buy the book. Current prices range from just above $3 to $9.99. You should save the code and not enter it until you are ready to buy a book.

To recap: you must claim the offer by October 3 and must do so from your Kindle with Special Offers. You'll get a promotion code via email and you have until November 3 to enter and redeem the code. Once you enter it, it will work on the next book on the list that you purchase.

A popular genre returns with another $1 offer; shouldn't be hard at all to find at least one book that I want from the list; the hard part will be narrowing it down to just one.... but WAIT! ...

Terms #1 says this one is NOT limited to one per account/customer, but one per device! That means those who have added multiple KSO's to their household get to pick up two or more this time around. I do know, though, that you can only enter one promo code at a time (on a previous offer, I tried to enter both codes, then go buy two books and it wouldn't accept the second code until after I bought the first book).

However, farther down in the list, #12 says one per customer (boo!). Ah well, I'm going to pick my most desired book, then try the second code I have on a second book, just to see if it works. It won't be hard to choose, either, since I was still on the fence about Heat Rises at Kobo and I see that it's on the list this time at Amazon.

Updated to add: For the first time, I received the same promo code with two devices. Those of you who have enjoyed using multiple codes on one account, it looks like that loophole has been closed up. Each person will need to set up an account (if only to get the KSO offers).

Save $5 on a $10 purchase (KSO)

This offer is only for those with a Kindle with Special Offers (including the brand new $79 Kindle).

Save $5 on a $10 purchase at Amazon.com

Click on offer, then click on the link on the offer page to receive an email with the promotion code. Sign-up for this offer expires on October 3.

You'll get an email (right away), a link to the Special Offer page and a promotion code to enter at checkout. Once you have the promotional code, you have until November 3 to complete your purchase. Like previous offers, this one requires you to use the full checkout process in order to enter your promotional code. Also, like all Amazon sales that use promotional codes, if you have a gift card balance, you must use it for the payment (if there is not a sufficient balance, then you can pick which credit card or other payment to use).

Limit one offer per customer and per device.

This one will be easy to use, since it works on any physical product "sold by Amazon.com" (it does exclude third party merchants). If you bought a new Kindle, you could use this to get break on a cover (or use it to buy a second Kindle), but I suspect there will be some repeats of earlier offers that are specific to Kindle covers and accessories. You could use it to get a $10 USB charger, since the new Kindles only come with a USB cable, not the charger block itself. It only makes sense, as the block was specific to the US (and a very few other countries), plus many people end up with piles of them tossed in drawers. Instead, they lowered the cost (and price) of the Kindle across board, then let those who want one order it separately.

Today's Deals and Bargain Books

It's the last day of the month, so expect the $3.99 or less books at Amazon to go back up in price tomorrow, as will this month's list of $5 (or less) MP3 albums. For those in the UK, be sure to browse the Kindle Bargains page, as there are some Crime, Thrillers & Mystery selections for £0.99, which will no doubt go back up, as well. Today's post is a bit longer than usual, as I'm including more bargains that I expect to go up soon.

Breakfast of Champions ($0.99), by Kurt Vonnegut, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day. If you waited to get a replacement for your worn out paper copy during the $3.99 sale, grab this one quick.
Book Description
BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation. The core of the novel is Kilgore Trout, a familiar character very deliberately modeled on the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985), a fact which Vonnegut conceded frequently in interviews and which was based upon his own occasional relationship with Sturgeon. Here Kilgore Trout is an itinerant wandering from one science fiction convention to another; he intersects with the protagonist, Dwayne Hoover (one of Vonnegut's typically boosterish, lost and stupid mid-American characters) and their intersection is the excuse for the evocation of many others, familiar and unfamiliar, dredged from Vonnegut's gallery. The central issue is concerned with intersecting and apposite views of reality, and much of the narrative is filtered through Trout who is neither certifiably insane nor a visionary writer but can pass for either depending upon Dwayne Hoover's (and Vonnegut's) view of the situation. America, when this novel was published, was in the throes of Nixon, Watergate and the unraveling of our intervention in Vietnam; the nation was beginning to fragment ideologically and geographically and Vonnegut sought to cram all of this dysfunction (and a goofy, desperate kind of hope, the irrational comfort given to its fans by the genre of science fiction) into a sprawling narrative whose sense, if any, is situational, not conceptual. Reviews were polarized; the novel was celebrated for its bizarre aspects, became the basis of a Bruce Willis movie adaptation whose reviews were not nearly so polarized. (Most critics hated it.) This novel in its freewheeling and deliberately fragmented sequentiality may be the quintessential Vonnegut novel, not necessarily his best, but the work which most truly embodies the range of his talent, cartooned alienation and despair.

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is perhaps the most beloved American writer of the 20th century. His audience has built steadily since his first pieces in the 1950's. Vonnegut’s 1968 novel, SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE has become a canonic war novel - with Joseph Heller's CATCH-22 the truest and darkest of all to have come from World War II. Vonnegut began as a science fiction writer and his early novels PLAYER PIANO and THE SIRENS OF TITAN were so categorized even as they appealed to a young audience far beyond science fiction readers. In the 1960's he became the writer most identified with the Baby Boomer generation. Like the novels of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut’s large body of work is now understood as unified. There is a consistency to his satirical insight, humor and anger which makes his work synergistic. The more of Kurt Vonnegut’s work you read, the more the work resonates and the more you wish to read. Vonnegut’s reputation - like Twain’s - will grow steadily through the decades to come as his work grows in relevance, truthfulness and searing insight.

Moving Day ($4.49 Kindle; $1.80 B&N), the first title in Meg Cabot's Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls series for teens, is the Nook Daily Find today.
Book Description
When nine-year-old Allie Finkle's parents announce that they are moving her and her brothers from their suburban split-level into an ancient Victorian in town, Allie's sure her life is over. She's not at all happy about having to give up her pretty pink wall-to-wall carpeting for creaky floorboards and creepy secret passageways-not to mention leaving her modern, state-of-the-art suburban school for a rundown, old-fashioned school just two blocks from her new house.

With a room she's half-scared to go into, the burden of being "the new girl," and her old friends all a half-hour car ride away, how will Allie ever learn to fit in?

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari with Bonus Material ($2.99), by Robin Sharma, is available to pre-order. You can get a sample from the full priced 10th Anniversary Edition.
Book Description
With more than four million copies sold in fifty-one languages, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari launched a bestselling series and continues to help people from every walk of life live with far greater success, happiness and meaning in these times of dramatic uncertainty.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari celebrates the story of Julian Mantle, a successful but misguided lawyer whose physical and emotional collapse propels him to confront his life. The result is an engaging odyssey on how to release your potential and live with passion, purpose and peace.

A brilliant blend of timeless wisdom and cutting-edge success principles, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is now, more than ever, a guide for the times, as countless Canadians dedicate themselves to living a life where family, work and personal fulfillment are achieved in harmonious balance.

