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Friday, June 8, 2012

Today's Deals

Today's free Android App from Amazon is Madagascar 3 Movie Storybook. There's apparently no interactivity in the book, but for free, you should grab it for your kids and grandkids.

Two new Kobo codes: 20june8 for 20% off any non-Agency title and bloomsbury30 for 30% off any eBook from Bloomsbury US Publishing Group and its subsidiary imprints. Also, an update on yesterday's code, koboharlequin30 is for new Harlequin releases only. Both of the new codes are valid through June 11, 2012 at 11:59 PM EST (although I've seen them expire 12 hours early, so don't wait too long).

Get 25% off DecalGirl skins, ordered direct, using coupon code ILOVEDAD, valid June 7 - 18.

Additional formats on free books:

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Stealing Trinity ($0.99), by Ward Larsen.
Book Description
In the last days of WWII, the Third Reich makes a desperate grab to retrieve its most valuable asset, Die Wespe, a spy buried deep in the Manhattan Project. The man chosen for this mission is Alexander Braun---American born, Harvard educated, and a ruthless killer.

British Intelligence learns of the Nazi plan. Unable to convince their American counterparts of the magnitude of the threat, they dispatch Major Michael Thatcher to track down Braun.

The trail leads to Rhode Island, where Lydia Cole, a young heiress, has unwittingly taken Braun back into her life. Braun is forced to run, and there is one place where he must go--Los Alamos, home of the Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, the world's first atomic bomb is tested - code named Trinity. In the days that follow, four people - a tenacious British investigator, a determined young woman, a killer, and the spy who could compromise America's greatest scientific endeavor - will have a fateful rendezvous, all vying for control of the secret that will shape the world.

The Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK is seven Books by MC Beaton ($1.52/£0.99) ... you lucky dogs!
  • Death of a Glutton (Main/UK) Hamish MacBeth #8
    Her table manners were a crime. But she didn’t deserve to die!

    There’s not a cloud in Hamish Macbeth’s sky – just plenty of warm sunshine but not quite enough of the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. But as eight hopeful members of the Checkmate Singles Club converge on Tommel Castle Hotel for a week of serious matchmaking, the clouds roll in.

    The four couples, carefully matched by dating director Maria Worth, immediately dislike one another. And the arrival of Maria’s gross, greedy business partner, Peta, kills the last vestige of romance. And as love goes out the window, murder comes in the door.

    Peta soon slurps up her last meal and Hamish is left with the baffling puzzle: Who shared the fateful outing that left Peta dead with a large rosy red apple in her mouth…
  • Death of a Travelling Man (Main/UK) Hamish MacBeth #9
    It’s springtime in the Highlands but storms are brewing for Hamish Macbeth. His life is going to pot. He has – horrors! – been promoted, his new boss is a dunce, and a sinister self-proclaimed gypsy and his girlfriend have parked their rusty eyesore of a van in the middle of the village.

    Hamish smells trouble and as usual he’s right. The doctor’s drugs have gone missing. Money vanishes. And neighbours suddenly become unneighbourly. Nobody wants to talk either, so canny Hamish faces the delicate task of worming the facts out of the villagers.

