Bargain Book Roundup

Quick reminder: it's the last day of the month, so the last day to take advantage of this month's 100 Kindle books for $3.99 or less (although hopefully there will be a new list of these next month) and also the last day of the month for those with Amazon Prime to borrow their monthly book.

Some good MP3 deals for those who are shopping at Amazon anyway: Buy $20 or more in Kindle Accessories, Get $5 in MP3s (expires today, must use by Aug 31) and Get $5 in MP3s with the Purchase of $25 or More in Textbooks (esp 9/30)

Castles, the fourth title in Julie Garwood's Crown's Spies series, is only a penny in the Kindle store. While I would not put it in the same "must-have" category as Hamlet (also still a penny in the Penguin edition, tonight), if you read the genre, it's a must-buy at this price (and liable to go up soon). I also see her stand-alone A Girl Named Summer on sale for $3.99.

Book Description
Orphaned and besieged, Princess Alesandra knew that only a hasty marriage to an Englishman could protect her from the turmoil in her own land. To the amusement of her makeshift guardian, Colin, younger brother of the Marquess of Cainewood, the bold, raven-haired beauty instantly captivated London society. But when Alesandra was nearly abducted by her unscrupulous countrymen, the fighting instincts that won Colin a knighthood for valor were rekindled. Deceiving himself that he wanted only to protect her, Colin swept her into a union meant to be a marriage in name alone . . . yet Alesandra’s tender first kiss and hesitant caress ignited a wildfire in his soul. As the lovely princess dashed headlong into unforeseen dangers, Colin would follow, knowing he must claim her as his own forever. Now he would risk life itself before he would lose this sweet, tempestuous angel. . . .

Death in the Haight ($2.99 pre-order), by Tierney Ronald; I suspect this will end up being a novella prequel for Death in Pacific Heights: A Carly Paladino and Noah Lang Mystery, which can only be pre-ordered in paper editions, so far.

Book Description
When Michael Vanderveer goes missing in San Francisco, Private Investigator Noah Lang assumes it’s just another runaway escaping to the Haight, San Francisco’s home to the displaced… until the homicide cops pay him a visit. Fifteen-year-old Michael has been implicated in the murder of a prostitute, and the police don’t want Lang mucking up their investigation — especially Inspector Stern, who has strong opinions about Lang’s questionable past. But Lang becomes inextricably involved when he is hired by Michael’s parents: Michael is being ransomed, and they want Lang to ensure the exchange goes smoothly.

As everyone waits for the kidnappers to make their next move, Lang struggles with the Vandeveers’, impatient with waiting and far from their Michigan home; with the twisted, confusing details of the case; with the moral implications of rescuing Michael, only to have to turn him in for murder; and with Stern, who’s increasingly volatile behavior may just put Lang’s life in as grave danger as Michael’s.

The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir, by Ken Harmon, is on sale for some of you who are often skipped over: $2.82 in Australia, Asia & Pacific, India, Latin America & Carribean, $4.82 in Africa and the Middle East, but it's $17 and up for those in the US, UK and Canada (and just under $15 in Europe).

Book Description
A satire of traditional Christmas stories and noir, The Fat Man makes the perfect gift for the literary-minded.

A hardboiled elf is framed for murder in a North Pole world that plays reindeer games for keeps, and where favorite holiday characters live complex lives beyond December.

Fired from his longtime job as captain of the Coal Patrol, two-foot-three inch 1,300-year-old elf Gumdrop Coal is angry. He's one of Santa's original elves, inspired by the fat man's vision to bring joy to children on that one special day each year. But somewhere along the way things went sour for Gumdrop. Maybe it was delivering one too many lumps of coal for the Naughty List. Maybe it's the conspiracy against Christmas that he's starting to sense down every chimney. Either way, North Pole disillusionment is nothing new: Some elves brood with a bottle of nog, trying to forget their own wish list. Some get better. Some get bitter. Gumdrop Coal wants revenge. Justice is the only thing he knows, and so he decides to give a serious wakeup call to parents who can't keep their vile offspring from landing on the Naughty List. But when one parent winds up dead, his eye shot out with a Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model BB gun, Gumdrop Coal must learn who framed him and why. Along the way he'll escape the life-sucking plants of the Mistletoe Forrest, battle the infamous Tannenbomb Giant, and survive a close encounter with twelve very angry drummers and their violent friends. The horrible truth lurking behind the gingerbread doors of Kringle Town could spell the end of Christmas-and of the fat man himself. Holly Jolly!

King of the Damned, the second title in the League of Guardians series by Juliana Stone, is a $4.99 pre-order. The first in her Jaguar Warrior series, His Darkest Hunger, is still 99 cents (although I suspect not for long).

Book Description
For millennia the struggle between light and dark, between the upper and lower realms, has been policed by a secret group of warriors culled from every fabric of existence. They are both otherworld and human, male and female. They are light and dark themselves and known to each other as the League of Guardians. Their pledge, to protect the line between dominions and make sure neither side grows too powerful. If they fall, so shall the earth, the heavens and hell. And there will be no more.

With darkness all around him, The League of Guardians is his only means of redemption...

Azaiel, the fallen, has been given a second chance to atone for the sins of his past. With demons gathering and threatening the league, he must find out if their circle has been breached. What he doesn't foresee is a woman--a fierce warrior--who will turn his world upside down and awaken his tortured soul.

Rowan James is a powerful witch out to avenge the death of her beloved grandmother, but she needs an ally. Will she be able to trust a man with secrets as dark as the sorrow in his eyes? Loving Rowan means risking salvation and yet Azaiel cannot ignore the hunger burning hot between them--his one last chance at happiness. With danger all around them, will these two desperate souls finally find love in each other? Or be forever damned...

Secrets of a Proper Countess ($0.99), by Lecia Cornwall

Book Description
Some secrets we take to the grave. Others we just take to bed . . .

Lady Isobel Maitland cannot afford to be caught doing anything even remotely scandalous, or she risks losing everything she holds dear. But one night, in a dark garden at a masquerade ball, Isobel gives in to temptation and lets an innocent flirtation with the notorious Marquess of Blackwood turn into passion.

The Marquess is no stranger to seduction or intrigue, and his rake's reputation disguises a deadly mission. When his mystery lover flees before he can learn her name, he knows he must find her. But all clues lead toward the prim and dowdy Isobel Maitland. It appears the lady has secrets of her own, secrets that Blackwood would dearly love to uncover . . .

Star Strike ($0.99) is the first novel of the Inheritance Trilogy by Ian Douglas. I've picked this one up, but haven't had a chance to read it, yet. I have read his Semper Mars/Heritage Trilogy series though and greatly recommend the author.

Book Description
Planet by planet, galaxy by galaxy, the inhabited universe has fallen to the alien Xul.

Now only one obstacle stands between them and total domination: the warriors of a resilient race the world-devourers nearly annihilated centuries ago . . .

A power vast, ancient, and terrifying, the mighty Xul have lost track of the insignificant humans hundreds of years after devastating their home world—which has enabled the United Star Marines to operate unnoticed and unhindered. A near-autonomous intergalactic policing force, they battle in defense of an Earth they may not live to see again. Now, following the trail of a vanished twenty-fourth-century transport, they are journeying through an unexplored stargate to the edge of an unknown galaxy many light years from their sun. For the last, best, and only chance to defeat the tyrants of the universe may at long last be at hand . . .

