Kindle Daily Deals 6/23

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is 27 spy and assassin thrillers for $1.99 apiece. That's too many to include in one post, so I'm just listing the authors included (click the link above for the entire sale list), but do note that there are a LOT of Ian Fleming James Bond titles on this sale. Many also have companion audiobooks, for as low as $1.99, for those that prefer to listen or use the immersion reading on their Kindle Fire.

Authors included:

• Ian Fleming
• J.A. Konrath
• J.C. Carleson

• Michael Prescott
• Gregory Widen
• J. Carson Black
• Dan Mayland

Celebrate Sonic The Hedgehog's Anniversary with savings on Four Android Sonic Games for $0.99 (regularly up to $5)

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is Her Knight in Black Leather ($0.99), by JM Stewart [Crimson Romance].

Book Description
Cat Edwards has spent her life playing the wallflower in an effort to escape the repressive weight of her mother’s tarnished name. Dragged to a bar by her best friend in an effort to forget a broken heart, the shy bookworm is determined to be someone else for the night, but quickly gets in over her head. She discovers chivalry isn’t dead after all when a mysterious stranger comes to her rescue. He’s wearing black leather and a mischievous smile that promises to be exactly what she needs.

When his terminally ill father suffers a setback, Michael Brant returns to the town he swore ten years ago he’d never return to. He’s come home this time determined to make peace with the past that haunts him, but being home brings up memories he doesn’t want to remember anymore. His first night in town, he’s captured by a damsel in distress. Cat’s beauty is made all the more alluring when he realizes she has no idea who he is. He can’t resist spending a single night in her arms. With her, he’s only a man, disconnected from his family’s name and the past that haunts him here.

As the town erupts with the news of his return, Michael’s dark past comes back to haunt him, putting Cat danger. Someone is threatening her life and the life of her family. Desperate to keep history from repeating itself, Michael offers her his family’s name in order to keep her safe. When the lie spirals beyond their control, can they stop their hearts from becoming entangled as well?

Sensuality Level: Sensual

Today's Kindle Teen Daily Deal is Finn Finnegan ($1.99), by Darby Karchut [Spencer Hill Press].

Book Description
Finn (not bleedin Finnegan) MacCullen is eager to begin his apprenticeship. He soon discovers the ups and downs of hunting monsters in a suburban neighborhood under the demanding tutelage of the Knight, Gideon Lir. Both master and apprentice are descendents of the Tuatha De Danaan, a magical race of warriors from Ireland. Scattered long ago to the four corners of the world, the De Danaan wage a two thousand year old clandestine battle with their ancient enemy, the Amandn, a breed of goblin-like creatures.Now with the beasts concentrating their attacks on Finn, he and his master must race to locate the lost Spear of the Tuatha De Danaan, the only weapon that can destroy the Amandn, all the while hiding his true identity from his new friends, Rafe and Savannah, twins whose South African roots may hold a key to Finns survival. Armed with a bronze dagger, some ancient Celtic magic, and a hair-trigger temper, Finn is about to show his enemies the true meaning of fighting Irish.

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is Seven Princes ($1.99), the first novel of the Books of the Shaper Trilogy by John R. Fultz [Orbit], with the companion audiobook for $3.99. I thought it was a good deal when I bought in it December; it's an even better deal at this price.

Book Description
It is an Age of Legends.

Under the watchful eye of the Giants, the kingdoms of Men rose to power. Now, the Giant-King has slain the last of the Serpents and ushered in an era of untold peace and prosperity. Where a fire-blackened desert once stood, golden cities flourish in verdant fields.

It is an Age of Heroes.

But the realms of Man face a new threat-- an ancient sorcerer slaughters the rightful King of Yaskatha before the unbelieving eyes of his son, young Prince D'zan. With the Giant-King lost to a mysterious doom, it seems that no one has the power to stop the coming storm.

It is an Age of War.

The fugitive Prince seeks allies across the realms of Men and Giants to liberate his father's stolen kingdom. Six foreign Princes are tied to his fate. Only one thing is certain: War is coming.

SEVEN PRINCES.

Some will seek glory.

Some will seek vengeance.

All will be legends.

Nook Daily Find 6/23

No Tan Lines ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), the first Barefoot William novel by Kate Angell, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
There's a place where the ocean meets the shore, where kicking off your shoes and baring some skin is as natural as sneaking under the boardwalk for an ice cream cone and stolen kisses.

But life isn't all a beach for Shaye Cates, even if her idea of an office is a shady umbrella at the water's edge equipped with cell phone and laptop. Steely-eyed Trace Saunders is the incredibly irksome fly in her coconut tanning oil. And running a kids' softball team with her longtime rival is going to have everyone in her little Florida town buzzing. Her scads of laid-back relatives and his whole uptight clan know that Shaye just wants to play ball while Trace thinks only of business. But beneath the twinkling lights of the ferris wheel, the magic of sea and sand can sweep away every inhibition . . .

Suddenly, it's summertime, and the lovin' is easy.

UK Kindle Daily Deal 6/23

Eleven Days (£0.99 UK), the second Carrigan and Miller police thriller by Stav Sherez, is the Kindle Deal of the Day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.09).

Book Description
A fire rages through a sleepy West London square, engulfing a small convent hidden away among the residential houses. When DI Jack Carrigan and DS Geneva Miller arrive at the scene they discover eleven bodies, yet there were only supposed to be ten nuns in residence.

