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Friday, March 2, 2012

Free and Bargain Book Roundup

Harlequin has added a free copy of The Life She Left Behind on their website and currently have a 10% off coupon code, SAVE10AFFO that works sitewide. You can save even more with their Around the World Sale by using coupon code ATW312 to get 30% off selected titles (Expires March 31, 2012).

If you are a fan of Adams Media, you might want to check out their direct-sales Leap Day Sale, which features a number of titles at either $2 or $9, thru March 4. It's books in print, including several cookbooks (their "Everything" Series) and at least one interesting looking title, RX from the Garden, for gardeners.


Wolves of the Beyond #1: Lone Wolf ($2.99), by Kathryn Lasky, was the Nook Daily Find Families selection yesterday, so it may only be price reduced on Kindle for a short time.
Book Description
A wolf mother has given birth, but the warm bundle snuffling next to her brings only anguish. The pup, otherwise healthy, has a twisted leg, and the mother knows what the harsh code of the pack demands. Her pup will be taken from her and abandoned on a desolate hill. The pack cannot have weakness - the wolf mother knows that her pup is condemned to die.

But alone in the wilderness, the pup, Faolan, does not perish. This his story - a story of survival, of courage, and of love triumphant. This is Faolan's story, the wolf pup who rose up to change forevever the Wolves of the Beyond.

Grade 4–7

With Eve ($2.99), Iris Johansen starts a new trilogy, Eve, Quinn and Bonnie, that parallels the main Eve Duncan series, concentrating on her own story. It looks like Bonnie and Quinn are both already out, so you don't have to wait to complete the series.
Book Description
Eve Duncan’s mission in life is to bring closure to the families who have experienced the agony of a missing child. As a forensic sculptor, she is able to piece together bones, create a face, and bring an identity to a child who would have otherwise gone unidentified…maybe forever. Eve is brilliant, and driven, and tormented--because her own daughter, Bonnie, was taken from her years ago. And Eve has never discovered what happened to her. But now a name from the past resurfaces, thanks to CIA agent Catherine Ling who knows all too well what it’s like to lose a child.

After teaming up with Agent Ling to find her missing son, Eve and Catherine share a bond forged by their mutual pain. Now, Catherine challenges Eve with a name: John Gallo. A man from Eve’s past. A man, seemingly raised from the dead, whose whereabouts are unknown. Could Gallo be the missing piece to the puzzle that has haunted Eve for years? Why was he in Atlanta just before Bonnie’s disappearance? With a brilliant narrative that goes back to Eve Duncan’s early life, exploring her history and motivations like no other novel before, Eve reveals long-guarded secrets and is guaranteed to leave Johansen fans panting for more...


Fortune's Fool ($4.85) and The Snow Queen ($3.70), are the third and fourth titles in the Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series by Mercedes Lackey; the first two in the series and the title following (The Fairy Godmother, One Good Knight and The Sleeping Beauty) are just above the $5 mark, as well, making the entire series affordable. Checking my personal e-library, it seems I'm missing Snow Queen and Sleeping Beauty, so I'll probably pick up both to complete the set.
Fortune's Fool
The seventh daughter of the Sea King, Ekaterina is more than a pampered princess--she's also the family spy. Which makes her the perfect emissary to check out interesting happenings in the neighboring kingdom...and nothing interests her more than Sasha, the seventh son of the king of Belrus. Ekaterina suspects he's far from the fool people think him. But before she can find out what lies beneath his facade, she is kidnapped!

Trapped in a castle at the mercy of a possessive Jinn, Ekaterina knows her chances of being found are slim. Now fortune, a fool and a paper bird are the only things she can count on--along with her own clever mind and intrepid heart....

The Snow Queen
Aleksia, Queen of the Northern Lights, is mysterious, beautiful and widely known to have a heart of ice. But when she's falsely accused of unleashing evil on nearby villages, she realizes there's an impostor out there far more heartless than she could ever be.

And when a young warrior disappears, Aleksia's powers are needed as never before.

Now, on a journey through a realm of perpetual winter, it will take all her skills, a mother's faith and a little magic to face down an enemy more formidable than any she has ever known....

Evening Is the Whole Day ($1.43), by Preeta Samarasan, has very good reviews from Booklist and Publisher's Weekly.
Book Description
When the Rajasekharan family’s rubber-plantation servant girl is dismissed for unnamed crimes, it is only the latest in a series of precipitous losses that have shaken six-year-old Aasha’s life. In the space of several weeks her grandmother passed away under mysterious circumstances, and Uma, her older sister, left for Columbia University, forever. Aasha is left stranded in a family, and a country, slowly going to pieces.

Circling through years of family history to arrive at the moment of Uma’s departure, Evening is the Whole Day illuminates in heartbreaking detail one Indian immigrant family’s layers of secrets and lies, while exposing the complex underbelly of Malaysia itself. Sweeping in scope, exuberantly lyrical and masterfully constructed, Preeta Samarasan's debut is a mesmerizing and vital achievement, perfect as a reading group selection, and sure to earn her a place alongside Arundhati Roy and Zadie Smith.