The Cake Mix Doctor Returns!: With 160 All-New Recipes ($2.99), by Anne Byrn

Book Description
What could be better than a phenomenon? The return of a phenomenon. Ten years ago Anne Byrn's The Cake Mix Doctor began its extraordinary run as one of the most popular baking books of all time. Now Anne Byrn is back with the all-new Cake Mix Doctor Returns! From the beloved author who showed home bakers how adding a touch of sweet butter or a dusting of cocoa powder, a dollop of vanilla yogurt or flurry of grated lemon zest could transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Here are 160 brand-new recipes—that’s right, 160 amazing cake mix recipes—for luscious layer cakes, sheet cakes, brownies, bars, cookies, and more.

And the book is needed more than ever. Today 90 percent of home cooks use prepackaged mixes, while the economy is creating a perfect excuse to let them eat cake—cake equals happiness. And what cakes! 40 layer cakes, from Tiramisu Cake to The Best Red Velvet Cake, Strawberry Refrigerator Cake to Chocolate Swirled Cannoli Cake. 35 sheet cakes. 38 bundt and pound cakes. 16 cupcakes and muffins, plus the cult classic Whoopie Pie. And brownies, bars, and cookies, including Spice Drop Cookies, Angel Food Macaroons, and Chocolate Espresso Biscotti. There's even a wedding cake, a frequent request from the author's passionate online community.

The Cake Mix Doctor is back—just say ahhhhh!

Razor's Edge (#3), End Game (#8) and Retribution (#9), by Jim DeFelice and Dale Brown, are just three of the titles in the Dreamland series that are on sale. These are 99 cents apiece, with some others in the series at $1.99 (and Raven Strike (#14) is still free).

Razor's Edge (#3)

The weapon is codenamed "Razor"—the brainchild of the brilliant minds at Dreamland—a mobile chemical laser system with a range of 600 kilometers capable of downing anything that flies. The destruction of an American aircraft over northern Iraq suggests the inexplicable and unthinkable: a vengeful foe now possesses the lethal technology. It is fear that draws a retired warrior back to the battlefield, and sends Dreamland's best pilots to the skies to determine what the enemy has and to help take it away from him. But politics threatens to crush a covert engagement that must be won in the air and on the ground, unleashing a devastating rain of friendly fire that could ultimately annihilate a nation's champions ... and perhaps Dreamland itself.

End Game (#8)

A volatile U.S. ally has fallen prey to the terrorist beast. India is the target of radical Islamic jihadists, and the world watches breathlessly as tensions escalate between the uneasy giant and its longtime nemesis Pakistan—with China waiting in the wings, eager to flex its military might. A nuclear showdown seems inevitable, unless the masterminds at Dreamland can get to the mysterious source of the terror and end it, swiftly and permanently. Every technological wonder the military possesses must be employed to avert an all-out Apocalypse—from an awesome new hybrid Navy destroyer to robot Flighthawks. But the fate of the region and the world will depend on the newest brainchild of the Dreamland team: an unproven instrument of ultimate power code-named End Game.

Retribution (#9)

In the Nevada desert, the high-tech future of warfare is being conceived and constructed at a top-secret military facility. America’s best defense, they keep the nightmare at bay with astonishing technology.

But now the terror is aimed directly at the heart of Dreamland.

The Dreamland team has used stealth, raw nerve, and technology to defuse nightmares all across the globe. But now the darkness is racing toward America at blinding speed. With more than two dozen nuclear devices unaccounted for, the global masters of terror have set a catastrophe in motion: a surprise attack more deadly than Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined.

If the nation is to survive, Lieutenant Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian and his crew will have to reach deep into their cutting-edge arsenal. And they’ll have to do it short-handed—because two of Dreamland’s best and bravest have been lost at sea . . .

All These Things I've Done ($2.99) is the first title in Gabrielle Zevin's Birthright series.

Book Description
In 2083, chocolate and coffee are illegal, paper is hard to find, water is carefully rationed, and New York City is rife with crime and poverty. And yet, for Anya Balanchine, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the city's most notorious (and dead) crime boss, life is fairly routine. It consists of going to school, taking care of her siblings and her dying grandmother, trying to avoid falling in love with the new assistant D.A.'s son, and avoiding her loser ex-boyfriend. That is until her ex is accidently poisoned by the chocolate her family manufactures and the police think she's to blame. Suddenly, Anya finds herself thrust unwillingly into the spotlight--at school, in the news, and most importantly, within her mafia family.

Guilt by Association ($2.99), by former prosecutor Marcia Clark, has a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

Book Description
Los Angeles D.A. Rachel Knight is a tenacious, wise-cracking, and fiercely intelligent prosecutor in the city's most elite division. When her colleague, Jake, is found dead at a grisly crime scene, Rachel is shaken to the core. She must take over his toughest case: the assault of a young woman from a prominent family.

But she can't stop herself from digging deeper into Jake's death, a decision that exposes a world of power and violence and will have her risking her reputation--and her life--to find the truth.

With her tremendous expertise in the nuances of L.A. courts and crime, and with a vibrant ensemble cast of characters, Marcia Clark combines intimate detail, riotous humor, and visceral action in a debut thriller that marks the launch of a major new figure on the crime-writing scene.

Silence of the Grave ($2.99), a thriller by Arnaldur Indridason and Bernard Scudder (Translator).

Book Description
Last year Jar City introduced international crime-writing sensation Arnaldur Indridason to rave reviews and a rousing welcome from American thriller fans. And now, Silence of the Grave, the next in this stunning series has won the coveted Golden Dagger Award. Presented by the British Crime Writers' Association, previous winners of this award include John Le Carre, Minette Walters, Henning Mankell, and James Lee Burke.

In Silence of the Grave, a corpse is found on a hill outside the city, and Detective Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson and his team think the body may have been buried for some years.

While Erlendur struggles to hold together the crumbling fragments of his own family, slowly but surely he finds out the truth about another unhappy family. Few people are still alive who can tell the tale, but even secrets taken to the grave cannot remain hidden forever.

Destined to be a classic in the world of crime fiction, Silence of the Grave is one of the most accomplished thrillers in recent years.

Venus Guy Trap, by Shannon McKelden, is on sale for $1.24 for those in Australia.

Book Description
Haydee Miller is on the brink of panic. When she was sixteen, she swore that she’d be married by her thirty-third birthday. It’s part of Haydee’s grand Plan, which saved her sanity when her mother died and her father was too overcome by grief to remember he had a teenage daughter. The Plan has guided Haydee for half her life and never failed her. Until now.

With her birthday looming and no Prince Charming in sight, Haydee is surprised to discover that her bookstore’s newest employee is the gorgeous Goddess of Love, Venus herself.

Venus is certain that Haydee’s One True Love is the darkly handsome Derek, a world-renowned photographer who has returned to his hometown to settle down. The only problem? Derek and Haydee fell in love ten years ago—before he abandoned her without a word of farewell, leaving her with a broken heart and a secret she has never revealed.