It's eleven days before Christmas, and despite their superiors wanting the case solved before the holidays, Carrigan and Miller start to suspect that the nuns were not who they were made out to be. Why did they make no move to escape the fire? Who is the eleventh victim, whose body was found separate to the others? And where is the convent's priest, the one man who can answer their questions?

Fighting both internal politics and the church hierarchy, Carrigan and Miller unravel the threads of a case which reaches back to the early 1970s, and the upsurge of radical Liberation Theology in South America - with echoes of the Shining Path, and contemporary battles over oil, land and welfare. Meanwhile, closer to home, there's a new threat in the air, one the police are entirely unprepared for...

Spanning four decades and two continents, Eleven Days finds Carrigan and Miller up against time as they face a new kind of criminal future.

Date with a Regency Rake (£0.99 UK), by Marguerite Kaye and Anne Herries [Mills & Boon], is the Kindle Deal of the Day for for Romance Fans in the UK (no US edition).

Book Description
Wicked Lords

The Honourable Clarissa Warrington despairs when her beautiful, foolish sister becomes the latest female to set her cap at the ton’s most notorious rake. For Amelia’s sake, Clarissa must act fast… The devastatingly attractive Kit, Lord Rasenby, is bored and so is tempted by Clarissa’s unusual offer. If he can provide her with the adventure of a lifetime, she will give him – herself!

­­Rebellious Ladies

Tomboy Miss Caroline Holbrook can’t imagine settling into a dull, respectable marriage. Undaunted, her aunt’s determined to see Caroline at all the best gatherings in town. Caroline’s zest for life and alluring innocence draw the attention of Sir Frederick Rathbone – who is far from dull! But can this rakish and most sought-after bachelor be trusted?

Kindle Daily Deals 6/22

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is One Last Thing Before I Go ($2.99), by Jonathan Tropper [Penguin].

Book Description
The bestselling author of This Is Where I Leave You returns with a hilarious and heart-rending tale about one family's struggle to reconnect.

“Mistakes have been made.” Drew Silver has begun to accept that life isn’t going to turn out as he expected. His fleeting fame as the drummer for a one-hit wonder rock band is nearly a decade behind him. His ex-wife is about to marry a terrific guy. And his Princeton-bound teenage daughter Casey has just confided in him that she’s pregnant— because Silver is the one she cares least about letting down.

So when Silver learns that he requires emergency life-saving heart surgery, he makes the radical decision to refuse the operation, choosing instead to spend what time he has left to repair his relationship with Casey, become a better man, and live in the moment — even if that moment isn’t going to last very long. As his exasperated family looks on, Silver grapples with the ultimate question of whether or not his own life is worth saving.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is The Genius and the Muse ($1.99), by Elizabeth Hunter [indie].

Book Description
The first contemporary romance from the author of the best-selling Elemental Mysteries.

When Kate Mitchell decided to research the mysterious portrait in the student gallery, she had no idea how her life would change. She thought she knew what she wanted in life. She had a great boyfriend, a promising career, and a clear path.

How could one simple portrait change all that?

A photograph. A sculpture. A painting. One clue leads to another, and Kate learns that pieces of the past might leave unexpected marks on her own future, too.

And how, exactly, did she end up in an irritable sculptor's studio?

One portrait may hold the answers, but learning its secrets will challenge everything Kate thought she knew about love, art, and life. A single picture can tell more than one story, and in the end, a young artist will discover that every real love story is a unique work of art.

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is Deadeye Dick ($1.99), by Kurt Vonnegut [RosettaBooks].

Book Description
Rudy Waltz (aka "Deadeye Dick") is the lead in this latter day Vonnegut novel. Waltz, our protagonist, moves through the book trying to make sense of a life that is rife with disaster; there is a double murder, a fatal dose of radioactivity, a decapitation, the total annihilation of a city by nuclear holocaust and, believe it or not, more. Waltz, a diarist, becomes symbolic of a person living a fraught post-technological life in which frailty is as likely to be a person's undoing as any bomb.

Waltz finally reaches the point of resignation; a realization and understanding that there are things that are just beyond our control and understanding that make all human motive, ambition, and circumstance absolutely irrelevant. Waltz's search for meaning leads him ultimately to a kind of resignation which ought not be confused with understanding of any kind, for it is not. It is simple resignation.

It is this theme of Vonnegut's--the impossibility of trying to live meaningfully in a meaningless world--that is ultimately central to this novel. Rudy Waltz (like some of Vonnegut's other protagonists, Billy Pilgrim or Howard Campbell) is ultimately only a stand-in for Vonnegut himself who is really narrating for us as the lead witness and character here--the philosopher who is telling us why and what for.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is The Marble Queen ($1.99), by Stephanie J. Blake [Two Lions].

Book Description
Freedom Jane McKenzie isn’t good at following the rules. She doesn’t like any of the things that girls are supposed to like. She’s good at fishing, getting into trouble—and playing marbles. All she wants is to enter the marble competition at the Autumn Jubilee and show the boys in the neighborhood that she’s the best player. If she can’t be the Marble King, then she’ll be the Marble Queen. First, Freedom has to convince her mother to let her enter. But there’s a new baby on the way, Freedom’s daddy is drinking too much, her little brother is a handful, and her mother is even more difficult than usual. Freedom learns that when it comes to love, friendship, and family, sometimes there are no rules. Set in 1959, The Marble Queen is a timeless story about growing up.