Ashes to Dust ($2.99), is the second in the Las Vegas Mystery series by Rex Kusler, following Punctured (which is also still on sale at $2.99).
Book Description
Since first joining forces in Punctured, Alice James and Jim Snow have been a great—if odd—crime-fighting team. He’s a forty-something former Las Vegas homicide detective who quit the force to become a full-time poker player. She’s a model-turned-cocktail waitress whose foray into casino security led her into law enforcement. Together they are the James & James Detective Agency, and their newest case is a doozy. Jack Roberts comes to them for help solving the brutal murder of his daughter Laura, a cocktail waitress whose body was found burning in the Nevada desert. Among the suspects: an obsessive ex-boyfriend, a mentally unbalanced construction worker, a temperamental roommate, a shady fiancé…perhaps even the client himself! Alice knows that if they can crack this case, business will come pouring in. But first she will have to manage Snow’s ill-timed midlife crisis and deal with the chemistry crackling between them. Ashes to Dust is pure entertainment, sure to please even the most hardboiled of mystery fans.

Several books by Cherie Priest are on sale, starting with Boneshaker ($2.99), one of last year's Hugo Awards' nominees. The second in the Clockwork Century series, Clementine, is also on sale at $4.99. The other two under $5 are standalone novels, Dreadful Skin and Those Who Went Remain There Still, both from Subterranean Press.
Boneshaker
In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.


Clementine
Maria Isabella Boyd's success as a Confederate spy has made her too famous for further espionage work, and now her employment options are slim. Exiled, widowed, and on the brink of poverty...she reluctantly goes to work for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago.

Adding insult to injury, her first big assignment is commissioned by the Union Army. In short, a federally sponsored transport dirigible is being violently pursued across the Rockies and Uncle Sam isn't pleased. The Clementine is carrying a top secret load of military essentials--essentials which must be delivered to Louisville, Kentucky, without delay.

Intelligence suggests that the unrelenting pursuer is a runaway slave who's been wanted by authorities on both sides of the Mason-Dixon for fifteen years. In that time, Captain Croggon Beauregard Hainey has felonied his way back and forth across the continent, leaving a trail of broken banks, stolen war machines, and illegally distributed weaponry from sea to shining sea.

And now it's Maria's job to go get him.

He's dangerous quarry and she's a dangerous woman, but when forces conspire against them both, they take a chance and form an alliance. She joins his crew, and he uses her connections. She follows his orders. He takes her advice.

And somebody, somewhere, is going to rue the day he crossed either one of them.


Dreadful Skin
I ducked into a niche between a cabin and the pilot house and hiked my skirt up enough to reach down into my garter holster. I've heard it said that God made all men, but Samuel Colt made all men equal. We'd see what Mr. Colt could do for a woman.

* * * * *

Jack Gabert went to India to serve his Queen. He returned to London a violently changed man, infected with an unnatural sickness that altered his body and warped his mind.

Eileen Callaghan left an Irish convent with a revolver and a secret. She knows everything and nothing about Jack's curse, but she cannot rest until he's caught. His soul cannot be saved. It can only be returned to God.

In the years following the American Civil War, the nun and unnatural creature stalk one another across the United States. Their dangerous game of cat and mouse leads them along great rivers, across dusty plains, and into the no man's land of the unmarked western territories.

Here are three tales of the hunt. Reader, take this volume and follow these tormented souls. Learn what you can from their struggle against each other, against God, and against themselves.


Those Who Went Remain There Still
Heaster Wharton is dead, and his passing might mean an end to hostilities between the Manders and the Coys. If the the elderly patriarch showed the kindness and foresight to split his land cleanly between his feuding descendants, then a truce could be arranged.

But his final request is a strange one, delivered across the country to the straggling remnants of his tribe. Representatives from both families must visit a cave at the edge of his property in the hills of Kentucky. There, he promised, they would find his last will and testament.

But there's more than paperwork waiting underground, as vindictive old Heaster was well aware.

In 1775, Daniel Boone and a band of axe-wielding frontiersmen struggled to clear a path through the Cumberland Gap into the heart of Bluegrass country, and they did not work unopposed. Hounded and harried by an astonishing monster, the axe-men overcame the beast by sheer numbers and steel. They threw its body into a nearby cave.

It was not dead.
And now, it is not alone.

Crippled and outraged, for 100 years something terrible has huddled underground, dreaming of meat and revenge. But its newest callers are heavily armed, skeptical of their instructions, and predisposed to violence.

With their guns and their savage instincts, Heaster's grandchildren will not make for easy pickings.

I also found three collections that include Cherie Priest that are under the $5 mark (one of which I've sent to my Kindle): Grants Pass, Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters and Bewere the Night
Grants Pass
The apocalypse has arrived.

Humanity was decimated by bio-terrorism; three engineered plagues were let loose on the world. Barely anyone has survived.

Just a year before the collapse, Grants Pass, Oregon, USA, was publicly labelled as a place of sanctuary in a whimsical online, “what if” post. Now, it has become one of the last known refuges, and the hope, of mankind.

Would you go to Grants Pass based on the words of someone you’ve never met?


Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters
Monsters: As old as the oldest of stories, as new as our latest imaginings. From the ancient stone corridors of the labyrinth to the graffitied alleyways of the contemporary metropolis, they stalk the shadows. Leering from the darkness of the forest, jostling for space in our closets, they walk, crawl, creep and scuttle through our nightmares. Close as the clutter under the bed or the other side of the mirror, they are our truest companions.

Creatures features the best monster fiction from the past thirty years, offering a wide variety of the best monster stories including original stories from the field's most relevant names and hottest newcomers including Clive Barker, Sarah Langan, Joe R. Lansdale, Kelly Link, China Miéville, and Cherie Priest.


Bewere the Night
Kitsune. Werewolves. Crane wives. Selkies. Every culture has stories of such strange creatures—animals turning into humans, humans shapeshifting into animals. Sometimes seductive, sometimes bloodthirsty, but always unpredictable like nature itself, these beings are manifestations of our secret hearts, our desire to belong to both worlds: one tame and civilized, the other unfettered and full of wild impulse.

Here are stories that will make you wish you could howl at the moon until your heart bursts with longing or feel yourself shedding your human body as easily as a snake sheds its skin. Be-were the night . . . it might not kill you, but it will certainly steal you away!

Rose in Bloom: A Novella with Bonus Excerpts, by Stephanie Laurens, is currently marked down to 99 cents.
Book Description
Every Rose has its thorn…especially Rose MacKenzie-Craddock! When they were children, the willful girl was the thorn in the Earl of Strathyre’s side. Now, as a beautiful woman, Rose drives the Earl wild with desire. But even grown-ups can play some most interesting games…

This delicious novella by New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens was originally published in Scottish Brides.

This exclusive ebook also includes bonus excerpts from Stephanie’s new books, Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue and In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster.

Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama's Attack on Our Borders, Economy, and Security ($4.99), by Michael Savage
Book Description
No longer can we be Barack Obama's sheeple and let the American Dream be trampled, beaten, and burned to the ground

Trickle Up Poverty, by bestselling author and revered radio host Dr. Michael Savage, is your best defense against the Obamanomics that are dragging the middle class, and everyone else, into a Marxist-Socialist death spiral. The Savage manifesto you hold in your hands shows how Obama is circumventing the Constitution to push through his radical agenda—and, most important, how we can restore our country to the power and prestige that Barack Obama and his corrupt and degenerate "czars" are trying to destroy.