Somehow Venus must heal this damaged woman and reunite her with her True Love. It won’t be easy. Every man in town, married or not, is pursuing Venus, even when she makes herself over into the ugliest woman on earth. Are her goddess powers malfunctioning? Can she make a Love Match without them?

The Quantum Thief ($2.99), the first title in the series by Hannu Rajaniemi, is one of Kirkus Reviews Best of 2011 Science Fiction & Fantasy titles and Library Journal's Best SF/Fantasy Books of 2011. Space opera and chocolate ... what could be better?

Book Description
Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy— from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Now he’s confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to get up and kill himself before his other self can kill him.

Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turnedsingularity lights the night. What Mieli offers is the chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self—in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed.

As Jean undertakes a series of capers on behalf of Mieli and her mysterious masters, elsewhere in the Oubliette investigator Isidore Beautrelet is called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, and finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur….

The Quantum Thief is a crazy joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people communicating by sharing memories, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as MMORPG guild members. But for all its wonders, it is also a story powered by very human motives of betrayal, revenge, and jealousy. It is a stunning debut.

Silenced ($2.99) is the fourth title in Allison Brennan's Lucy Kincaid series.

Book Description
Lucy Kincaid is back—with a vengeance.

A Washington Sex Scandal

It has been seven years since Lucy was attacked—and almost killed—by an online predator. Today, she is well on her way toward a new life.

While waiting to begin her training at the FBI Academy, Lucy’s is tireless in her fight against cyber sex crime. Her current mission: to find out who killed a high-priced call girl linked to a powerful Congressman.

A Cold-Blooded Killer

A number of known prostitutes—with scores of high profile clients—are turning up dead all over D.C. Is this the work of a depraved killer? Or the result of an inside job? Lucy’s investigation will take her into an underground network of prostitutes, the chambers of the country’s most powerful players, and her own dark past to confront an unknown enemy who’s always one step ahead of her. With the help of her P.I. boyfriend Sean Rogan, Lucy must find and protect the only witness who can identify the killer and end the conspiracy, but can the witness be trusted? Lucy will risk everything to expose the truth and ensure justice is served, even if that means putting herself in the line of fire…

Today's Deals

According to the comments on my earlier post, the 40% discount on Kindles is working (for some people) even if you don't have an Amazon Rewards Visa! You can get two Kindles and two chargers (links in that post) for under $100! Also, some classrooms are now wanting kids to have a Kindle for books in the class, so it's an especially good deal for those that were having to pick one up in this year's school supplies list.

For those that don't do pre-orders, Forty Stories is now available and still free on Kindle.

On B&N's Facebook page, you can now vote for this weekend's $3.99 deal: False Pretenses by Kathy Herman vs. Roseflower Creek by Jackie Lee Miles.

Summer at Tiffany ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), a memoir by professional cellist Marjorie Hart, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Do you remember the best summer of your life?

New York City, 1945. Marjorie Jacobson and her best friend, Marty Garrett, arrive fresh from the Kappa house at the University of Iowa hoping to find summer positions as shopgirls. Turned away from the top department stores, they miraculously find jobs as pages at Tiffany & Co., becoming the first women to ever work on the sales floor—a diamond-filled day job replete with Tiffany blue shirtwaist dresses from Bonwit Teller's—and the envy of all their friends.

Hart takes us back to the magical time when she and Marty rubbed elbows with the rich and famous; pinched pennies to eat at the Automat; experienced nightlife at La Martinique; and danced away their weekends with dashing midshipmen. Between being dazzled by Judy Garland's honeymoon visit to Tiffany, celebrating VJ Day in Times Square, and mingling with CafÉ society, she fell in love, learned unforgettable lessons, made important decisions that would change her future, and created the remarkable memories she now shares with all of us.

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is The Physician ($1.99), by Noah Gordon (a discount of $10 off yesterday's price).

Book Description
Read by millions in thirty-two countries, soon to be a major motion picture, and voted “one of the ten most-beloved books of all time,” here is the first English-language digital edition of Noah Gordon’s masterwork

In eleventh-century London, a child holds the hand of his dying mother and is terrified, aware something is taking her. Orphaned and given to an itinerant barber-surgeon, Rob Cole becomes a fast-talking swindler, peddling a worthless medicine. But as he matures, his strange gift—an acute sensitivity to impending death—never leaves him, and he yearns to become a healer.

Arab madrassas are the only authentic medical schools, and he makes his perilous way to Persia. Christians are barred from Muslim schools, but claiming he is a Jew, he studies under the world’s most renowned physician, Avicenna. How the woman who is his great love struggles against her only rival—medicine—makes a riveting modern classic.

The Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK is Two Self-Help books for £0.99 ($1.56) each.

The Happiness Trap: Stop Struggling, Start Living (Main/UK), by Russ Harris ($8.61 US edition)

Popular ideas about happiness are misleading, inaccurate, and are directly contributing to our current epidemic of stress, anxiety and depresssion. And unfortunately, popular psychological approaches are making it even worse.

In this controversial, but empowering self-help book, Dr Russ Harries, reveals how millions of people are unwittingly caught in the 'The Happiness Trap', where the more they strive for happiness the more they suffer in the long term. He then provides an effective means to escape through a groundbreaking new approach based on mindfulness skills.

Mindfulness is a mental state of awareness, openess, and focus. Mindfulness skills are easy to learn and will rapidly and effectively help you to reduce stress, enhance performance, manage emotions, improve health, increase vitality, and generally change your life for the better.

Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential (Main/UK), by Carol Dweck ($10.99 US edition)

World-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, in decades of research on achievement and success, has discovered a truly groundbreaking idea-the power of our mindset.

Dweck explains why it's not just our abilities and talent that bring us success-but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. She makes clear why praising intelligence and ability doesn't foster self-esteem and lead to accomplishment, but may actually jeopardize success. With the right mindset, we can motivate our kids and help them to raise their grades, as well as reach our own goals-personal and professional.

Dweck reveals what all great parents, teachers, CEOs, and athletes already know: how a simple idea about the brain can create a love of learning and a resilience that is the basis of great accomplishment in every area.

Thea Stilton and the Secret of the Old Castle ($5.99 Kindle, $2.99 B&N), by Thea Stilton, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.

Book Description
Geronimo's sister Thea Stilton narrates this action-packed adventure!When the Thea Sisters' good friend Bridget has to return to Scotland to help her family repair their ancient castle, the five mice offer to help their friend in whatever way they can. Little do they know that Bridget will be kidnapped, and they'll have to rush to Scotland to help find her! Along the way, the Thea Sisters encounter Celtic legends, cryptic messages, and hidden treasures on a trip that's full of mysteries and surprises!

Grade Level: 2 and up

Get a Kindle for $47.40

For those that have an Amazon Rewards Visa, you can use promo code KINDLE40 during checkout and you'll get 40% off on the purchase of a Kindle (no ads) or Kindle with Special Offers and any Amazon accessories for Kindle on the same order, up to $100 total credit. You can combine two or more Kindles on the same order and get 40% off of each, up to that $100 limit per order or just get accessories only.