The author of The Marble Queen has donated this book to the Worldreader program

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5th and up

Nook Daily Find 6/22

Two to Mango ($8.49 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the second novel in the Tiki Goddess Mystery series by Jill Marie Landis [Bell Bridge Books], is the Nook Daily Find.

Book Description
Forget the grass skirts. Some of the Island's top hula dancers are pushing up daisies.

Everyone at Em Johnson's famous North Shore Kauai hang-out, The Tiki Goddess Bar, knows that the bar's irrepressible Hula Maidens take their hula dancing seriously. So when famed hula instructors from a rival dance troop start dropping like over-ripe passion fruit, Em and the Hula Maidens go undercover at the Kukui Nut Festival Hula Competition to uncover the killer. Em is once again up to her okole in danger and mystery, not to mention the seductive challenge of working with hunky detective Roland Sharpe, who moonlights as one of the island's sexiest fire dancers.

The hula is lively, the luau is smoking, the mai tais are delicious, and a killer is looking to get away with murder in paradise.

New York Times Bestselling Author JILL MARIE LANDIS has written over twenty-five novels, which have earned awards and slots on such national bestseller lists as the USA TODAY Top 50 and the New York Times Best Sellers Plus. She is a seven-time finalist for Romance Writers of America's RITA Award in both Single Title and Contemporary Romance as well as a Golden Heart and RITA Award winner. She's written historical and contemporary romance as well as inspirational historical romance, and she is now penning The Tiki Goddess Mystery Series, which began with MAI TAI ONE ON.

New 99 cent Bargain Books (part II)

More 99 cent books from William Morrow (HarperCollins)

Green Girls ($0.99 Kindle), by Michael Kimball

Book Description
A writer, a father, a husband, the owner of a strictly ordered life, Jacob Winter is not a man prone to violence—until the day he walks in unexpectedly on his wife's affair. Awakening in a small-town Maine jail with no memory of his alleged rampage, he is bailed out by Alix Callahan, a mysterious ethnobotanist who claims to own a small piece of his past. Drawn into her obsessive relationship with July, an exotic Indian beauty from the rainforests of South America, Jacob is simultaneously mesmerized and unnerved by the two women's strange erotic dance as his meticulously controlled world slips even farther out of its orbit—leading him to a clandestine meeting at the top of a bridge, where he helplessly watches Alix plunge 250 feet into the raging waters below. A suicide, a murder, neither, or both pull Jacob Winter into a twisted game of dark deceptions and psychological terror, one that could destroy his sanity and his soul.

Body Language and Emotion of Cats ($0.99 Kindle), by Myrna Milani

Book Description
What does your cat really want when it rubs up against your leg?
Is it showing affection or aggression when it sucks a hole in your favorite sweater?
Why does it turn up its nose at the cat food you bought on sale, settling only for the most expensive meal?

Making use of the latest scientific evidence on animal consciousness, Dr. Milani shows how a thorough understanding of feline anatomy, physiology, and behavior can lead to a warm and lasting bond between cats and the people who love them. She also lets us know what our responses to feline behavior tell the cat about us and our emotions.

The Body Language and Emotion of Cats is a fascinating guide to understanding this enigmatic pet and provides a way to enrich and expand the bond between owner and cat.

The Witch Doctor's Wife with Bonus Material ($0.99 Kindle), by Tamar Myers (besides the starred reviews, my mother loved this).

Book Description
For a limited time at a special price, enjoy beloved mystery writer Tamar Myers' novel The Witch Doctor's Wife—an enthralling tale of duty, greed, danger, and miracles in equatorial Africa. As a bonus, you get an excerpt from The Headhunter's Daughter and The Boy Who Stole the Leopard's Spots, on sale May 8, 2012.

The Congo beckons to young Amanda Brown in 1958, as she follows her missionary calling to the mysterious "dark continent" far from her South Carolina home. But her enthusiasm cannot cushion her from the shock of a very foreign culture—where competing missionaries are as plentiful as flies, and oppressive European overlords are busy stripping the land of its most valuable resource: diamonds.

Little by little, Amanda is drawn into the lives of the villagers in tiny Belle Vue—and she is touched by the plight of the local witch doctor, a man known as Their Death, who has been forced to take a second job as a yardman to support his two wives. But when First Wife stumbles upon an impossibly enormous uncut gem, events are set in motion that threaten to devastate the lives of these people Amanda has come to admire and love—events that could lead to nothing less than murder.

The Gazebo: A Novel ($0.99 Kindle), by Emily Grayson

Book Description
The Gazebo is an elegantly written story of enduring love and loyalty, in the popular tradition of The Bridges of Madison County and The Notebook.

Once a year for half a century, a man and a woman have been meeting at the gazebo in the square of a small town in upstate New York. Martin Rayfiel and Claire Swift long ago married other people, yet they have remained faithful to their vow to love each other always. When Martin, now a handsome, elderly man, walks into the office of the town newspaper and tries to tell his tale to the young editor Abby Reston, she is too busy to listen. But the next day Abby finds herself drawn to the gazebo to watch for the annual arrival of Martin and Claire. She waits and waits, but they don't come. Puzzled and intrigued, Abby finds a briefcase that Martin left behind for her, and in it--in photographs, papers, tape recordings, and mementos--is the entire astonishing story of Martin and Claire, a love affair that spanned the globe and somehow survived for fifty years.