The Naked Marxist can and must be stopped. Obama's trickle up poverty is infecting all that we hold to be true and self-evident. Here's how:

Impoverishing the Middle Class: Obama's confiscatory taxes, the socializing of our health-care system, and other legislative initiatives are taking away our earnings and our power to choose how we live our lives and putting it in the hands of corrupt and pro-Socialist cohorts.

Erasing Our Border with Mexico: The Homeland Security department that can't shoot straight is gutting the Constitution in the name of protecting illegal aliens when it should be focusing on keeping out the terrorists and drug dealers.

Defunding the Military and Putting Our Troops in Harm's Way: Obama's beatnik policy of taking apart our nuclear arsenal and destroying NASA, while implementing PC Rules of Engagement that don't allow our troops to protect themselves, is dangerously weakening our security and ending our military dominance.

Lining the Pockets of His Wall Street Buddies: While our 401(k)'s suffer, Obama and his Wall Street heavy contributors are creating their own legislation that is driving down stock prices while allowing his biggest campaign contributors to make trillions of dollars.

Propagandizing the Media: Once a forum for free speech, Obama's administration has systematically overrun the media in a hostile takeover with threats and false promises that serve only to pull the wool over the sheeple's eyes.

Ignoring the Tea Party—the Voice of the People: No longer a representative government, Obama is blatantly disregarding, and even suppressing, the fastest-growing collective voice in the nation right now—that of the patriotic Tea Party. His Union-Crony Purple Shirts have shown up at town-hall meetings and peaceful protests to intimidate and antagonize the democratic process.

We are dangerously close to losing the nation we love, but it's not too late. If you buy only one book to learn and react to what Obama the Destroyer has done and plans on doing to America, this is it!

Iron Lake ($0.99 Kindle, B&N), by William Kent Krueger, starts his Cork O'Connor series.
Book Description
William Kent Krueger joined the ranks of today's best suspense novelists with this thrilling, universally acclaimed debut. Conjuring "a sense of place he's plainly honed firsthand in below-zero prairie" (Kirkus Reviews), Krueger brilliantly evokes northern Minnesota's lake country -- and reveals the dark side of its snow-covered landscape.

Part Irish, part Anishinaabe Indian, Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor is the former sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota. Embittered by his "former" status, and the marital meltdown that has separated him from his children, Cork gets by on heavy doses of caffeine, nicotine, and guilt. Once a cop on Chicago's South Side, there's not much that can shock him. But when the town's judge is brutally murdered, and a young Eagle Scout is reported missing, Cork takes on a mind-jolting case of conspiracy, corruption, and scandal.

As a lakeside blizzard buries Aurora, Cork must dig out the truth among town officials who seem dead-set on stopping his investigation in its tracks. But even Cork freezes up when faced with the harshest enemy of all: a small-town secret that hits painfully close to home.

Lord and Lady Spy ($0.89 Kindle; $0.99 B&N, Sourcebooks), by Shana Galen
Book Description
Lord Adrian and Lady Bridget Smythe have the pictureperfect high society marriage. Little does the ton know that each is one of England's most preeminent spies– with their secret identities guarded even from each other. But what are secret agents to do when the spying game is over and they suddenly discover a whole new spark in each other?

Already Gone ($4.99), John Rector's third novel, is currently marked half price by Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint.
Book Description
Jake Reese is a writing teacher at an American university. He lives in a small brick Tudor close to campus with his art buyer wife, Diane. His life is quiet-Ordinary even. And he likes it that way. But it wasn't always quiet. Jake's distant past was a life on the streets, inflicting damage and suffering on more people than he can count. And now someone from his past, it seems, has come looking for him.

A raw, gripping thriller about the price paid for past sins, John Rector's third novel is a live wire that crackles with the intensity of a man who has nothing left to lose. When two men attack Jake in a parking lot and cut off his ring finger, he tries to dismiss it as an unlucky case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But when events take a more sinister turn and Diane goes missing, Jake knows he can no longer hide from the truth.

As he embarks on a mission to find his wife, he realizes his dark past is refusing to stay buried, and that his future is about to unfold in ways he could never have imagined.

With taut and brooding prose, Rector paints a formidable portrait of a reformed man's slow descent into a life he thought he had walked away from forever. As the intensity becomes almost unbearable, the pace quickens and the suspense applies an unrelenting, vice-like grip, as ALREADY GONE hurtles toward its ultimate, explosive climax.

Get the first three titles in Chelsea Cain's Archie and Gretchen series for $4.99 each: Heartsick, Sweetheart and Evil at Heart.
Heartsick
Damaged Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful serial killer, but in the end she was the one who caught him. Two years ago, Gretchen kidnapped Archie and tortured him for ten days, but instead of killing him, she mysteriously decided to let him go. She turned herself in, and now Gretchen has been locked away for the rest of her life, while Archie is in a prison of another kind---addicted to pain pills, unable to return to his old life, powerless to get those ten horrific days off his mind. Archie's a different person, his estranged wife says, and he knows she's right. He continues to visit Gretchen in prison once a week, saying that only he can get her to confess as to the whereabouts of more of her victims, but even he knows the truth---he can't stay away.

When another killer begins snatching teenage girls off the streets of Portland, Archie has to pull himself together enough to lead the new task force investigating the murders. A hungry young newspaper reporter, Susan Ward, begins profiling Archie and the investigation, which sparks a deadly game between Archie, Susan, the new killer, and even Gretchen. They need to catch a killer, and maybe somehow then Archie can free himself from Gretchen, once and for all. Either way, Heartsick makes for one of the most extraordinary suspense debuts in recent memory.


Sweetheart
With Heartsick, Chelsea Cain took the crime world by storm, introducing two of the most compelling characters in decades: serial killer Gretchen Lowell and her obsessed pursuer Portland Detective Archie Sheridan. The book spent four weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and garnered rave reviews around the world. But the riveting story of Archie and Gretchen was left unfinished, and now Chelsea Cain picks up the tale again.

When the body of a young woman is discovered in Portland’s Forest Park, Archie is reminded of the last time they found a body there, more than a decade ago: it turned out to be the Beauty Killer’s first victim, and Archie’s first case. This body can't be one of Gretchen's—she’s in prison—but after help from reporter Susan Ward uncovers the dead woman's identity, it turns into another big case. Trouble is, Archie can't focus on the new investigation because the Beauty Killer case has exploded: Gretchen Lowell has escaped from prison.

Archie hadn't seen her in two months; he'd moved back in with his family and sworn off visiting her. Though it should feel like progress, he actually feels worse. The news of her escape spreads like wildfire, but secretly, he's relieved. He knows he's the only one who can catch her, and in fact, he has a plan to get out from under her thumb once and for all.

Chelsea Cain has topped her own bestselling debut thriller with this unputdownable, unpredictable, edge-of-your-seat read.


Evil at Heart
Chelsea Cain’s novels featuring Portland detective Archie Sheridan and serial killer Gretchen Lowell have captivated fans through two nail-biting entries, Heartsick and Sweetheart, both of them multiweek bestsellers in The New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly.