The Kindle with Special Offers works out to $47.40 using the discount. If you add the Kindle US Power Adapter (which no longer ships with the Kindle) to the same order, you only pay an extra $2, as you get both the 40% off discount ($8) and a $10 discount for purchasing both at the same time as the Kindle.

Note that the discount doesn't work on the Kindle Keyboard, Kindle Touch, Kindle DX or Kindle Fire. Still, this is a great discount on the entry level Kindle, which works perfectly well for most people who only want to be able to read.

It's not a coincidence that this sale comes as everyone is preparing for heading back to school. The Kindle is now a great choice for kids, as Parental Controls (including limiting access to the store, archives and web) were added with the last firmware update. I believe it is the only Kindle that currently has this option and, although it isn't mentioned on the product page, you can find out how it works in the online help pages.

At under $50, you may find that just getting access to free classics means you pay less total versus buying the paper copies of required reading for classes this year. And if the Kindle you are buying with the discount isn't for the kids, you can get a great start on your library with the $1 books I posted earlier this morning.

Be sure to use the full checkout process, not one-click, so that you can enter the KINDLE40 promo code and switch to your Amazon Rewards Visa for payment (the discount won't apply for other payment methods). You'll see the discounts in the summary box in the upper right corner of the final preview page, before placing the order. Those that don't have the Amazon Rewards Visa yet can apply for it first, then use it for the purchase (if the instant approval process goes thru).

Since I didn't actually place an order when testing how the discount works, I can't tell you if you can make multiple purchases and get the discount each time, but most of this type of promo code have allowed multiple orders, in the past. You may be limited, though to a single order, so I'd try to maximize the savings on the first order, before trying for a second order and discount.

More Books for a Buck

More HarperCollins titles marked down to 99 cents and a word game to play on your eInk Kindle (not compatible with the Kindle Fire).

LINGO ($0.99), by Route 1 Game, a puzzle game for Kindle based on the TV show the weekly Kindle Game deal. It is compatible with all current eInk Kindles.

Book Description

LINGO, the worldwide game show phenomenon has arrived. If you watch LINGO on TV and think you can do better, now is the time to prove it.

This official game includes Over 250 word games for all the family, the same fun format you watch on TV; Three full levels plus the Bonus LINGO round for hours and hours of game play; 1 Player and 2 Player modes (the 1 Player mode is perfect for brain training fun).

Fantastic fun whether you play alone or with friends for hours of quality gaming. It's a game the whole family can enjoy and unlike anything else on Kindle.

Daughters of the North ($0.99), by Sarah Hall

Book Description
In her stunning novel, Hall imagines a new dystopia set in the not-too-distant future. England is in a state of environmental crisis and economic collapse. There has been a census, and all citizens have been herded into urban centers. Reproduction has become a lottery, with contraceptive coils fitted to every female of childbearing age. A girl who will become known only as "Sister" escapes the confines of her repressive marriage to find an isolated group of women living as "un-officials" in Carhullan, a remote northern farm, where she must find out whether she has it in herself to become a rebel fighter. Provocative and timely, Daughters of the North poses questions about the lengths women will go to resist their oppressors, and under what circumstances might an ordinary person become a terrorist.

Two for Sorrow: A New Mystery Featuring Josephine Tey ($0.99), by Nicola Upson, is the third in the series.

Book Description
They were the most horrific crimes of a new century: the murders of newborn innocents for which two British women were hanged at Holloway Prison in1903. Decades later, mystery writer Josephine Tey has decided to write a novel based on Amelia Sach and Annie Walters, the notorious “Finchley baby farmers,” unaware that her research will entangle her in the desperate hunt for a modern-day killer.

A young seamstress—an ex-convict determined to reform—has been found brutally slain in the studio of Tey’s friends, the Motley sisters, amid preparations for a star-studded charity gala. Despite initial appearances, Inspector Archie Penrose is not convinced this murder is the result of a long-standing domestic feud—and a horrific accident involving a second young woman soon after supports his convictions. Now he and his friend Josephine must unmask a sadistic killer before more blood flows—as the repercussions of unthinkable crimes of the past reach out to destroy those left behind long after justice has been served.

His Darkest Hunger ($0.99), is the first in the Jaguar Warrior series by Juliana Stone

Book Description
Jaxon Castille: jaguar shifter, warrior, assassin. He has long hungered for the chance to make his former lover, Libby Jamieson, pay for her deadly betrayal. After three long years he's finally found her. The hunt is over . . .

But the Libby that he finds is not what he expected. She has no memory of their tumultuous affair, of her treachery, of anything beyond her own name. A shadowy and deadly clan has marked them both for death, and in an instant, he game changes: the hunter has become the hunted.

On the run, with the ghosts of their past between them and a dark, desperate hunger quickly reclaiming their bodies and souls, Libby and Jaxon must discover the truth behind the dark forces working against them. Together, they must grab hold of a destiny that has the power to either heal them or destroy them.

But the truth is far more shattering than anyone could imagine . . .

The Ruins of Us ($0.99), by Keija Parssinen

Book Description
More than two decades after moving to Saudi Arabia and marrying powerful Abdullah Baylani, American-born Rosalie learns that her husband has taken a second wife. That discovery plunges their family into chaos as Rosalie grapples with leaving Saudi Arabia, her life, and her family behind. Meanwhile, Abdullah and Rosalie’s consuming personal entanglements blind them to the crisis approaching their sixteen-year-old son, Faisal, whose deepening resentment toward their lifestyle has led to his involvement with a controversial sheikh. When Faisal makes a choice that could destroy everything his embattled family holds dear, all must confront difficult truths as they fight to preserve what remains of their world.

The Ruins of Us is a timely story about intolerance, family, and the injustices we endure for love that heralds the arrival of an extraordinary new voice in contemporary fiction.

In the Hot Zone ($0.99), by Kevin Sites

Book Description
Kevin Sites is a man on a mission. Venturing alone into the dark heart of war, armed with just a video camera, a digital camera, a laptop, and a satellite modem, the award-winning journalist covered virtually every major global hot spot as the first Internet correspondent for Yahoo! News. Beginning his journey with the anarchic chaos of Somalia in September 2005 and ending with the Israeli-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006, Sites talks with rebels and government troops, child soldiers and child brides, and features the people on every side, including those caught in the cross fire. His honest reporting helps destroy the myths of war by putting a human face on war's inhumanity. Personally, Sites will come to discover that the greatest danger he faces may not be from bombs and bullets, but from the unsettling power of the truth.

Everything Beautiful Began After ($0.99), by Simon Van Booy

Book Description
Rebecca is young, lost, and beautiful. A gifted artist, she seeks solace and inspiration in the Mediterranean heat of Athens—trying to understand who she is and how she can love without fear.

George has come to Athens to learn ancient languages after growing up in New England boarding schools and Ivy League colleges. He has no close relationships with anyone and spends his days hunched over books or wandering the city in a drunken stupor.

Henry is in Athens to dig. An accomplished young archaeologist, he devotedly uncovers the city’s past as a way to escape his own, which holds a secret that not even his doting parents can talk about.

...And then, with a series of chance meetings, Rebecca, George, and Henry are suddenly in flight, their lives brighter and clearer than ever, as they fall headlong into a summer that will forever define them in the decades to come.