The only son of the town's wealthiest family, Martin dreamed of being a world-class chef, while Claire, born of poor parents, hoped to be a sculptor. Despite their disparate backgrounds, and in defiance of small-town morality, they left everything behind and traveled together through Europe, until family allegiances suddenly and unexpectedly called Claire home. Before they parted, they vowed that, no matter what, they would meet at the gazebo once a year. Now it's up to Abby to find out what drove these lovers apart, why they continued to meet over the decades, and where they are now.

From the picturesque square in the center of a small town to the hotels, restaurants, museums, and boulevards of Paris, Florence, and London, Martin and Claire's story offers a voyage of discovery that transforms Abby Reston's own life. The Gazebo is a haunting tale of love and faithfulness that no reader will ever forget.

Healthy Kids: Help Them Eat Smart and Stay Active--For Life ($0.99 Kindle), by Marilu Henner

Book Description
We all want our children to be fit and healthy, but the current invasion of fast food, sugary snacks, and oversize portions are creating an epidemic of overweight, inactive, and unhealthy kids. The powerful influences of the fast-food industry, omnipresent junk food advertising, and the vicious cycle of TV, computer games, and Internet addictions only make our children more susceptible to a sedentary lifestyle and a lifetime of bad habits and obesity. Now, health pioneer and dedicated mom Marilu Henner says it's time to say good-bye to sugarcoated cereals, artificially colored cheese puffs, oceans of sugary soft drinks, nutritionally deficient school lunches, and fastfood supermeals!

As Marilu explains, parents who want the best for their children need to feed them fresh, whole foods to grow by. In Healthy Kids she shows you how to create a healthy, balanced lifestyle for your kids and how to make the transition from dairy-, fat-, sugar-, and chemical-laden foods to the vibrant, natural, nourishing foods we were all meant to eat.

Healthy Kids offers a proven plan to help parents and kids alike learn to eat healthier and feel better.

Between Earth & Sky ($0.99 Kindle), by Karen Osborn; a quick check of the sample shows promise.

Book Description
Years ago, Abby Reynolds was given the letters written by her great-great-grandmother who traveled from Virginia to New Mexico in a covered wagon just after the Civil War. Now, at a crossroads in her life, Abby reads Abigail's letters and follows her ancestor's trail westward where she seeks to understand the other woman's life in a land that was so foreign to her family, they all but forgot her.

Between Earth and Sky records two journeys—Abby's search of New Mexico where she meets an old Hispanic woman whom she shares a strange kinship with, and Abigail's travels through Indian territory into a life filled with danger, forbidden love, children she could not have imagined, and always the wide arc of the sky and the strange but magical earth that lies beneath it. Part epistolary, part narrative, Between Earth and Sky forms a love letter to the land itself and to those who chose to people it.

The Heart of the Matter: The Three Key Breakthroughs to Preventing Heart Attacks ($0.99 Kindle), by Peter Salgo and Joe Layden

Book Description
By the head of the Open Heart ICU at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital––an incredibly persuasive and revolutionary approach for lowering the risks of heart disease –– this plan links high cholesterol and Chlamydia as risk factors and lays out a program to combat both.

We are on the cusp of an enormous breakthrough in preventing heart attacks – forever. We are in the same place we were just before penicillin revolutionized the treatment of infectious disease, before fluoride eradicated tooth decay, and just before the polio vaccine brought that disease under control in this country. In The Heart of the Matter, Dr. Peter Salgo, the associate director of the Open Heart ICU at New York Presbyterian Hospital, offers a simple formula to treat people before they get sick, which in turn will prevent heart attacks before they occur.

For the first time in history, we know what really causes heart attack. And that knowledge has led Dr. Salgo to this amazingly simple and straightforward program that will save millions of lives. Dr. Salgo recommends using statins, antibiotics, and aspirin to prevent coronary heart disease. This groundbreaking book also offers a self–test that readers can take to assess their own personal risk for heart disease.

The Heart of the Matter is the beginning of a change in the treatment of heart disease. It introduces a preventative program that includes traditional diet and exercise guidelines as well as a blanket recommendation that adults, even many young adults, incorporate medicines into the on–going pursuit for health and longevity – something that, until now, seemed impossible to many. Now, without using a lot of indecipherable medical jargon, this invaluable new guide will show you exactly how to attain that longer, healthier life that so many people wish for.

How Much Does Your Soul Weigh?: Diet-Free Solutions to Your Food, Weight, and Body Worries ($0.99 Kindle), by Dorie McCubbrey

Book Description
You hold in your hands a life-changing weight control revelation -- a holistic approach to help you overcome all eating and weight problems from anorexia to obesity. This innovative book will shed light on your unsuccessful attempts at dieting and help you begin to heal from the inside out, once and for all!

How many "miracle diets" have you tried? How many minutes and hours have you spent worrying about the numbers on the bathroom scale? How many times have you lost weight only to gain it back along with renewed disappointment and frustration? You've worried about how much your body weighs, but have you asked:

How Much Does Your Soul Weigh?