Excuses Begone!: How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking Habits ($2.69) is by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, author of one of the books in Today's Deals. He's also the co-author of A Promise Is A Promise: An Almost Unbelievable Story of a Mother's Unconditional Love ($2.99), with Marcelene Dyer (careful with this one - there are two editions and the one I've linked is newer and not Topaz).
Excuses Begone!: How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking Habits
Within the pages of this transformational book, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer reveals how to change the self-defeating thinking patterns that have prevented you from living at the highest levels of success, happiness, and health. Even though you may know what to think, actually changing those thinking habits that have been with you since childhood might be somewhat challenging.

If I changed, it would create family dramas . . . I’m too old or too young . . . I’m far too busy and tired . . . I can’t afford the things I truly want . . . It would be very difficult for me to do things differently . . . and I’ve always been this way . . . may all seem to be true, but they’re in fact just excuses. So the business of modifying habituated thinking patterns really comes down to tossing out the same tired old excuses and examining your beliefs in a new and truthful light.

In this groundbreaking work, Wayne presents a compendium of conscious and subconscious crutches employed by virtually everyone, along with ways to cast them aside once and for all. You’ll learn to apply specific questions to any excuse, and then proceed through the steps of a new paradigm. The old, habituated ways of thinking will melt away as you experience the absurdity of hanging on to them.

You’ll ultimately realize that there are no excuses worth defending, ever, even if they’ve always been part of your life—and the joy of releasing them will resonate throughout your very being. When you eliminate the need to explain your shortcomings or failures, you’ll awaken to the life of your dreams.

Excuses . . . Begone!

A Promise Is A Promise: An Almost Unbelievable Story of a Mother's Unconditional Love
Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, the bestselling author and world-renowned teacher, brings you this extraordinary true story about two ordinary people whose lives were touched by miracles—and he shows us what these miracles can teach all of us. Edwarda O'Bara is a Miami woman who has been in a diabetic coma for 26 years. Defying all medical advice, her mother, Kaye, made a commitment to keep Edwarda alive and has been caring for her daughter around the clock for over a quarter of a century! This dedicated parent, now in her seventies, has fed her daughter every two hours and given her insulin every four hours, without ever missing an injection! Several years ago, Dr. Dyer read a story about Edwarda in a local newspaper and felt called upon to visit her and her mother. A caring friendship ensued that has blossomed into a passionate conviction to a cause. Dr. Dyer has made a commitment to help Edwarda and her mother and has written A Promise Is a Promise to not only share their incredible story with the world, but to raise money for Edwarda's care. The strength, power, and tenacity of Kaye O’Bara’s love has attracted numerous miracles over the years. These events have inspired the Miami community and have garnered intense interest from the media. This is a book you will never forget—about two people whose bond of love is everlasting.

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present ($2.99), by Gail Collins
Book Description
Gail Collins, New York Times columnist and bestselling author, recounts the astounding revolution in women's lives over the past 50 years, with her usual "sly wit and unfussy style" (People).

When Everything Changed begins in 1960, when most American women had to get their husbands' permission to apply for a credit card. It ends in 2008 with Hillary Clinton's historic presidential campaign. This was a time of cataclysmic change, when, after four hundred years, expectations about the lives of American women were smashed in just a generation.

A comprehensive mix of oral history and Gail Collins's keen research--covering politics, fashion, popular culture, economics, sex, families, and work--When Everything Changed is the definitive book on five crucial decades of progress. The enormous strides made since 1960 include the advent of the birth control pill, the end of "Help Wanted--Male" and "Help Wanted--Female" ads, and the lifting of quotas for women in admission to medical and law schools. Gail Collins describes what has happened in every realm of women's lives, partly through the testimonies of both those who made history and those who simply made their way.

Picking up where her highly lauded book America's Women left off, When Everything Changed is a dynamic story, told with the down-to-earth, amusing, and agenda-free tone for which this beloved New York Times columnist is known. Older readers, men and women alike, will be startled as they are reminded of what their lives once were--"Father Knows Best" and "My Little Margie" on TV; daily weigh-ins for stewardesses; few female professors; no women in the Boston marathon, in combat zones, or in the police department. Younger readers will see their history in a rich new way. It has been an era packed with drama and dreams--some dashed and others realized beyond anyone's imagining.

Call Me Mrs. Miracle ($1.31), by Debbie Macomber, is at a very good price (nearly as low as when it was the Kindle Deal of the Day at Christmas).
Book Description
This Christmas, Emily Merkle (call her Mrs. Miracle!) is working in the toy department at Finley's, the last family-owned department store in New York City. And her boss is none other than…Jake Finley, the owner's son.

For Jake, holiday memories of brightly wrapped gifts, decorated trees and family were destroyed in a Christmas Eve tragedy years before. Now Christmas means just one thing to him—and to his father. Profit. Because they need a Christmas miracle to keep the business afloat.

Holly Larson needs a miracle, too. She wants to give her eight-year-old nephew, Gabe, the holiday he deserves. Holly's widowed brother is in the army and won't be home for Christmas, but at least she can get Gabe that toy robot from Finley's, the one gift he desperately wants. If she can figure out how to afford it…

Fortunately, it's Mrs. Miracle to the rescue. Next to making children happy, she likes nothing better than helping others—and that includes doing a bit of matchmaking!