The London Train ($0.99), by Tessa Hadley

Book Description
Unsettled by the recent death of his mother, Paul sets out in search of Pia, his daughter from his first marriage, who has disappeared into the labyrinth of London. Discovering her pregnant and living illegally in a run-down council flat with a pair of Polish siblings, Paul is entranced by Pia’s excitement at living on the edge. Abandoning his second wife and their children in Wales, he joins her to begin a new life in the heart of London.

Cora, meanwhile, is running in the opposite direction, back to Cardiff, to the house she has inherited from her parents. She is escaping her marriage, and the constrictions and disappointments of her life in London. But there is a deeper reason why she cannot stay with her decent Civil Service husband—the aftershocks of which she hasn’t fully come to terms with herself.

Connecting both stories is the London train, and a chance meeting that will have immediate and far-reaching consequences for both Paul and Cora.

Everything Is Wrong with Me: A Memoir of an American Childhood Gone, Well, Wrong ($0.99), by Jason Mulgrew

Book Description
A memoir of startling insight, divine comedy, and irreversible, unconscionable stupidity

Fans of Jason Mulgrew's wildly popular blog know that everything really is wrong with him. The product of a raucous, not-just-semi-but-fully-dysfunctional Philadelphia family, Jason has seen it all—from Little League games of unspeakable horror to citywide parades ending in stab wounds; from hard-partying longshoremen fathers to feathered-hair, no-nonsense, kindhearted mothers; and from conscience-crippling Catholic dogmas to the equally confounding religion of women. With chapter titles like "My Bird: Inadequacy and Redemption" (no, he is not referring to a parakeet) and "On the Relationship Between Genetics and Hustling," Everything Is Wrong with Me proves that, as Jason puts it, "writing is a fantastical exercise in manic depression"—but he never fails to ensure that laughter is part of the routine.

With echoes of Jean Shepherd transplanted to Philly in the eighties and nineties, this book is a must-read for every person who looks back wistfully on his or her childhood and family and wonders, "What were we thinking?"

Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love ($0.99), by Andrew Shaffer

Book Description
Few people have failed at love as spectacularly as the great philosophers. Although we admire their wisdom, history is littered with the romantic failures of the most sensible men and women of every age, including:

Friedrich Nietzsche: "Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent." (Rejected by everyone he proposed to, even when he kept asking and asking.)

Jean-Paul Sartre: "There are of course ugly women, but I prefer those who are pretty." (Adopted his mistress as his daughter.)

Louis Althusser: "The trouble is there are bodies and, worse still, sexual organs." (Accidentally strangled his wife to death.)

And dozens of other great thinkers whose words we revere—but whose romantic decisions we should avoid at all costs.

The Average American Male ($0.99), by Chad Kultgen

Book Description
An offensive, in-your-face, brutally honest and completely hilarious look at male inner life and sexual fantasy—sure to be one of the most controversial books of the year.

The Great Lover ($0.99), by Jill Dawson

Book Description
In 1909, sixteen-year-old Nell Golightly is a housemaid at a popular tea garden near Cambridge University, and Rupert Brooke, a new tenant, is already causing a stir with his boyish good looks and habit of swimming naked in nearby Byron's Pool. Despite her good sense, Nell seems to be falling under the radical young poet's spell, even though Brooke apparently adores no one but himself. Could he ever love a housemaid? Is he, in fact, capable of love at all?

Jill Dawson's The Great Lover imaginatively and playfully gives new voice to Rupert Brooke through the poet's own words and through the remembrances of the spirited Nell. An extraordinary novel, it powerfully conveys the allure of charisma as it captures the mysterious and often perverse workings of the human heart.

Books for a Buck

An eclectic selection, primarily from publisher HarperCollins.

Red-Headed Stepchild ($0.99), the first title in the Sabina Kane series by Jaye Wells is one I'd definitely recommend. I've read the first three in the series and it looks like it's time to pick up a couple more titles soon, so I can catch up.

Book Description
In a world where being of mixed-blood is a major liability, Sabina Kane has the only profession fit for an outcast: assassin. But, her latest mission threatens the fragile peace between the vampire and mage races and Sabina must scramble to figure out which side she's on. She's never brought her work home with her---until now.

This time, it's personal.

You Are Next ($0.99) is the first title in the Karin Schaeffer series by Katia Lief; the third title, Vanishing Girls, is also on sale, marked down to $3.99.

Book Description
He took everything . . . then came back for more.

Former Detective Karin Schaeffer has nothing left to live for after serial killer Martin Price destroys all she holds dear. Known as "The Domino Killer" because he leaves dominoes as a clue to his next victim, Price doesn't stop until an entire family is destroyed. Even when he's locked away in prison, the shadow he casts over Karin's life keeps her in constant darkness.

Then a policeman brings news to her door: Price has escaped. Karin knows where he's headed because of the message he left behind last time, scrawled in blood, on her bathroom mirror—

You are next.

But Karin Schaeffer refuses to run and hide. She feels no fear and has nothing left to lose. And so she waits. She won't stand by and let Price harm any more of her family. And she won't rest until she's put him back behind bars forever . . . or until one of them is dead.

Flatscreen ($0.99), by Adam Wilson, was named one of Amazon's Best Books of the Month, February 2012.

Book Description
Flatscreen tells the story of Eli Schwartz as he endures the loss of his home, the indifference of his parents, the success of his older brother, and the cruel and frequent dismissal of the opposite sex. He is a loser par excellence—pasty, soft, and high—who struggles to become a new person in a world where nothing is new.

Into this scene of apathy rolls Seymour J. Kahn. Former star of the small screen and current paraplegic sex addict, Kahn has purchased Eli’s old family home. The two begin a dangerous friendship, one that distracts from their circumstances but speeds their descent into utter debasement and, inevitably, YouTube stardom.

By story’s end, through unlikely acts of courage and kindness, roles will be reversed, reputations resurrected, and charges (hopefully) dropped. Adam Wilson writes mischief that moves the heart, and Flatscreen marks the wondrous debut of a truth-telling comic voice.

Dishwasher ($0.99), by Pete Jordan

Book Description
Dishwasher is the true story of a man on a mission: to clean dirty dishes professionally in every state in America. Part adventure, part parody, and part miraculous journey of self-discovery, it is the unforgettable account of Pete Jordan's transformation from itinerant seeker into "Dishwasher Pete"—unlikely folk hero, writer, publisher of his own cult zine, and the ultimate professional dish dog—and how he gave it all up for love.

The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris ($0.99), by John Baxter

Book Description
Thrust into the unlikely role of professional "literary walking tour" guide, an expat writer provides the most irresistibly witty and revealing tour of Paris in years.

In this enchanting memoir, acclaimed author and long- time Paris resident John Baxter remembers his yearlong experience of giving "literary walking tours" through the city. Baxter sets off with unsuspecting tourists in tow on the trail of Paris's legendary artists and writers of the past. Along the way, he tells the history of Paris through a brilliant cast of characters: the favorite cafÉs of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Joyce; Pablo Picasso's underground Montmartre haunts; the bustling boulevards of the late-nineteenth-century flÂneurs; the secluded "Little Luxembourg" gardens beloved by Gertrude Stein; the alleys where revolutionaries plotted; and finally Baxter's own favorite walk near his home in Saint-Germain-des-PrÉs.