Dr. Doric McCubbrey, a weight-issues specialist whose practice boasts a 95 percent success rate, reveals that the weight of your soul may be preventing you from effecting the changes you want to see in your appearance and self-esteem. By starting Dr. Dorie's plan for "Intuitive Self-Care," you can begin to unburden your soul of all the "weighty attitudes" of the diet mentality -- rigid rules, negative self-talk, and unrealistic goals -- that lead to very real feelings of disappointment and hopelessness.

With empathy and insight, Dr. Doric explores and explains the importance of a soulful attitude toward your eating, exercise, and weight.

Child No More: A Memoir ($0.99 Kindle), by Xaviera Hollander

Book Description
In the bestselling The Happy Hooker and subsequent books, Xaviera Hollander became famous for her unforgettably candid and racy stories of life as a New York madam catering to a sophisticated international clientele during the 1960s and 70s. Yet this remarkable woman's sexual escapades form only a part of her own remarkable life story—a story she reveals for the first time in the pages of this literary memoir, Child No More. It was a life begun in terror: Two months after her birth, young Xaviera de Vries and her mother were confined in a prison camp during the WWII Japanese occupation of Indonesia; her father, a doctor, was imprisoned in another camp. Two years later, summoned to treat a sick child, he operated on his own daughter without realizing her identity. But that story is just the start of an extraordinary memoir in which she traces her own life—and sexuality—as it was influenced by the example of her parents: her father, a dapper and witty Jewish psychologist and intellectual, her mother the gorgeous daughter of conventional German parents, and a target of Nazi enmity for her association with a Jew. With breathtaking but entirely characteristic—frankness, Xaviera revisits how her parents' own tempestuous relationship (and her father's licentious lifestyle) shaped her own life story. As she chronicles her eventual departure for New York, her entree into the world of prostitution, and her years of international celebrity, she reveals for the first time how her parents' lives continued to entwine with her own, as she endured years of separation from her father, and even stood by her mother as she entered a fulfilling lesbian relationship in the last years of her life. Told in the utterly frank and unquenchably inquisitive voice that marks all her work—yet from an entirely new and ultimately more honest perspective—Child No More recounts a surprising and ultimately uplifting "voyage of discovery through three lives."

King of the City ($0.99 Kindle), by Michael Moorcock

Book Description
More than a decade ago, Michael Moorcock's extraordinary Mother London gave stunning new breath and style to contemporary literature. With Bruce Chatwin's Utz and Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, the novel was short-listed for Britain's prestigious Whitbread Prize. Now, with scathing wit and enthralling vision, the author whom the Washington Post has praised as "one of the most exciting discoveries in the contemporary English novel [in] 40 or so years" returns to a city transformed and transforming, and in peril of its life.

These are the times and trials of Dennis Dover, former rock guitarist, photojournalist, and paparazzo. Denny inhabits a world of vibrant color, smell, and sound, where novel experience and unpredictability are anchored by steadfast tradition and history. Mother London's many vagaries give Denny Dover joy and succor, always seducing him home from the Earth's terrible places, where the face of death is as common as the blood that stains the local dirt. And London is where Rosie Beck is, when she isn't off elsewhere combating the planet's great ills.

Denny's brilliant, beautiful, socially conscious cousin has always been an indispensable part of his being -- his soul mate and his soul. Since childhood they have been inseparable, delighting in the daily discoveries of a life with no limits. But now the metropolis that nurtured them is threatened by a powerful, unstoppable force that consumes the past indiscriminately and leaves nothing of substance in its wake.

The terminator is named John Barbican Begg. A hanger-on from Denny and Rosie's youth, he has become the morally corrupt center of their London and the richest, most rapacious creature in the Western Hemisphere. Now, as their cherished landmarks tumble, conspiracy, secrets, lies, and betrayal become the centerpieces of Rosie and Dennis's days. For Barbican has but one goal: to devour the entire world. And the only choice left is to join in, drop out ... or plot to destroy.

A sprawling work of incomparable invention, King of the City is eccentric and remarkable, a unique urban love story with a pit-bull bite that confirms the unparalleled literary genius of the amazing Michael Moorcock.

Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong ($0.99 Kindle), by Alan Colmes

Book Description
As one of the foremost liberal voices in television and radio today, Alan Colmes has long been braving the wilds of controversial issues and conservative slander. The host of the talk-radio show Fox News Live with Alan Colmes and cohost of Fox News Channel's hit debate show Hannity & Colmes, Colmes now offers this witty, passionate wake-up call to America.

Colmes takes on the fundamental question: How can we protect our nation without diminishing our liberties, and regain our place in the world as an example of democracy? Colmes urges Americans to see past the government's manipulation of the War on Terror to silence critics; the lies we've been force-fed about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the conservative smear campaign that has turned "liberal" into a four-letter word. From debunking the myth of the liberal media to exposing conservative hypocrisy, Colmes presents the issues with thoughtful, provocative arguments, hard facts and logic, and searing humor.

Certain to spark debate and cause readers to reevaluate and reaffirm their beliefs, Red, White & Liberal powerfully argues that despite our differences, we must extend our hands across party lines to find solutions, protect our shores, and preserve our freedoms.