Gretchen Lowell is still on the loose. These days, she’s more of a cause célèbre than a feared killer, thanks to sensationalist news coverage that has made her a star. Her face graces magazine covers weekly and there have been sightings of her around the world. Most shocking of all, Portland Herald reporter Susan Ward has uncovered a bizarre kind of fan club, which celebrates the number of days she’s been free.

Archie Sheridan hunted her for a decade, and after his last ploy to catch her went spectacularly wrong, remains hospitalized months later. When they last spoke, they entered a détente of sorts---Archie agreed not to kill himself if she agreed not to kill anyone else. But when a new body is found accompanied by Gretchen’s trademark heart, all bets are off and Archie is forced back into action. Has the Beauty Killer returned to her gruesome ways, or has the cult surrounding her created a whole new evil?

Chelsea Cain continues to deliver heart-stopping thrills and chills in the latest entry in this dynamic bestselling series

In for a Penny ($3.79), by Rose Lerner
Book Description
IN FOR A PENNY
No more drinking. No more gambling. And definitely no more mistress. Now that he's inherited a mountain of debts and responsibility, Lord Nevinstoke has no choice but to start acting respectable. Especially if he wants to find a wife--better yet, a rich wife. Penelope Brown, a manufacturing heiress, seems the perfect choice. She's pretty, rational, ladylike, and looking for a marriage based on companionship and mutual esteem.

IN FOR A POUND

But when they actually get to Nev's family estate, all the respectability and reason in the world won't be enough to deal with tenants on the edge of revolt, a menacing neighbor, and Nev's family's propensity for scandal. Overwhelmed but determined to set things right, Nev and Penelope have no one to turn to but each other. And to their surprise, that just might be enough.

Alice Waters and Chez Panisse ($4.99), by Thomas McNamee
Book Description
The first authorized biography of "the mother of American cooking" (The New York Times)

This adventurous book charts the origins of the local "market cooking" culture that we all savor today. When Francophile Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley in 1971, few Americans were familiar with goat cheese, cappuccino, or mesclun. But it wasn't long before Waters and her motley coterie of dreamers inspired a new culinary standard incorporating ethics, politics, and the conviction that the best-grown food is also the tastiest. Based on unprecedented access to Waters and her inner circle, this is a truly delicious rags-to-riches saga.

Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports ($4.99), by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams
Book Description
The blockbuster New York Times bestseller that caused a media firestorm and stayed in the headlines for weeks at last arrives in paperback—with a new afterword about the Barry Bonds perjury investigation.

This is the complete inside story of the BALCO steroids scandal from the award-winning reporters who broke the news nationally. In the summer of 1998, as baseball was still struggling to regain popularity lost during the contentious 1994 players’ strike that caused the World Series to be canceled, a race to break the home-run record transfixed the nation. Over the next three seasons, baseball players across the country hit home runs at unprecedented rates. Although sportswriters pointed to suspicions of “juiced” baseballs and small parks being responsible, there were whispers that illegal performance-enhancing drugs were being used. But home runs were big business, and baseball carried on with a weak performance-drug testing regime.

In December of 2004, after more than a year of investigation, San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams broke the story that in a federal investigation of a nutritional supplement company called BALCO, Barry Bonds and fellow slugger Jason Giambi had admitted to taking steroids. Immediately the issue of steroids in baseball became front-page news. In Game of Shadows, Fainaru-Wada and Williams expose the secrets of BALCO, illuminating how professional athletes risked their health for a competitive edge.

Supercoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone's Life ($1.79), by Michael Neill
Book Description
IF SUPERMAN NEEDED A COACH, HE’D HIRE MICHAEL NEILL!

In this fun, easy-to-read book, best-selling author and internationally renowned success coach Michael Neill shares the secrets of transforming your life and the lives of the people you care about most—your family, friends, colleagues, and clients.
Inside, you will learn:
  • How to stop thinking like a victim
  • The secret to financial security in any economy
  • Proven techniques to produce dramatic changes in yourself and others
  • Simple ways to create lasting relationships
  • The key to lifelong happiness
  • Strategies for increasing productivity, energy, well-being . . . and more!
Whether you want to powerfully impact the lives of the people around you or simply wish to create a deeper, more meaningful experience of being alive, this book is your essential guide to helping yourself and assisting others.

Is Heaven Real?: Meditations on Scriptures about the Afterlife ($0.99), by Zondervan Bibles
Book Description
Is Heaven Real? It seems this is an eternal question; one that is as relevant today as at any time in history. This much-debated topic has spurred untold numbers of books, blogs, discussions, and sermons -- but in the end, what matters most is what the Bible says about heaven. This booklet is the place to turn to find the answer.Packed with carefully selected scripture from the popular New International Version (NIV) of the Bible, Is Heaven Real? also includes fascinating and reassuring quotations from trusted contemporary and ancient authors. Broken into sections, this small book guides you through the big questions: What and where is heaven? What can I expect after death? What does the Bible say about the experience of this mysterious, wonderful place? So dig in, read what the Bible reveals about heaven, and spend a few minutes meditating on what it means for your life---here and now, today.

LoveScopes: What Astrology Knows about You and the Ones You Love ($2.69), by Mark S. Husson
Book Description
Each week thousands of listeners tune in to Mark Husson’s Power Peek Hour on Hay House Radio. They know they’ll gain insights into themselves and their relationships that they can only get from astrology, and they trust Mark as the one to lay it on the line for them. Now he leads you on this expedition of love by zodiac sign.

In this book, Mark takes the astrological signs two-by-two and shines the light of understanding on their relationship with each other. He gives each a LoveScope score to predict the potential success right from the beginning. You can use that score to learn how things can go better, how much effort you’ll need to invest, and how to take a good relationship and make it into a great one.

Do you want to know what draws you to your partner? Or how to draw out the best in this person? Mark maps this out for you with wisdom, humor, and simplicity, all from his perspective as a trained psychologist. LoveScopes addresses specific characteristics of each sign alone and in partnership, referencing powerful mythological archetypes to illustrate the principles. Let LoveScopes help you fix relationships you have . . . and help you prepare to plunge into those you want!

am I being kind ($2.69), by Michael J. Chase
Book Description
Imagine if one simple question could change your life...and your world. Awakening the reader like caffeine for the heart, am I being kind revives the spirit and blazes a direct path to a more peaceful and kindhearted world. In this captivating guide to personal transformation, author and inspirational speaker Michael J. Chase reveals how one simple question has the power to change your life and the lives of those around you. As you ask, “am I being kind” in seven vital areas of your life, you discover the secret to creating unlimited joy, inner peace, and the life you’ve always dreamed of. Having experienced the “art of unkindness” throughout much of his life, Michael shares his own journey of self-discovery and the lessons learned from unlikely spiritual teachers along the way. Through riveting true stories and a unique step-by-step program, am I being kind shows you how the astonishing power of kindness can change your heart, your life, and ultimately, your world.