Paris, by custom and design, is a pedestrian's city—each block a revelation, every neighborhood a new feast for the senses, a place rich with history and romance at every turn. The Most Beautiful Walk in the World is your guide, par excellence, to the true, off-the-beaten-path heart of the City of Lights.

Drinking Closer to Home ($0.99), by Jessica Anya Blau

Book Description
They say you can never really go home again. Adult siblings Anna, Portia, and Emery are about to discover just how true that is.

Nothing: A Memoir of Insomnia ($0.99), by Blake Butler

Book Description
One of the most acclaimed young voices of his generation, Blake Butler now offers his first work of nonfiction: a deeply candid and wildly original look at the phenomenon of insomnia.

Invoking scientific data, historical anecdote, Internet obsession, and figures as diverse as Andy Warhol, Gilles Deleuze, John Cage, Anton LaVey, Jorge Luis Borges, Brian Eno, and Stephen King, Butler traces the tension between sleeping and conscious life. And he reaches deep into his own experience—from disturbing waking dreams, to his father’s struggles with dementia, to his own epic 129-hour bout of insomnia—to reveal the effect of sleeplessness on his imaginative landscape.

The result is an exhilarating exploration of dream and awareness, desperation and relief, consciousness and conscience—a fascinating maze-map of the borders between sleep and the waking world by one of today’s most talked-about writers.

Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?: The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future ($0.99), by John Brockman; This Will Change Everything by the same author is still on sale for 99 cents, also.

Book Description
How is the internet changing the way you think? That is one of the dominant questions of our time, one which affects almost every aspect of our life and future. And it's exactly what John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to more than 150 of the world's most influential minds. Brilliant, farsighted, and fascinating, Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? is an essential guide to the Net-based world.

Seeds: One Man's Serendipitous Journey to Find the Trees That Inspired Famous American Writers from Faulkner to Kerouac, Welty to Wharton ($0.99), by Richard Horan

Book Description
From the wooded road made of golden hemlock running past L. Frank Baum's childhood home to the lonely stump of Scout's oak in Harper Lee's Alabama, author Richard Horan gathers tree seeds—and stories—from the homes of America's most treasured authors. At once a heartfelt paean to literature and a wise, funny, and uplifting account of one man's reconnection with nature, Seeds celebrates Horan's triumphs and calamities on his quest to link trees with great writers—a delightfully original meditation on the nature of inspiration and a one-of-a-kind adventure into literature.

Die, My Love ($0.99), by Kathryn Casey

Book Description
The day before Halloween 2004 was the last day on Earth for respected, well-liked college professor Fred Jablin. That morning, a neighbor discovered his body lying in a pool of blood in the driveway of Jablin's Virginia home. Police immediately turned their attentions to the victim's ex-wife, Piper, a petite, pretty Texas lawyer who had lost a bitter custody battle and would do anything to get her kids back. But Piper was in Houston, one thousand miles away, at the time of the slaying and couldn't possibly have been the killer . . . could she?

So began an investigation into one of the most bizarre cases Virginia and Texas law enforcement agencies had ever encountered: a twisted conspiracy of lies, rage, paranoia, manipulation, and savage murder that would ensnare an entire family—including two lethally close look-alike sisters—and reveal the shocking depravities possible when a dangerously disordered mind slips into madness.

Shattered: The True Story of a Mother's Love, a Husband's Betrayal, and a Cold-Blooded Texas Murder ($0.99), by Kathryn Casey

Book Description
Hero, Husband, Father . . . Monster?

In Creekstone, Texas, a small, quiet suburb of Houston, football was king . . . and David Temple was a prince. A former high school and college gridiron star-turned-coach, he had a fairy-tale marriage to bright, vivacious Belinda Lucas, a teacher at the local high school who was so warm and popular her colleagues called her "The Sunshine Girl."

The fairy tale ended savagely on January 11, 1999, when Belinda's lifeless body was discovered in a closet. Her skull had been shattered by a shotgun blast at close range. She was eight months pregnant.

There was no damning evidence directly linking the brutal murder to husband David, who stood by emotionless and dry-eyed as police searched the crime scene. But a dogged eight-year investigation would expose a shocking history of cruelty and domination, infidelity and rage—ultimately resulting in an epic courtroom battle for the ages—as the scandalous truth was revealed about love betrayed and innocent lives . . . shattered.

Skinny ($0.99), by Diana Spechler

Book Description
After her father’s death, twenty-six-year-old Gray Lachmann finds herself compulsively eating. Desperate to stop binging, she abandons her life in New York City for a job at a southern weight-loss camp. There, caught among the warring egos of her devious co-counselor,Sheena; the self-aggrandizing camp director, Lewis; his attractive assistant,Bennett; and a throng of combative teenage campers, she is confronted by a captivating mystery: her teenage half-sister, Eden, whom Gray never knew existed. Now, while unraveling her father’s lies, Gray must tackle her own self-deceptions and take control of her body and her life.

Visceral, poignant, and often wickedly funny, Skinny illuminates a young woman’s struggle to make sense of the link between hunger and emotion, and to make peace with her demons, her body, and herself.

Lean on Pete ($0.99), by Willy Vlautin, has two editions, with the other (not from HarperCollins) listed at over $8.

Book Description
Fifteen-year-old Charley Thompson wants a home, food on the table, and a high school he can attend for more than part of a year. But as the son of a single father working in warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, Charley's been pretty much on his own. When tragic events leave him homeless weeks after their move to Portland, Oregon, Charley seeks refuge in the tack room of a run-down horse track. Charley's only comforts are his friendship with a failing racehorse named Lean on Pete and a photograph of his only known relative. In an increasingly desperate circumstance, Charley will head east, hoping to find his aunt who had once lived a thousand miles away in Wyoming—but the journey to find her will be a perilous one.

In Vlautin's third novel, Lean on Pete, he reveals the lives and choices of American youth like Charley Thompson who were failed by those meant to protect them and who were never allowed the chance to just be a kid.

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is the RosettaBooks edition of Cat's Cradle ($1.99), by Kurt Vonnegut (the Random House edition is $11.99). I'd definitely be getting this one, if I hadn't already replaced my worn out paperback edition earlier this year.

Book Description
Cat’s Cradle (1963) is Vonnegut's most ambitious novel, which put into the language terms like "wampeter", "kerass" and "granfalloon" as well as a structured religion, Boskonism, and was submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for a Master's Degree in anthropology, and in its sprawling compass and almost uncontrolled (and uncontrollable) invention, may be Vonnegut's best novel.

Written contemporaneously with the Cuban missile crisis and countenancing a version of a world in the grasp of magnified human stupidity, the novel is centered on Felix Hoenikker, a chemical scientist reminiscent of Robert Oppenheimer… except that Oppenheimer was destroyed by his conscience and Hoenikker, delighting in the disastrous chemicals he has invented, has no conscience at all. Hoenikker's "Ice 9" has the potential to convert all liquid to inert ice and thus destroy human existence; he is exiled to a remote island where Boskonism has enlisted all of its inhabitants and where religion and technology collaborate, with the help of a large cast of characters, to destroy civilization.

