Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Not Norman ($1.99), by Kelly Bennett and Noah Z. Jones (Illustrator) [Candlewick]. This book features Kindle Text Pop-Up for reading text over vivid, full-color images when using Kindle Fire/HD or select Kindle Reading Apps (Kindle Cloud Reader, Kindle for iPad or Kindle for Android); unlike some other Text Popup books, this one won't work on any of the eInk Kindles. Book Description
Norman the goldfish isn’t what this little boy had in mind. He wanted a different kind of pet — one that could run and catch, or chase string and climb trees, a soft furry pet to sleep on his bed at night. Definitely not Norman. But when he tries to trade Norman for a "good pet," things don’t go as he planned. Could it be that Norman is a better pet than he thought? With wry humor and lighthearted affection, author Kelly Bennett and illustrator Noah Z. Jones tell an unexpected — and positively fishy — tale about finding the good in something you didn’t know you wanted.
Age Range: 4 - 8 years
Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Hot Rock ($1.99), the first novel in Donald E Westlake's Dortmunder series [Open Road], with the companion audiobook for $3.95.Book Description
Fresh out of prison, Dortmunder plans a heist that could mean war
John Dortmunder leaves jail with ten dollars, a train ticket, and nothing to make money on but his good name. Thankfully, his reputation goes far. No one plans a caper better than Dortmunder. His friend Kelp picks him up in a stolen Cadillac and drives him away from Sing-Sing, telling a story of a $500,000 emerald that they just have to steal. Dortmunder doesn’t hesitate to agree.
The emerald is the crown jewel of a former British colony, lately granted independence and split into two nations: one for the Talabwo people, one for the Akinzi. The Akinzi have the stone, the Talabwo want it back, and their UN representative offers a fine payday to the men who can get it. It’s not a simple heist, but after a few years in stir, Dortmunder could use the challenge.
Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is When Strawberries Bloom ($1.99), by Linda Byler [Good Books].Book Description
New love and even more questions enter Lizzie Glick’s life in When Strawberries Bloom, the second novel in a series by an Amish writer and based on life experiences.
Lizzie’s dream of teaching school has finally come true. She loves the brand-new school building, the sound of the children singing, and the independence she has in the classroom. Even the occasionally unruly boys can’t ruin the excitement she feels each morning when she starts the school day.
But at home things are in turmoil again. What do Dat’s sudden health problems mean for the future of their farm? And what about Lizzie’s future? Emma and Mandy are so certain that Joshua and John are their perfect matches, but Lizzie doesn’t know what to think about Stephen and how he might fit into her life.
What will Lizzie decide? Will she continue to teach school? Or will she give up that dream so that her wish for marriage and a family can come true?
Stephen says he loves her, but Lizzie isn’t sure he really understands her. Can she hope to find anyone within her Amish community who loves her bright mind, her ever-active imagination, her competitive spirit, and her stormy humor?
Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is Robert Kroese’s Disenchanted ($0.99), which was initially released as a Kindle Serial.Book Description
Robert Kroese’s Disenchanted comes fully loaded with the wit and charm of The Princess Bride and a sense of humor all its own. This clever take on the traditional fantasy includes footnotes that keep the narrator honest, a cast of characters that resembles something out of the Island of Misfit Toys, and a fantastic setting filled with words and names that test pronunciation skills.
Being assassinated doesn't have many upsides, so when King Boric is felled by a traitor, the king comforts himself with the knowledge that, like all great warriors, he will spend eternity carousing in the Hall of Avandoor. There's just one problem: to claim his heavenly reward, Boric must release the enchanted sword of Brakslaagt.
Now, to avoid being cursed to walk the land of Dis forever as an undead wraith, he must hunt down the mysterious Lord Brand who gave him the sword twenty years ago. So begins Boric's extraordinary journey across the Six Kingdoms of Dis, a walking corpse who wants nothing more than to be disenchanted and left in peace. Along the way he's advised by the Witch of Twyllic, mocked by the threfelings of New Threfelton, burned, shot at, and nearly blown to bits. But nothing can prepare him for coming face-to-face with Lord Brand. For in that moment, Boric discovers that nothing—in life, in death, or in between—is exactly what it seems.
The Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK is three books by Damon Galgut for £0.99 each (at least 80% off): The Good Doctor, The Imposter and The Quarry. The Good Doctor won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was shortlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the Dublin/IMPAC Award. His most recent novel, In a Strange Room was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010. The Good Doctor (Main/UK; no US edition)
A powerful, taut and intense tale of a friendship overshadowed by betrayal, set against the tawdry hopes and disappointments of a post-apartheid South Africa. When Laurence Waters arrives at his new post at a deserted rural hospital, staff physician Frank Eloff is instantly suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not-young, optimistic, and full of big ideas. The whole town is beset with new arrivals and the return of old faces. Frank reestablishes a liaison with a woman, one that will have unexpected consequences. A self-made dictator from apartheid days is rumored to be active in cross-border smuggling, and a group of soldiers has moved in to track him, led by a man from Frank's own dark past. Laurence sees only possibilities-but in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present, his ill-starred idealism cannot last.The Imposter (Main/UK; US edition $8.80)
When Adam moves into an abandoned house on the dusty edge of town, he is hoping to recover from the loss of his job and his home in the city. But when he meets Canning - a shadowy figure from his childhooh - and Canning's enigmatic and beautiful wife, a sinister new chapter in his life begins. Canning has inherited a vast fortune and built for himself a giant folly in the veld, a magical place of fantasy and dreams that seduces Adam and transforms him absolutely, violently - and perhaps forever. Damon Galgut's magnificent novel evokes a hot and cruel and claustrophobic world, in which sex and death are never far from the surface. It is his most powerful and unforgettable novel yet.The Quarry (Main/UK; US edition $8.69)
Damon Galgut established himself as a writer of international caliber with the publication of The Good Doctor, which was sold in sixteen countries and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize for the African region. The Quarry, written ten years ago but never published outside of South Africa, is another stark, intense, and crystalline novel in which human nature betrays itself against the desolate backdrop of rural South Africa. On a lonely stretch of road a man picks up a hitchhiker. The driver is a minister on his way to a new rural congregation; the passenger is a fugitive. When the minister realizes this, the fugitive kills him. He assumes his vestments and identity, only to discover that one of his first duties as the new minister is to preside over his victim's funeral. As the fugitive and the local police chief play a tense game of cat and mouse, culminating in a pursuit across the desolate veldt, Damon Galgut gives us a spare, devastating combat for man's most prized attribute: freedom.
My Brilliant Friend ($9.99 Kindle, $2.99 B&N), by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein [Penguin], is the Nook Daily Find. This should have already dropped to match prices at Amazon, since it is an Agency model publisher, so be sure to check back later if it hasn't dropped yet when you read this post.Book Description
A modern masterpiece from one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship.
The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other. They are likewise the embodiments of a nation undergoing momentous change. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists, the unforgettable Elena and Lila.
Ferrante is the author of three previous works of critically acclaimed fiction: The Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love, and The Lost Daughter. With this novel, the first in a trilogy, she proves herself to be one of Italy’s great storytellers. She has given her readers a masterfully plotted page-turner, abundant and generous in its narrative details and characterizations, that is also a stylish work of literary fiction destined to delight her many fans and win new readers to her fiction.