Test Pattern: A Novel ($0.99 Kindle), by Marjorie Klein

Book Description
A dazzling and strikingly original fiction debut from an exciting new talent

From the moment a new TV set arrives at the Palmer household in 1954 in Newport News, Virginia, change is in the wind. Eleven-year-old Cassie glimpses snapshots of the future in the hypnotic test pattern. Mesmerized, Cassie sees snippets from Kennedy's assassination, the Beatles' debut, man's landing on the Moon, and the O. J. Simpson trial. Her starstruck mother, Lorena, delights in the magical images flickering on the screen too, and finds the strength to pursue her dreams of becoming a professional dancer. Lorena soon plunges into an affair with an old flame, whose cousin turns out to be a talent scout for Arthur Godfrey, and risks her marriage to Cassie's dad, an accident-prone, depressed construction worker. As Lorena learns that the path to fame and fortune is strewn with obstacles, Cassie's own eyes are being opened to the world outside of provincial Newport News-and to the even richer world within herself.

Brilliantly re-creating the innocence and energy of the '50s, Test Pattern is a tour de force of wit, spirit, and imagination. From the moment a new TV set arrives at the Palmer household in 1954 in Newport News, Virginia, change is in the wind. Eleven-year-old Cassie glimpses snapshots of the future in the hypnotic test pattern. Mesmerized, Cassie sees snippets from Kennedy's assassination, the Beatles' debut, man's landing on the Moon, and the O. J. Simpson trial. Her starstruck mother, Lorena, delights in the magical images flickering on the screen too, and finds the strength to pursue her dreams of becoming a professional dancer. Lorena soon plunges into an affair with an old flame, whose cousin turns out to be a talent scout for Arthur Godfrey, and risks her marriage to Cassie's dad, an accident-prone, depressed construction worker. As Lorena learns that the path to fame and fortune is strewn with obstacles, Cassie's own eyes are being opened to the world outside of provincial Newport News-and to the even richer world within herself.

Brilliantly re-creating the innocence and energy of the '50s, Test Pattern is a tour de force of wit, spirit, and imagination.

My Lucky Dog ($0.99 Kindle), by Mellon Tytell

Book Description
Hunter, my majestic eighty-six-pound mutt, was the love of my life for thirteen years. I was addicted to looking at him—every twitch of his ear was fascinating to me. I've taken thousands of photographs of him, dozens even in the same position. He was "my lucky dog."

I adopted Hunter when he was two. He came with that name, his former owner a fan of Hunter S. Thompson. I noticed Hunter's photo in the window of a pet store in Vermont and brought him home.

If I was the lucky break in his life, he was the transforming experience in mine. Before, I was a little wild. As a photographer, I traveled around the world, picking up and leaving on a dime. Life was exciting: photo shoots in Paris, Haiti, the Himalayas, the Andes, and even the Amazon.

Hunter tamed me. I couldn't be away from him for more than five hours at a time. I had no children of my own; Hunter taught me about responsibility, love, and devotion in a way that was inaccessible to me with "people."

—Mellon

New 99 cent Bargain Books

These are a part of the HarperCollins 99 cent sale, but since they are under their William Morrow Books imprint, they don't show up in the initial search I created.

Death by Chocolate Cakes: An Astonishing Array of Chocolate Enchantments ($0.99 Kindle), by Marcel Desaulniers

Book Description
In this scrumptious collection, revered chef Marcel Desaulniers serves up some of his most sinful, most seductive chocolate creations ever. An astonishing array of chocolate lovers from the "guru of ganache".

There are several cookbooks by Paul Prudhomme, all 99 cents on Kindle:

Chef Paul Prudhomme's Pure Magic

Over one hundred recipes show you how to bring a symphony of flavors to everyday meals. If you're looking for satisfying deep-down tastes, look no further. Here you'll find:

Sticky Chicken Lotsa Crab Crab Cakes Southern Smothered Spuds Sweet Potato Omelet Bronzed Fish Fresh Garlic Pasta Corn Chowder Black Bean Soup Really Rich Beef and MushroomsAlso included are all your Louisiana favorites, such as gumbos, jambalayas, and etouffées.

This collection of nearly 100 savory recipes brings out a symphony of flavors and smiles in the everyday dishes loved by all--meatloaf, mashed potatoes, salads, bronzed chicken--as well as Louisiana favorites such as gumbos, jamabalayas, and etouffees.

Fiery Foods That I Love

Chef Paul has traveled around the globe, brought back its flavors, and dreamed them into such mouthwatering, soul-satisfying recipes as Fire-Roasted Garlic Bread; Fennel and Split Pea Soup; Fried Eggplant coated in sesame seeds; Pepper Tomato Shrimp; Sweet Beef and Fresh Chiles; Smothered Potatoes, Cabbage, and Andouille; and much, much more. And he's even added his "Too Hot for Mrs. Podunk" recipes for those of you hungry for five-alarm flavor. Those in search of Chef Paul's favorites, just look for his trademark cap.

Chef Paul Prudhomme's Seasoned America

When one of America's most talented and best loved chefs reinterprets the great American classics, the result is Chef Paul Prudhomme's Seasoned America, a beautifully illustrated collection of American favorites made even better.

In his new book, Chef Paul works his culinary magic on America's classic regional recipes--San Francisco cioppino, Texas chili, Maryland crab cakes, for example. The results are more than 150 recipes that represent a whole new way of interpreting traditional American cooking. Special sections encourage home cooks to experiment and take risks for the sheer taste of it..

Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Tastes: Exciting Flavors from the State that Cooks

Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen is an exciting exploration of the new flavors that have made Louisiana cooking even better.