Vonnegut's compassion and despair are expressed here through his grotesque elaboration of character and situation and also through his created religion which like Flannery O'Connor's "Church Without Christ" (in Wise Blood) acts to serve its adherents by removing them from individual responsibility. Vonnegut had always been taken seriously by science fiction readers and critics (a reception which indeed made him uncomfortable) but it was with Cat’s Cradle that he began to be found and appreciated by a more general audience. His own ambivalence toward science, science fiction, religion and religious comfort comes through in every scene of this novel.

A Trick of Light ($1.56 / £0.99 UK), by Karen Blomain, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $3.99/KLL Eligible).

Book Description
When Hattie Darling’s husband Ben dies on his first night home from an extended business trip, she is devastated. But when she finds among his belongings evidence that there had been another woman in his life, Hattie is unable to mourn Ben as she thinks she should. In an attempt to make peace with her discovery, and against the advice of her friends, Hattie decides to find the other woman and confront her. At the heart of this emotional novel is the intertwining of the lives of two very different women who connect in unexpected and inspiring ways.

The Modern Ayurvedic Cookbook: Healthful, Healing Recipes for Life ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by Amrita Sondhi, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle (at least, in the US - it's $21 for those in the UK, for example).

Book Description
Ayurveda is a holistic healing tradition from India whose history is linked to the development of yoga. It is an ancient system in which physical and spiritual well-being comes from a number of sources, including a healthful diet based on one’s individual constitution.

Ayurveda is about achieving a physical and spiritual balance through a number of means, including yoga, aromatherapy, and diet. This all-vegetarian cookbook based on Ayurvedic traditions features delectable and nutritious recipes that appeal to particular doshas, which are one’s personal constitution based on physical and mental characteristics: fire (pitta), air (vata), and earth (kapha). (The book includes a dosha questionnaire so readers can determine their own.) And while the recipes are authentically Ayurvedic, they feature easy-to-find ingredients and modern-day cooking methods appropriate for busy schedules.

The book also includes yoga postures, cleansing programs, and information on aromatherapy, color therapy, and Abhyanga massage. There are also suggested meat substitutions for non-vegetarians. (Ayurveda is not exclusively vegetarian, although this book is.)

Written with both converts and beginners in mind, The Modern Ayurvedic Cookbook is a twenty-first-century approach to a five-thousand-year-old tradition that will restore your health, energy, and sense of well-being.

Spirit Fighter ($7.69 Kindle, 1.99 B&N), the first novel in the Son of Angels, Jonah Stone series by Jerel Law, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.

Book Description
Percy Jackson, move over! Jonah Stone is here!

What if Nephilim - the children of angels and men-still walked the earth? And their very presence put the entire world in danger? In Spirit Fighter, Jonah and Eliza Stone learn that their mother is a Nephilim and that they have special powers as quarter-angels. When their mom is kidnapped by fallen angels, they must use those powers to save her. Along the way, they discover that there is a very real and dangerous war going on between good and evil and that God has a big part for them to play in that war.

Parents today are looking for fiction that makes Christianity and the Bible exciting for their kids. This series is the Christian answer to Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Kane Chronicles, The Secret Series and other middle-grade series packed with adventure, action, and supernatural fights. Son of Angels, Jonah Stone will be the first series in the market to explore this topic from a biblical perspective with content that is appropriate and exciting for middle-grade readers.

Grade Level: 4 and up

Today's Deals

There is a new coupon at Kobo, openroad30, which gets you 30% off select OpenRoad titles(exp 7/30).

Tantor Media has over 100 audiobook downloads marked down to $5.95 or $6.99 apiece and another 50 CD audiobooks also on sale for $6.99. You'll also find another 130 or so titles in their Mystery & Detective listings (which, oddly, includes some Urban Fantasy novels, including Rachel Caine and Kalayna Price and some Science Fiction from Isaac Asimov) that are marked down to $6.99, but these are bit trickier to find; the list show all their titles in the genre, but only the ones that show a Tantor Download link are included in the sale.

Colters' Woman ($4.24 Kindle), by Maya Banks, is 80% off at Kobo ($0.92) with coupon code romance80, today only. This is the first title in the series; you can still get the epilogue, Colters' Wife, free in the Kindle store.

Book Description
Holly Bardwell is running from her past mistakes. Straight into the arms of the Colter brothers.

Adam, Ethan and Ryan aren’t looking for women. They’re looking for a woman. One woman they know will share their lives and their beds. They’re losing hope they’ll find her, that is until Adam discovers Holly lying in the snow just yards from their cabin.

Adam knows she’s the one the minute he holds her in his arms, and as soon as his brothers see her, they know it too. The only problem is convincing Holly of that fact—and protecting her from the danger of her past.

Warning: This title contains the following: explicit sex, graphic language, ménage a quatre, violence.

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Oliver Pötzsch's Hangman's Daughter Thrillers for $0.99 apiece and the deluxe, hardcover version of The Hangman's Daughter, with illustrations by Ben Gibson, is 60% off.

The Hangman's Daughter

Magdalena, the clever and headstrong daughter of Bavarian hangman Jakob Kuisl, lives with her father outside the village walls and is destined to be married off to another hangman’s son—except that the town physician’s son is hopelessly in love with her. And her father’s wisdom and empathy are as unusual as his despised profession. It is 1659, the Thirty Years’ War has finally ended, and there hasn’t been a witchcraft mania in decades. But now, a drowning and gruesomely injured boy, tattooed with the mark of a witch, is pulled from a river and the villagers suspect the local midwife, Martha Stechlin.

Jakob Kuisl is charged with extracting a confession from her and torturing her until he gets one. Convinced she is innocent, he, Magdalena, and her would-be suitor to race against the clock to find the true killer. Approaching Walpurgisnacht, when witches are believed to dance in the forest and mate with the devil, another tattooed orphan is found dead and the town becomes frenzied. More than one person has spotted what looks like the devil—a man with a hand made only of bones. The hangman, his daughter, and the doctor’s son face a terrifying and very real enemy.

Taking us back in history to a place where autopsies were blasphemous, coffee was an exotic drink, dried toads were the recommended remedy for the plague, and the devil was as real as anything, The Hangman’s Daughter brings to cinematic life the sights, sounds, and smells of seventeenth-century Bavaria, telling the engrossing story of a compassionate hangman who will live on in readers’ imaginations long after they’ve put down the novel.

The Dark Monk

1660: Winter has settled thick over a sleepy village in the Bavarian Alps, ensuring every farmer and servant is indoors on the night a parish priest discovers he's been poisoned. As numbness creeps up his body, he summons the last of his strength to scratch a cryptic sign in the frost.

Following a trail of riddles, hangman Jakob Kuisl; his headstrong daughter, Magdalena; and the town physician’s son team up with the priest’s aristocratic sister to investigate. What they uncover will lead them back to the Crusades, unlocking a troubled history of internal church politics and sending them on a chase for a treasure of the Knights Templar.

But they’re not the only ones after the legendary fortune. A team of dangerous and mysterious monks is always close behind, tracking their every move, speaking Latin in the shadows, giving off a strange, intoxicating scent. And to throw the hangman off their trail, they have ensured he is tasked with capturing a band of thieves roving the countryside attacking solitary travelers and spreading panic.