The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion ($2.99), by Peter L. Berger (Open Road)
Book Description
Influential scholar Peter L. Berger explores the sociological underpinnings of religion and the rise of a modern secular society

Acclaimed scholar and sociologist Peter L. Berger carefully lays out an understanding of religion as a historical, societal mechanism in this classic work of social theory. Berger examines the roots of religious belief and its gradual dissolution in modern times, applying a general theoretical perspective to specific examples from religions throughout the ages.

Building upon the author’s previous work, The Social Construction of Reality, with Thomas Luckmann, this book makes Berger’s case that human societies build a “sacred canopy” to protect, stabilize, and give meaning to their worldview.

For a limited time, all of 24/7 TUTOR's language tutorials are marked down to 99 cents. Each of four languages is covered with both a Vocabulary and a Basic Phrases Kindle App.
App Description
Learn Spanish, Italian, German or French with your own personal language tutor.

24-7 Vocabulary and 24-7 Basic Phrases are a fun way to learn a language. Going beyond a talking phrasebook or set of flashcards, these titles provides a set of interactive study tools to help you learn the language, including traditional flashcards, a multiple choice quiz, an entertaining hangman-style game, and a write-in quiz to test language recall.

Vocabulary: Content includes basic vocabulary organized in 21 categories including Family & Friends, Travel, Home, Office, School, Countryside, Around Town, Other Nouns, Food & Drink, Clothing, Weather, Time & Date, Pronouns, Adjectives, Opposites, Colors, Descriptives and Numbers. Vocabulary is different from 24-7's other language tutor title (Basic Phrases) in that it provides basic vocabulary terms versus full phrases.

Basic Phrases: Content includes conversational phrases organized in 13 categories including First Phrases, Greetings, Getting to Know, Communication, Questions, Wants, Needs, Feelings, Common Expressions, Interjections, To Go, and other common and miscellaneous phrases. Basic Phrases is different from 24-7's other language tutor title (Vocabulary) in that it provides full phrases versus basic vocabulary terms.

Vocabulary and Basic Phrases are useful tools for beginners who may wish to refresh basic language skills, and great companions for a trip in a non-English-speaking country.

Free Book (nook) - Fatal Judgment

Fatal Judgment ($9.22 Kindle), the first of the Guardians of Justice series by Irene Hannon (and Christian publisher Revell), is this week's Free Friday book at Barnes & Noble. This title released at the first of the year and the second in the series, Deadly Pursuit, early this month. You may recognize the author from Against All Odds, which was free early last year.
Book Description
U.S. Marshal Jake Taylor has seen plenty of action during his years in law enforcement. But he'd rather go back to Iraq than face his next assignment: protection detail for federal judge Liz Michaels. His feelings toward Liz haven't warmed in the five years since she lost her husband--and Jake's best friend--to possible suicide. How can Jake be expected to care for the coldhearted workaholic who drove his friend to despair?

As the danger mounts and Jake gets to know Liz better, his feelings slowly start to change. When it becomes clear that an unknown enemy may want her dead, the stakes are raised. Because now both her life--and his heart--are in mortal danger.

Full of the suspense and romance Irene Hannon's fans have come to love, Fatal Judgment is a thrilling story that will keep readers turning the pages late into the night.
Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Today's Deals and Bargain Books

Additional formats available on a few free books:
If you are a big romance book fan, Secrets Uncovered - Blogs, hints and the inside scoop from Mills & Boon editors and authors is now free for US Kindlers in addition to those in the UK.

There is a new batch of discount codes over on Kobo, all one-time use, good for 20% off any non-Agency title. So far, these have been found (there may be more, I'll update the list at right if I find any): oct2discount20, oct2thrillers20, oct2romance20, oct2fiction20, and oct2youngadult20. I've been thinking of getting the new Richard Castle novel, Heat Rises and using the coupon would drop it under $8 (it's still $9.36 for Kindle)


The Saint ($0.49), a Kindle Single by Oliver Broudy, is today's Kindle Deal of the day.
Book Description
“This is going to be an adventure,” James says presciently. “I have a feeling both of us are going to be very different after this.” And so it proves, as one jaded New Yorker is swept by a spiritually radiant revolutionary on a journey of transformation, from the narcissistic bubble of New York City to the sweeping vistas of the Dhauladhar mountains in northern India. Along the way the mismatched duo cross paths with rogue Chinese agents, the incensed descendents of Mahatma Gandhi, and ultimately the Dalai Lama himself. A gripping blend of action, intelligence, and insight.

Billy Boyle ($9.39 Kindle; $3.25 B&N), the first in the Billy Boyle World War II Mystery series by James R. Benn, is today's Nook Daily find at Barnes & Noble. If you've had an ereader for a while, you may already have this one in your library (it was free twice on both Kindle and from B&N last year, although the ASIN at Amazon has now changed).
Book Description
What’s a twenty-two-year-old Irish American cop who’s never been out of Massa-chusetts before doing at Beardsley Hall, an English country house, having lunch with King Haakon of Norway? Billy Boyle himself wonders. Back home in Southie, he’d barely made detective when war was declared. Unwilling to fight—and perhaps die—for England, he was relieved when his mother wangled a job for him on the staff of a general married to her distant cousin. But the general turns out to be Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose headquarters are in London, which is undergoing the Blitz. And Uncle Ike wants Billy to be his personal investigator.

Billy is dispatched to the seat of the Norwegian government in exile. Operation Jupiter, the impending invasion of Norway, is being planned, but it is feared that there is a German spy amongst the Norwegians.

Billy doubts his own abilities, with good reason. A theft and two murders test his investigative powers, but Billy proves to be a better detective than he or anyone else expected.

Hunting Kat ($0.99) is a short fiction piece by Kelley Armstrong, now available for pre-order. This is part of her Darkest Powers series and originally appeared in Kisses from Hell.
Book Description
[Kat,] a fugitive vampire forced to trust a boy who might work for the group bent on destroying her...

Lavinia Kent's The Real Duchesses of London series of novellas is on sale, with each volume now 99 cents instead of $2.99.
Kathryn, The Kitten
How Kathryn Got Her Passion Back
Kathryn, Duchess of Harrington, has the perfect life: a handsome duke for a husband, riches to spare, a house in Mayfair, and the right group of friends. The only thing she doesn't have is her husband in her bed. But she's about to change that. Enlisting the aid of her best friend, Linnette, who knows about these things even though she's a duchess herself, Kathryn begins her seduction plan.
But Linnette knows a secret and it involves Kathryn's husband. And, when that comes out, Kathryn's marriage isn't the only thing at stake. Can you say Afternoon Tea Catfight?


Linnette, The Lioness
Regency England just got real(ity)
The One with the Fake Baby
Rumors abound - everyone has heard that Linnette, the Dowager Duchess of Doveshire is pregnant. Beautiful, young, with more freedom than any respectable woman should want, Linnette is no stranger to a little gossip. But her friends can't help her brave the fallout, because this time Linnette has done something naughty...


Annabelle, The American
Annabelle and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad rumor

Annabelle, Marchioness of Tattingstong, always thought she was a good wife. She’s put up with all thetitters and stares in the ballroom that go along withbeing a rich American married only for her wealth andlooks. But, when it’s rumored that her husbandhas a secret family, one he is using her money to keep,Annabelle may have finally had enough. A properEnglish wife would grin and bear it, but playing bysociety’s rules hasn’t worked for her so far.Will revenge be as sweet as American pie?