    In the process he uncovers a story so bizarre that neither he nor the locals may ever be able to forget it…
  • Death of a Macho Man (Main/UK) Hamish MacBeth #12
    The unconventional Hamish Macbeth finds that his own impetuousness places him at the center of a murder investigation. Everyone in the Scottish Highlands village of Lochdubh called Randy Duggan 'the Macho Man'. Duggan went around the village and bragged about everything he had done and said he once was a wrestler in America and an explorer in the Middle East. At first his outrageous stories drew an admiring crowd at the local pub, but soon his bullying ways lead to anger and violence. When Hamish tries to break up a fight, Duggan challenges him to a public fistfight. But on the day of the scheduled fight, Duggan is found shot to death. Of course, Macbeth's superiors get wind of the fight and suspend him during the investigation. Macbeth has some suspicions about Duggan's real background - and the mysterious banker, John Glover, who shows up at the posh Tommel Castle Hotel shortly before Duggan's death. And what about Rosie Draley, the sex-crazed romance writer, who had been having an affair with the two-timing Duggan? Once again, Macbeth is in hot water and he must find a murderer to clear his name - and to get back his job and the cushy life (fishing and mooching around the village) he leads.
  • Death of a Dustman (Main/UK) Hamish MacBeth #16
    When Fergus Macleod, Lochdubh’s abusive, drunk dustman is put in charge of the local recycling centre and is dubbed the ‘Environment Officer’, Hamish Macbeth smells trouble. Sure enough, Fergus, imbued with his new powers, becomes a bullying tyrant and when his body is found stuffed in a recycling bin, no one is sorry – including his long-suffering family. But Macbeth is surprised to find that many of the despicable dustman’s victims refuse to talk – and when violence strikes again, the lanky lawman must quickly unearth the culprit among a litter of suspects… before the killer makes a clean getaway!
  • Death of a Celebrity (Main/UK) Hamish MacBeth #17
    Lochdubh, remotely nestling in the Highlands, is perfectly anonymous… until well-known TV reporter Crystal French races into town in her bright new BMW. And PC Hamish Macbeth, dourly wed to duty rather than the fiancĂ©e who dumped him, promptly gives her a ticket for reckless driving. Outraged, Crystal makes Macbeth’s life a misery with a TV report on policing in the Highlands… but when she also rakes up old local scandals for her new hit show, Macbeth notes that someone besides himself might be dead keen to stop her. And then someone does.Now, finding out who did away with the nosy reporter will lead the laconic Macbeth down roads he never envisioned… and perhaps a crisis of the heart all his own.
  • Death of a Gentle Lady (Main/UK) Hamish MacBeth #23
    Mrs Gentle has fooled everyone into thinking she is as sweet as she sounds – Gentle by name and gentle by nature. But local constable Hamish Macbeth isn’t fooled. He believes this little old lady is actually quite sly and vicious, but he’s in a minority of one. Or is he?

    When Mrs Gentle dies under unusual circumstances the villagers of Lochdubh are shocked and outraged. Chief Detective Inspector Blair suspects that members of her family may be involved but Hamish thinks there’s much more to the story – and is willing to get rough to solve the riddle of Mrs Gentle’s mysterious demise.
  • Death of a Witch (Main/UK) Hamish MacBeth #24
    Returning from holiday Hamish becomes unaccountably worried – it’s as if he senses a dark cloud of evil hanging over Lochdubh. He soon learns that there is a newcomer to the village, a woman called Catriona Beldame, and that the villagers have decided she is a witch.

    At first Hamish is charmed by her, but is dismayed when he finds out she’s been supplying dangerous potions to certain local people. No one seems willing to listen to his warnings and when she is found murdered, poor Hamish is the prime suspect. Obviously, he must solve the murder to clear his own name and bring contentment back to his beloved Lochdubh.

Life of Pi ($8.54 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Yann Martel, is the Nook Daily Find. It isn't price matched on Kindle (yet) and if I was buying it there, I'd consider the Illustrated 2nd Edition ($7.39), which has pictures you can see best on the page for the first Illustrated Edition's page. Check your Kindle libraries, first, though - this one was free in late 2010 under a different ASIN (at least for UK customers), and you may have already purchased that edition (which no longer appears at Amazon); the Illustrated Edition was also a 99 cent Deal of the Day last December, so you might already have that one, as well.
Book Description
Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional-but is it more true?

Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.

The Captain's Dog: My Journey with the Lewis and Clark Tribe ($4.99 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Roland Smith, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. Your kids learn some history along with what looks like a cute story (hopefully it turns out better than the idea of hiding veggies in the meatloaf!).
Book Description
Born the runt of his litter and gambled away to a rusty old riverman, the Newfoundland pup Seaman doesn’t imagine his life will be marked by any kind of glory--beyond chasing down rats. But when he meets Captain Meriwether Lewis, Seaman finds himself on a path that will make history. Lewis is just setting off on his landmark search for the Northwest Passage, and he takes Seaman along. Sharing the curiosity and strength of spirit of his new master, Seaman proves himself a valuable companion at every turn. Part history, part science--and adventure through and through--The Captain’s Dog is the carefully researched, thrilling tale of America’s greatest journey of discovery, as seen through the keen, compassionate eyes of a remarkable dog.

Grade Level: 4 and up