Delivering on the promise of his international best seller The Hangman’s Daughter, Oliver Pötzsch takes us on a whirlwind tour--once again based on prodigious historical research into his own family tree--through the occult hiding places of Bavaria’s ancient monasteries, bringing to life an unforgettable hangman and his tenacious daughter, painting a robust tableau of 17th-century Bavaria as it navigates the lasting impacts of war, and quickening our pulses with a gripping, mesmerizing mystery.

The Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK is Six Military History books for £0.99 to £1.19 apiece.

Five Days that Shocked the World (Main/UK) by Nicholas Best

April 1945. The mutilated bodies of Mussolini and his mistress hang by their heels in Milan while a hostile crowd whistles and jeers. Desperate to avoid the same fate, Adolf Hitler leaves orders for his own body to be burned after his death. With the Russian Army closing in on Berlin and his world crashing in to flames, Germany’s doomed leader would never allow his enemies the satisfaction of desecrating his corpse. This is the story of an immensely exciting few days, but it is also a snapshot of the whole world at the end of an extraordinary week. Nicholas Best tells a compelling tale of the men and women from all around the world who experienced the final chaotic days of World War II. Fast-paced, at times brutal and at others poignant, this page-turner of a book recreates the dying days of the Axis powers as the Allied armies closed in on Berlin.

El Alamein (Main/UK) by Bryn Hammond

Before the Battle of El Alamein in 1942, the British had never won a major battle on land against the Germans; nor indeed had anyone else. Drawing on a remarkable array of first-hand accounts, this book reveals the personal experiences of those on the frontline and provides fascinating details of how the war was actually fought. It also includes analysis of the strategic decisions made by the generals. El Alamein 1942 is the story of exactly how a seemingly beaten and demoralized army turned near-defeat into victory in a little over four months of protracted and bloody fighting in the harsh North African desert.

World War 2: The Last War Heroes (Main/UK) by Stephen Bull

The companion volume to the groundbreaking TV series, this book tells the story of the physical, emotional and psychological journey of Allied soldiers from the beaches of Normandy to the ruins of Berlin. In their own words these brave men from Britain, the United States, Canada and Russia tell us what it was like to face the bullets, bombs, mortars, mines and artillery shells of Nazi Germany. Interviews with over 80 soldiers who fought in the conflict, totalling 150 hours, provide a new perspective on the experiences of 1944–45. Building on the high-speed, multi-camera filming of World War II weapons and munitions shown in the TV series, this book brings the terrifying reality of the war to life. Technical descriptions and the experiences of the men in the field explain the dramatic power and effect that this weaponry had on the battlefield, from the sinister simplicity of the deadly AP mine through to the immense firepower of the 88mm gun, giving the modern historian a unique insight into the last days of the war for the troops on the frontline. This is not a history of generals, of armies manoeuvring and strategic objectives. It is a book about the ordinary men put into incredible situations, deprived of sleep and food, and in constant fear of death on the long road to victory.

Allies at Dieppe: 4 Commando and the US Rangers (Main/UK) by Will Fowler

In August 1942, the Allies launched a raid against the German-held port of Dieppe on the French channel coast. It was largely a disaster, with the Canadian forces bearing the brunt of the catastrophe. However, it wasn't all a failure, and history has tended to overlook the role of 4 Commando, who, along with their US Ranger counter-parts, landed and successfully disabled the German guns threatening the rest of the landings. Their actions proved an excellent demonstration of the military adage “train hard, fight easy” and showed the advantage of proper operational planning and brilliant leadership.

This controversial raid also included members of the Free French and it was the first time US land forces engaged the Germans on mainland Europe.

Set in the context of the Dieppe raid as a whole, Will Fowler studies the contribution of No. 4 Commando and Operation Cauldron, and evaluates how and why they achieved their objectives in this daring Commando raid of World War II.

I am Soldier (Main/UK) by Richard Holmes and Robert O'Neill

I am Soldier brings together the profiles of sixty soldiers who have fought over the past 2,500. These vivid accounts graphically depict the role of the soldier in battle often using the soldiers’ own words to reveal what they felt during the chaos of war and its aftermath. From the Spartans at Thermopylae to the war in the Persian Gulf, this book shows the lives of the individual men and woman who made up the great armies that changed the world.

Gothic Serpent - Black Hawk Down Mogadishu 1993 (Main/UK) by Clayton Chun

This book tells the story of Task Force Ranger – a unit of US Rangers and Special Forces – and their attempt to capture the lieutenants of the Somali warlord Muhamed Farrah Aideed, during the 1993 United Nations’ humanitarian relief mission. What started as a simple snatch-and-grab mission quickly degenerated into a desperate battle for survival when US Black Hawk helicopters were struck by rocket-propelled grenades and crashed into the streets of Mogadishu. Racing to save the crew, Task Force Ranger was surrounded by mobs of hostile Somali gunmen. The battle in the city raged all night as the better-equipped and better-trained US forces kept the nearly overwhelming numbers of Somalis at bay. Finally, battered, bloodied, and low on ammunition, the Task Force was rescued by a combined UN and US relief force and extracted to safety. Containing detailed maps and declassified information, this is a dramatic retelling of a brutal battle that had a far-reaching impact on US military policy.

Sanibel Scribbles ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Christine Lemmon, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. If you like it, she has two more novels, also on sale for $1.99.

Book Description
"Spend a semester in Spain." "Acquire the world's largest shoe collection." "Lose five pounds." These are some of the life dreams young Vicki Brightman and her best friend Rebecca giddily scribble on a paper tablecloth one night at the Till Midnight Cafe. A charmed childhood and a semester of college behind her, Vicki thought she had all the time in the world to pursue her own sweet pleasures. But a single event later that night shocks Vicki into putting aside her "to-do" list and confronting her mortality.

The ensuing six-month journey -- at times harrowing, uplifting, and enlightening -- send Vicki to a remote island, Spain, and deep into her soul. Her experiences and the colorful strangers she meets -- a happy-go-lucky Spaniard named Nacho, the ever-charming but mysterious Rafael, a courageous matador, a saucy senora -- challenge her views and alter the dreams she once held dear on her list.

This novel has all the elements that readers have come to love from Christine Lemmon, namely life-changing moments that demand women re-examine their priorities and live life with gusto.

The Rescue ($4.61 Kindle, $2.99 B&N), the third in Kathryn Lasky's Guardians of Ga'Hoole series, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.

Book Description
(A)g classic hero mythology, chronicles Soren's quest for his missing mentor, Ezylryb, and battle against his evil brother, Kludd.

Now that Soren has been reunited with his sister, Eglantine, he must face his next challenge: making sense of the mysterious disappearance of his mentor, Ezylryb. When Soren discovers that Ezylryb is in danger, he and his friends Gylfie, Twilight, and Digger devise a plan to save the beloved teacher.

In this process, Soren must fight a ferocious foe who wears a terrifying metal beak, sharpened for battle. It's not until the confrontation is over that Soren discovers the true identity of his opponent. The metal beaked warrior is Soren's evil brother, Kludd.