Elizabeth, The Enchantress
How to Succeed in Marriage without Really Trying

Elizabeth, the Countess of Westhampton,has found her husband. Unfortunately, she wouldhave preferred that he stayed lost! How is shesupposed to react when the man who married her,and then abandoned her without awedding night, suddenly reappears? Obviously,she’ll have to plan her revenge very carefully…

A Darkness Forged in Fire and The Light of Burning Shadows, the first two volumes of the Iron Elves series by Chris Evans, are both currently marked down to $3.99. If you start reading now, you should be caught up when Ashes of a Black Frost is released next month.
A Darkness Forged in Fire
First in a stunning debut series, A Darkness Forged in Fire introduces an unforgiving world of musket and cannon...bow and arrow...magic, diplomacy, and oaths -- each wielding terrible power in an Empire teetering on the brink of war.

In this world, Konowa Swift Dragon, former commander of the Empire's elite Iron Elves, is looked upon as anything but ordinary. He's murdered a Viceroy, been court-martialed, seen his beloved regiment disbanded, and finally been banished in disgrace to the one place he despises the most -- the forest.

Now, all he wants is to be left alone with his misery...but for Konowa, nothing is ever that simple. The mysterious and alluring Visyna Tekoy, the highborn daughter of an elfkynan governor, seeks him out in the dangerous wild with a royal decree that he resume his commission as an officer in Her Majesty's Imperial Army, effective immediately.

For in the east, a falling Red Star heralds the return of a magic long vanished from the earth. Rebellion grows within the Empire as a frantic race to reach the Star unfolds. It is a chance for Konowa to redeem himself -- even if the entire affair appears doomed to be a suicide mission...

and that the soldiers recruited for the task are not at all what he expects. And worse, his key adversary in the perilous race for the Star is the dreaded Shadow Monarch -- a legendary elf-witch whose machinations for absolute domination spread deeper than Konowa could ever imagine....

We do not fear the flame, though it burns us,
We do not fear the fire, though it consumes us,
And we do not fear its light,
Though it reveals the darkness of our souls,
For therein lies our power.
-- Blood Oath of the Iron Elves

The Light of Burning Shadows
In the bestselling and legendary traditions of J.R.R. Tolkien, Bernard Cornwell, and Terry Brooks, the second novel in the acclaimed epic fantasy series following A Darkness Forged in Fire—where musket and cannon, bow and arrow, and magic and diplomacy all vie for supremacy in an empire teetering on the brink of war.

Disgraced elf officer Konowa Swift Dragon of the Calahrian Imperial Army has been forcibly returned from exile to resurrect the regiment he once led, the Iron Elves. These elves, born bearing the mark of an elf witch known as the Shadow Monarch, are shunned by their own people. In hopes of proving the mark false, the elves volunteer to fight for the Calaharian Empire in its quest to rid the world of dark magic. The regiment became legendary for its fighting ability, but all was lost in an instant when their commanding officer, Konowa, murdered the Calaharian Viceroy of Elfkyna, casting the loyalty of the elves into question. The regiment was banished to the desert, while Konowa was court-martialed and disappeared. Now, having found the mythical Star that was rumored to have fallen from the sky in a remote land, things couldn’t be worse for Konowa and the Iron Elves regiment as they trek through the blazing desert on their quest to defeat the Shadow Monarch once and for all....

Packed with wit, high adventure, and political intrigue, The Light of Burning Shadows will have readers hooked on this bold and exciting fantasy series.

Through Black Spruce ($3.99), by Joseph Boyden, is one of a number of books marked down by Penguin. I'll highlight a few, but you may want to graze thru the list.
Book Description
A haunting novel of love, identity, and loss-from the internationally acclaimed author of Three Day Road

Beautifully written and startlingly original, Through Black Spruce takes the considerable talents of Canadian novelist Joseph Boyden to new and exciting heights. This is the story of two immensely compelling characters: Will Bird, a legendary Cree bush pilot who lies comatose in a remote Ontario hospital; and Annie Bird, Will's niece, a beautiful loner and trapper who has come to sit beside her uncle's bed. Broken in different ways, the two take silent communion in their unspoken kinship, revealing a story rife with heartbreak, fierce love, ancient feuds, mysterious disappearances, murders, and the bonds that hold a family, and a people, together. From the rugged Canadian wilderness to the drug-fueled glamour of the Manhattan club scene, this is thrilling, atmospheric storytelling at its finest.

Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda ($3.99), by Rosamond Halsey Carr and Ann Howard Halsey
Book Description
In 1949, Rosamond Halsey Carr, a young fashion illustrator living in New York City, accompanied her dashing hunter-explorer husband to what was then the Belgian Congo. When the marriage fell apart, she decided to stay on in neighboring Rwanda, as the manager of a flower plantation. Land of a Thousand Hills is Carr's thrilling memoir of her life in Rwanda--a love affair with a country and a people that has spanned half a century. During those years, she has experienced everything from stalking leopards to rampaging elephants, drought, the mysterious murder of her friend Dian Fossey, and near-bankruptcy. She has chugged up the Congo River on a paddle-wheel steamboat, been serenaded by pygmies, and witnessed firsthand the collapse of colonialism. Following 1994's Hutu-Tutsi genocide, Carr turned her plantation into a shelter for the lost and orphaned children-work she continues to this day, at the age of eighty-seven.

Chris Carmichael's Food for Fitness ($3.99), by Chris Carmichael, Jim Rutberg and Lance Armstrong (foreword)
Book Description
From the coach of Lance Armstrong and several more of the world's greatest athletes comes a revolutionary eating plan for all active people - from weekend warriors to elite competitors to those just trying to lose a few pounds and be more fit.

Readers will learn:
  • The truth and consequences of low-carb diets for athletes
  • The importance of eating the right foods for clean-burning fuel
  • Which supplements work and which just waste money
  • The Complete Carmichael Nutrition Program, which has carried many top athletes to victory
  • Comprehensive training programs to put a nutritional program to work - for cyclists, runners, endurance athletes, and others
  • The ease and benefits of dozens of quick-to-prepare, power-packed recipes

I Had the Right to Remain Silent...But I Didn't Have the Ability ($3.99), by Ron White
Book Description
After years working as a journeyman comic, struggling from one gig to the next, Ron White-now known by fans (and law enforcement officials) as "Tater Salad"-struck gold with the Blue Collar Comedy phenomenon.

Here, Ron brings his unique brand of humor to the page, accompanied by hilarious illustrations by acclaimed cartoonist Matthew Schultz. For hardcore "Tater" fans and first-timers, this is Ron White at his very best.