Chef Paul Prudhomme put Louisiana cooking on the map. Now Chef Paul returns to his culinary roots to show us how Louisiana cooking has evolved.

Today, the culinary influences of Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and many other cuisines are being integrated into "traditional" Louisiana cooking. Chef Paul explores how Louisiana cooks have incorporated such newly available ingredients as lemongrass, fresh tamarind, and papaya into their dishes. As Chef Paul says, any Louisiana cook worth his or her salt will work with what's available — familiar or not — and turn it into something delicious. Andouille Spicy Rice gets its zing! from chipotle and pasilla chile peppers, and Roasted Lamb with Fire-Roasted Pepper Sauce is flavored with jalapeno peppers and fennel. Classic jambalaya, etouffee, and gumbo are reinvented with such far-flung ingredients as star anise, cilantro, yuca, plantain, and mango.

Chef Paul Prudhomme's Fork in the Road

Chef Paul Prudhomme, America's most innovative chef, invites you to take a Fork in the Road, a journey toward a different way of cooking. If your goal is to produce great-tasting, flavorful dishes that everyone will enjoy, yet are still good for you, then this is the cookbook for you!Chef Paul's new book offers not only recipes but a model for anyone who wants to modify his or her cooking to minimize the use of less healthful ingredients, yet retain the rich taste and texture that make them so delicious.

For instance, he uses puréed dried beans and reduced fruit juices to create viscosity and enhance flavors. Both add an enormous amount of richness with virtually no fat. Chef Paul provides you with specific recipes to show you how these ingredients work, and encourages you to try them with all your favorite dishes.

To make rich, flavorful sauces and gravies for great-tasting meat, poultry, or fish—without a drop of oil, butter, shortening, or other fat—he has developed recipes in which dry flour is browned before adding it to the dish. And he always tells you to start with a hot pan, so you can "bronze," or "caramelize," an ingredient without any added fat. These techniques will make all your food taste better—new recipes as well as your favorite standbys.

Perhaps the most exciting portion of this book is the chapter on Magic Brightening Broths. These delicious broths are based upon defatted stocks, and get extra goodness from carefully balanced seasonings that enhance but don't overwhelm the flavors of foods cooked in them. Chef Paul envisions that once you've discovered howeasy and enjoyable Magic Brightening is, you and your friends and family will want to cook this way several times a month.

From breads and breakfasts, through main and side dishes, to desserts and snacks, Chef Paul has streamlined his favorite recipes. He's taken out as much fat as possible, leaving the texture, the richness, and the taste for which he's famous. This is not a diet book, but one dedicated to healthful ways to cook.

Celebrate with Chocolate: Totally Over-the-Top Recipes ($0.99 Kindle), by Marcel Desaulniers

Book Description
Who can resists the lure of chocolate? In this rich new cookbook, America's No 1 expert, award-winning pastry chef Marcel Desaulniers, offers the biggest and best collection of chocolate desserts available - dozens of incredible treats of every variety, from cakes to cookies and puddings pops to pies. Going beyond ordinary desserts, Celebrate with Chocolate includes such decadent delights as Truffle Tart, Chocolate Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Cookies, Chocolate Grasshopper Ice Cream Sandwich, Cocoa Roll, Chocolate Brioche French Toast, and more. With expert instructions and an informative section on equipment, ingredients and techniques, Celebrate with Chocolate is a chocoholic's dream come true - the ultimate must-have cookbook for every aficionado's shelf.

Stuff It!: Fun Filled Foods To Savor And Satisfy ($0.99 Kindle), by Lora & Max Brody

Book Description
Stuffed foods are homey, quick, fun to make and delicious to eat. Over 75 recipes for all types of stuff ed food are offered here, including Deep Dish Stuffed Pizza, Crab Stuffed Sole, Cream Filled Cupcakes and Stuffed Blintzes with Blueberry Sauce.

Made in Marseille: Food and Flavors from France's Mediterranean Seaport ($0.99 Kindle), by Daniel Young

Book Description
Marseille, once notorious for its assorted mischief, has recently experienced a cultural renaissance, establishing it as a Mediterranean capital of film, fashion, music, literature, and, most assuredly, cuisine. From the city's beloved, world-famous bouillabaisse to enticing émigré flavors to venerable street treats to classic and contemporary Provencal bistro fare, this culinary crossroads, the Paris of Provence, offers an exciting array of tempting foods that, while global in scope, have a folksy, made-in-Marseille personality. Join Daniel Young, author of The Paris Café Cookbook, as he explores the authentic flavors of France's oldest city, its great southern gateway, extending from the Marseille of antiquity, found intact in the limestone cliffs of the rocky coastline, to the Marseille of romantic intrigue, still apparent in the labyrinthine passageways of the historic Panier quarter, to its storied center, the Vieux Port. Of course there's bouillabaisse: an entire chapter on this legendary fish stew-soup, including rustic, home-style Marseille recipes adapted so they can successfully be made with North American fish—not entirely authentic but wholeheartedly delicious. There are many other definitive fish recipes from this seafood lovers' paradise as well, including the legendary pan-fried calamari with parsley and garlic from Chez Etienne and the foolproof formula for grilling fish from the Restaurant L'Escale. In addition, there are aromatic appetizers, traditional and newfangled desserts, savory pastries, meat and chicken dishes, and hearty vegetable stews, all prepared with the building blocks of the healthful, French-Mediterranean diet: olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, zucchini, fennel, eggplant, artichokes, olives, basil, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, almonds, figs, and honey.