This Christmas will be different. For all of them.

Pizzicato: The Abduction of the Magic Violin ($1.00), by Rusalka Reh and David Henry Wilson (Translator), is a Kindle exclusive from AmazonCrossing.
Book Description
Nonstop fun with a dizzying amount of mystery, Pizzicato: The Abduction of the Magic Violin is a lighthearted whodunit featuring a fair-haired orphan named Darius Dorian, who has a sly wit and a curious way of approaching most any predicament. Darius is none too pleased to be paired with Archibald Archinola, a master violinmaker, for a school project, especially when he thinks about his rival—fellow orphan and constant nemesis Max—being surrounded by Porsches at Auto Frederick for the same assignment. But when Darius discovers an old violin in a glass case and strikes the chords, a cut on his hand magically disappears, and suddenly studying with the violinmaker proves to be anything but dull. As a greedy doctor works to get her hands on the magic fiddle, Darius is forced to pull a few strings to save the magic violin’s power.

Deep Blue Home: An Intimate Ecology of Our Wild Ocean ($0.49), by Julia Whitty, is discounted so low that it has nowhere to go but up (and will do so as soon as Amazon blows out their paperback stock, I'd bet).
Book Description
At the center of Deep Blue Home--a penetrating exploration of the ocean as single vast current and of the creatures dependent on it--is Whitty's description of the three-dimensional ocean river, far more powerful than the Nile or the Amazon, encircling the globe. It's a watery force connected to the earth's climate control and so to the eventual fate of the human race.

Whitty's thirty-year career as a documentary filmmaker and diver has given her sustained access to the scientists dedicated to the study of an astonishing range of ocean life, from the physiology of "extremophile" life forms to the strategies of nesting seabirds to the ecology of "whale falls" (what happens upon the death of a behemoth).

No stranger to extreme adventure, Whitty travels the oceanside and underwater world from the Sea of Cortez to Newfoundland to Antarctica. In the Galapagos, in one of the book's most haunting encounters, she realizes: "I am about to learn the answer to my long-standing question about what would happen to a person in the water if a whale sounded directly alongside--would she, like a person afloat beside a sinking ship, be dragged under too?"

This book provides extraordinary armchair entree to gripping adventure, cutting-edge science, and an intimate understanding of our deep blue home.

The Tail of Emily Windsnap ($2.16), by Liz Kessler and Sarah Gibb, is the first title in the Emily Windsnap for middle grade readers. And unlike many children's series, several of the titles are priced under $5.
Book Description
For as long as she can remember, twelve-year-old Emily Windsnap has lived on a boat. And, oddly enough, for just as long, her mother has seemed anxious to keep her away from the water. But when Mom finally agrees to let her take swimming lessons, Emily makes a startling discovery - about her own identity, the mysterious father she's never met, and the thrilling possibilities and perils shimmering deep below the water's surface. With a sure sense of suspense and richly imaginative details, first-time author Liz Kessler lures us into a glorious undersea world where mermaids study shipwrecks at school and Neptune rules with an iron trident - an enchanting fantasy about family secrets, loyal friendship, and the convention-defying power of love.

Tails of Wonder and Imagination: Cat Stories ($1.99), edited by Ellen Datlow, has a lot of big names listed on the cover, such as George RR Martin, Lawrence Block and Neil Gaiman. It would be worth buying for that alone (even if it weren't all about cats).
Book Description
From legendary editor Ellen Datlow, TAILS OF WONDER AND IMAGINATION collects the best of the last thirty years of science fiction and fantasy stories about cats.

About the Author
Ellen Datlow has been editing short science fiction, fantasy, and horror for almost thirty years. She was co-editor of The Year s Best Fantasy and Horror and has edited or co-edited many other anthologies, most recently The Coyote Road and Troll's Eye View (with Terri Windling), Inferno, The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Nebula Award Showcase 2009, Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, and Lovecraft Unbound. Forthcoming are, Digital Domains: A Decade of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror, Naked City: New Tales of Urban Fantasy, Best Horror of the Year, Volume 2, Haunted Legends (with Nick Mamatas), and The Beastly Bride (with Terri Windling). She has won multiple awards for her editing, including the World Fantasy, Locus, Hugo, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, and Stoker Awards. She was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award for outstanding contribution to the genre.

The Best Horror of the Year Volume 1 ($2.99), edited by Ellen Datlow, is another collection that is definitely worth considering (even if the description is equally lacking on this one -- come on, Night Shade Books: give us more details!).
Book Description
Legendary editor Ellen Datlow (Poe: New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe), winner of multiple Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, joins Night Shade Books in presenting The Best Horror of the Year, Volume One.

Today's backlist/small press/indie, totally free, books for everyone on Kindle. These are are not likely to be free for long, so double check prices before one-clicking (genres are my best guess), as most of them go back up after a day or two (sometimes less), at which point most of them become eligible for the Kindle Lending Library.
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