Coffee, Tea or Me? ($4.99), by Donald Bain and Baker Trudy
Book Description
Remember when flying was glamorous and sexy, even fun? When airline food was gourmet, everyone dressed up for a flight, and stewardesses catered to our every need-at least in our imaginations? This classic memoir by two audaciously outspoken young ladies, who lived and loved the free-spirited stewardess life, jets you back to those golden days of air travel-from the captain who's as subtle as a 747 when he's on the make to the passenger who mistakes the overhead luggage rack for an upper berth; from the names of celebrities who were a pleasure to serve (and some surprising notables on the "bad guy" list) to the origins of some naughty stereotypes-Spaniards are the best lovers, actors the most foul-mouthed. This huge bestseller, a First Class jet-age journal, offers a hilarious gold mine of outrageous anecdotes from the high-flying and amorous lives of those busty, lusty, adventuresome young women of the swinging '60s known as "stews."

For Bea ($3.99), by Kristen Von Kreisler
Book Description
A touching and humorous account of the author's fifteen years with her beagle, Bea, a refugee from an animal research laboratory.

Harried by recent upheavals in her life, the last thing Kristin von Kreisler needed was another dog. But when she came upon Bea, a scrawny beagle abandoned by the roadside, she couldn't turn away. Bea became part of her family, and changed it forever.

Disheveled, malnourished, and terrified of human contact, Bea seemed damaged beyond repair. But, gradually, she began to trust von Kreisler. After resisting her touch again and again, the dog one day leaned in and nuzzled her neck. From that moment, Bea began to give love as well as receive it. With the typically unforgettable personality of a beagle, over the next decade and a half she taught von Kreisler the value of living utterly in the present, of meeting each day with a good bark, and of moving forward in life without being dragged down by past grief.

Written with rare eloquence and down-to-earth wit, this memoir of Bea and von Kreisler's fifteen-year love story will charm "beaglers" and touch the heart of anyone who has ever loved a dog.

The Shadow Of The Apocalypse ($3.99), by Paul Crouch
Book Description
  • What if the Bible prophecies are true?
  • What if the Anti-Christ is among us now?
  • What if the end of the world is at hand?
Are you prepared?War, deadly viruses, economic upheaval, and mass destruction fill the newspaper headlines and have many questioning if these are the signs of the approaching Armageddon. Paul Crouch, minister, television personality, and founder of Trinity Broadcasting Network, provides answers as he reveals the shattering truths found in the hidden prophecies of the Bible. Many prophecies concerning our modern era were precisely foretold throughout various portions of the Holy Scriptures, and many others are yet to come. However, the most overwhelming and fearful Last-Day prophecies are beginning to cast their shadows on an unsuspecting world.

As the Bible gives a vivid and detailed analysis of the past, present, and future of all things, it also acts as a spiritual map for precise direction and clear understanding of what life is all about. In spite of all the dark and frightening events that seem to point to the end of the world, the Bible also promises that a Blessed Hope is waiting to reveal Himself, that there is Pure Light at the end of the tunnel. Paul Crouch offers an opportunity to find meaning in current world events and reminds us that everything ultimately leads to the Second Coming. His practical and lifesaving insights provide the chance to make life-changing decisions as the End Times approach.

In the tradition of The Late Great Planet Earth, The Shadow of the Apocalypse is timely, alarming, and yet ultimately filled with great hope. It is an urgent and inspirational clarion call to people all over the world.

Free Book (EPUB/nook) - Emperors' Clothes

Emperors' Clothes ($3.19 Kindle), by Catherine McGuinness, is free from Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Sony.
Book Description
Part cautionary tale, part farce, Emperors' Clothes tells the story of two executives and one mob boss who put a Sopranos' style spin on corporate strategy.

Stewart Narciss, whose accomplished father prefers the company of his hairless cats to that of his only son, equates executive status with self-worth. To impress the movers and shakers, Stewart hooks his career to the rising power of human resources. Unfortunately for the employees on his watch, lying prostrate before his cold-fish father is the closest this executive comes to touchy feely. As his efforts to bond with his father, and his company’s CEO, are rebuffed, Stewart manipulates the succession process at TMC, assuring his place as consiglieri to a future boss.

Enter Carol Himmler, a beautiful yet ruthless executive who chews up employees with the indifference of a wild animal eating her young. When a chemical spill results from workforce cuts she made, Carol hires mobster Sal Scruci to make the problem go away. Only problem is Scruci never goes away. All hell breaks loose when Sal reinvents himself as an executive talent scout--not a guy who takes no for an answer.

As self-centered agendas drive shortsighted decisions, TMC Corporation heads down a bumpy road--and everything from carefully cultivated allegiances to personal integrity suffers.

Emperors' Clothes is a rollicking tale told with trenchant wit and insight, leaving readers to wonder who's really the bad guy and if the emperors ever had any clothes.
Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Get the free ebook from Kobo.
Get the free ebook from Sony.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

$2 Free Credit in Amazon MP3 Store

Update: You must redeem the code by September 30, 2011 11:59 PM PST.

Get a $2 MP3 credit from Amazon, by entering promo code FALLMP3S. No purchase and no social media action required, just use the credit to add two free songs, take half off today's $3.99 MP3 album (Patti Smith's Outside Society). I'm thinking of using mine to get the $1.99 album 99 Must-Have Classic Gold, which will leave me with a penny credit to use later. LOL!

A few other choices:

Today's Deals and Bargain Books

Amazon has matched yesterday's price ($2.99) at B&N on Black Hawk Down, by Mark Bowden, but don't expect it to last. Today is the last day to take advantage of the Save $20 on coffee & tea essentials KSO offer.

Farewell ($0.99), by Eric Raynaud, Sergei Kostin, Richard V. Allen (foreword) and Catherine Cauvin-Higgins (translator), is today's Kindle Deal of the Day, a new translation from AmazonCrossing.
Book Description
1981. Ronald Reagan and François Mitterand are sworn in as presidents of the Unites States and France, respectively. The tension due to Mitterand’s French Communist support, however, is immediately defused when he gives Reagan the Farewell Dossier, a file he would later call “one of the greatest spy cases of the twentieth century.”

Vladimir Ippolitovitch Vetrov, a promising technical student, joins the KGB to work as a spy. Following a couple of murky incidents, however, Vetrov is removed from the field and placed at a desk as an analyst. Soon, burdened by a troubled marriage and frustrated at a flailing career, Vetrov turns to alcohol. Desperate and needing redemption, he offers his services to the DST. Thus Agent Farewell is born. He uses his post within the KGB to steal and photocopy files of the USSR’s plans for the West—all under Brezhnev’s nose.

Probing further into Vetrov’s psychological profile than ever before, Kostin and Raynaud provide groundbreaking insight into the man whose life helped hasten the fall of the Soviet Regime.

About the Authors
Sergei Kostin is a Russian documentary maker and writer living in Moscow. He is author of four nonfiction books, mainly about secret services, translated into eight languages, including The Man Behind the Rosenbergs and of four spy novels published in Russia, the USA (Paris Weekend), Bulgaria, and Serbia. First published in France in 1997 under the title Bonjour Farewell, Farewell was the fruit of two years of painstaking investigation in Moscow and Paris interviewing the key players and witnesses to this amazing adventure.

Eric Raynaud is a French film writer who joined up with Sergei Kostin to contribute to Farewell after the release of the film L’Affaire Farewell, starring Willem Dafoe.

Catherine Cauvin-Higgins is a French-Russian-English translator. She was Thomson-CSF interpreter during the Vetrov years, working directly with Jacques Prévost, Vetrov's initial French contact, and Xavier Ameil, his first handler. She participated in trade negotiations with Vetrov's peers, in Paris and in Moscow, during those years.

Naked Lunch: The Restored Text ($7.81 Kindle; $1.65 B&N), by William S. Burroughs, edited by Mark Bramhall and Barry Miles, is today's Nook Daily Find at Barnes & Noble.
Book Description
Naked Lunch is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century, a book that redefined not just literature but American culture. An unnerving tale of a narcotics addict unmoored in New York, Tangiers, and ultimately a nightmarish wasteland known as interzone, its formal innovation, formerly taboo subject matter, and tour de force execution have exerted their influence on the work of authors like Thomas Pynchon, J. G. Ballard, and William Gibson; on the relationship of art and obscenity; and on the shape of music, film and media generally. Naked Lunch: The Restored Text includes many editorial corrections on the text, several essays he wrote over the years about the book, and an appendix of 20 percent new material and alternate drafts from the original manuscript, which predates the first published version. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume is a valuable and fresh experience of this classic of our culture.

Karen Hawkins's One Night in Scotland ($1.99) and How to Abduct a Highland Lord ($2.99) are both currently marked down by Simon & Schuster.
One Night in Scotland
New York Times bestselling author Karen Hawkins begins a sparkling new series with this thrilling tale of a desperate beauty on an urgent quest, a dark earl scarred by his beastly past—and the ancient treasure that binds their fates.

A mysterious abductor . . . Someone is holding her brother prisoner in exchange for a gold-and-onyx box covered in mysterious runes, so Mary Hurst boldly sets out from the family vicarage to find the priceless artifact. But the man who possesses it, Angus Hay, the Earl of Erroll, is less than sympathetic to her plight.

A forbidding stranger . . . Himself a prisoner of his dark past, Angus refuses to yield the box—or allow Mary to leave! Suspicious of the alluring lass’s mission, he vows to wrest a confession from her, but unearths a fiery temper and a will as strong as his own.

An unbreakable curse . . . Passion flares between them, but now there is more at stake: an unknown enemy is hunting down the precious box, and will stop at nothing. Risking all for love, Angus must solve the mystery behind the runes . . . and trust the only woman who can awaken his forgotten heart.


How to Abduct a Highland Lord
It's hardly the type of wedding Fiona MacLean dreamed of. No family, no guests, just a groom who's been dragged -- literally -- to the altar. But if marriage to Black Jack Kincaid, the handsome wastrel she'd sworn never to see again, will avert a bloody war between their clans, so be it. Surely she can share his bed without losing her heart....

Known throughout Scotland and London as a wild rogue, Jack is accustomed to waking in dire situations, but...married? Long ago, he and Fiona reveled in a youthful passion. Now, the fiery, sensual lass is his once more. And though their marriage is in name only, Jack is determined to win her forever -- body and soul....

The Judas Strain with Bonus Material ($1.99), by James Rollins, has been released, so those that don't do pre-orders can grab it now
Book Description
From the depths of the Indian Ocean, a horrific plague has arisen to devastate humankind—unknown, unstoppable . . . and merely a harbinger of the doom that is to follow.

Operatives of the shadowy covert organization Sigma Force, Dr. Lisa Cummings and Monk Kokkalis search for answers to the bizarre affliction aboard a cruise liner transformed into a makeshift hospital. But a sudden and savage attack by terrorist hijackers turns the mercy ship into a floating bio-weapons lab.

Time is an enemy as a worldwide pandemic grows rapidly out of control. As the seconds tick closer to doomsday, Sigma’s commander, Gray Pierce, must join forces with the beautiful assassin who tried to kill him—following the trail of the most fabled explorer in history into the terrifying heart of an astonishing mystery buried deep in antiquity and in humanity’s genetic code.

Also included in this edition is an excerpt from The Devil Colony, featuring Sigma Force.

The Blue Edge of Midnight ($4.74) is the first of the Max Freeman Mystery series by Jonathon King.
Book Description
The Edgar Award–winning debut of the bestselling Max Freeman mystery series: A tormented ex-cop’s mission to solve a grisly murder and earn redemption for his dark past...

After a shootout during a convenience store holdup led to the accidental death of a twelve-year-old, Max Freeman left behind the Philadelphia police department for a life in exile in the Florida Everglades. Since then, he has lived in seclusion, haunted by guilt, with the humid night and the nocturnal predators of the swamp as his only company. But everything changes when Freeman discovers a young girl’s body floating in the muddy waters and becomes the prime suspect for her murder. To prove his innocence, Freeman must uncover the real murderer—and confront his own tortured soul—before it’s too late.

This ebook contains an illustrated biography of the author featuring never-before-seen photos.

A Stream of Dreams ($0.99), by Leon Nacson
Book Description
This book by dream expert Leon Nacson is more than just a dream dictionary or a thesaurus. It is a definitive dream decoder. Finally, you can simply and effortlessly discover the true meaning behind the symbols in your dreams. Unlike traditional dream dictionaries, this book presents the meanings behind modern-day symbols such as mobile phones, boom boxes, and DVD players. For example, spiders are becoming more common in dreams because we spend more time on the World Wide Web these days. Traditional dictionaries might simply describe spiders as symbols of danger and entrapment. Ultimately, this book will become the benchmark for accurate dream interpretation.

Tobacco Road ($4.74), by Erskine Caldwell, is a new edition from Open Road.
Book Description
Caldwell’s bestselling, controversial classic: the story of a Southern sharecropper family ground down by the devastation of the Great Depression

Even before the Great Depression struck, Jeeter Lester and his family were desperately poor sharecroppers. But when hard times begin to affect the families that once helped support them, the Lesters slip completely into the abyss. Rather than hold on to each other for support, Jeeter, his wife Ada, and their twelve children are overcome by the fractured and violent society around them.

Banned and burned when first released in 1932, Tobacco Road is a brutal examination of poverty’s dehumanizing influence by one of America’s great masters of political fiction.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erskine Caldwell including rare photos and never-before-seen documents courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library.

Flat Broke in the Free Market: How Globalization Fleeced Working People ($1.72), by Jon Jeter
Book Description
A powerful, accessible, and eye-opening analysis of the global economy.
Growing up in an African American working-class family in the Midwest, Jon Jeter watched the jobs undergirding a community disappear. As a journalist for the Washington Post (twice a Pulitzer Prize finalist), he reported on the freemarket reforms of the IMF and the World Bank, which in a single generation created a transnational underclass.

Led by the United States, nations around the world stopped making things and starting buying them, imbibing a risky cocktail of deindustrialization, privatization, and anti-inflationary monetary policy. Jeter gives the consequences of abstract economic policies a human face, and shows how our chickens are coming home to roost in the form of the subprime mortgage scandal, the food crisis, and the fraying of traditional social bonds (marriage). From Rio de Janeiro to Shanghai to Soweto to Chicago’s South Side and Washington, DC, Jeter shows us how the economic prescriptions of “the Washington Consensus” have only deepened poverty—while countries like Chile and Venezuela have flouted the conventional wisdom and prospered.