It's a full cookbook, offering 120 recipes and also a remarkable portrait of France's "Second City." With evocative black-and-white photographs by Marseille native Sébastien Boffredo, Made in Marseille is a lively panorama of the food, flavors, culture, and mystique of France's vital and fascinating cosmopolitan seaport.

Pizza, Focaccia, Flat and Filled Breads For Your Bread Machine: Perfect Every Time ($0.99 Kindle), by Lora Brody

Book Description
Don't unplug that bread machine. Lora Brody's back with a guaranteed winner: Pizza, Focaccia, Flat, and Filled Breads from Your Bread Machine. As sales of this amazing machine continue to mushroom, demand for new and exciting recipes continue. Lora's new book fills the bill. Using the machine to make doughs for more than two hundred varieties of breads, pastries, and baked dishes, Lora expands the scope of the bread machine in ways that will appeal to bread machine devotees as well as new converts. Choose from such innovative recipes as Porcini Mushroom Focaccia, Ploughman's Pizza, Blue Corn Bread Sticks, and Macadamia Lavosh.

Try Lora's newest creation: Quitza, a cross between her favorite dishesquiche and pizza. For anchovy lovers there's finally a pizza with enough anchovies. For those with solid-gold palates there's a recipe for caviar pizza. Have a hankering for crackers? Try Pesto Crackers, Spicy Beer Cheese Crackers, or Cheddar Crisps. Also included are invaluable hints on buying and storing ingredients and on troubleshooting, as well as a mail-order guide for ingredients and equipment.

UK Kindle Daily Deal 6/22

Au Revoir, Europe: What if Britain left the EU? (£1.39 UK), by David Charter [Biteback Publishing], is the Kindle Deal of the Day for those in the UK (the US edition is $10.41).

Book Description
Forty years ago, Britain joined the club of European nations. The idea was to guarantee peace and prosperity on the continent through ‘ever closer union’ following centuries of terrible wars. But after four decades of membership, costing the UK more than £200 billion, public disenchantment with the European Union has never been so great. In Au Revoir, Europe David Charter, Europe Correspondent for The Times, looks at what went wrong – and what happens next. It charts Britain’s increasing detachment from the European project amid a barrage of bureaucracy, mindboggling expenditure and concern at sharing sovereignty for goals that were never truly embraced. From trade to transport, fishing to finance, investment to immigration, the decision that Britain takes on its future relationship with Brussels will touch many parts of everyday life. In presenting the unvarnished truth of what it would really mean for Britain to say goodbye, this book is a unique contribution to the European debate and essential reading for all.

The Inn at Eagle Point (£0.99 UK), the first Chesapeake Shores novel by Sherryl Woods [MIRA], is the Kindle Deal of the Day for for Romance Fans in the UK (the US edition is $6.15).

Book Description
Home, heart and family.

Sherryl Woods knows what truly matters. It may be years since Abby O’Brien Winters set foot in Chesapeake Shores but her memories are picture perfect. Nothing has changed in the little town her father built, except Abby isn’t the girl she once was. Jaded from her demanding career and ruined marriage, Abby knows her life hasn’t been right for a while. The plea for help from her sister may have come at just the right time. Chesapeake has called her home…

Helping her family save the crumbling Inn at Eagle Point could heal old wounds in Abby’s heart. But saving the inn from ruin means dealing with not only her own fractured family, but also Trace Riley, the man Abby left ten years ago! In Chesapeake second chances happen in the most unexpected ways.

Daily Deal - Murder by the Sea

Murder by the Sea ($4.99 $2.99 Kindle), the fourth novel in the Libby Sarjeant murder mystery series by Lesley Cookman [Accent Press], is today's Deal of the Day at at Diesel E-Books, where it's discounted to $1.40 (9 copies left). At Amazon, the entire series is on sale for $2.99 per title.

Book Description
This new edition contains a map of Steeple Martin, cast of characters and a bonus chapter from the next title in the series.

Psychic investigator Fran Castle gets a request from the police to help when a body is discovered on a rocky island in the middle of Nethergate Bay. Libby Sarjeant, Fran’s sleuthing partner, is on the case too, as they delve into the shameful world of the exploitation of illegal immigrants.

Libby’s partner Ben is concerned that her occasionally over-enthusiastic investigations might get her into trouble: his worries seem justified as Libby and Fran get on the trail of a war-time fascist spy and they become a nuisance to a killer.

Get the book from Diesel; be sure to check the sales price, as the Deal of the Day often sells out. Deals change at 11AM Eastern Time, USA.

Kindle Daily Deals 6/21

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Trinity Game ($1.99), the 2013 International Thriller Award Nominee by Sean Chercover [Thomas & Mercer], with the companion audiobook for $1.99.

Book Description
Daniel Byrne is an investigator for the Vatican’s secretive Office of the Devil’s Advocate—the department that scrutinizes miracle claims. Over ten years and 721 cases, not one miracle he tested has proved true. But case #722 is different; Daniel’s estranged uncle, a crooked TV evangelist, has started speaking in tongues—and accurately predicting the future. Daniel knows Reverend Tim Trinity is a con man. Could Trinity also be something more?

The evangelist himself is baffled by his newfound power—and the violent reaction it provokes. After years of scams, he suddenly has the ability to predict everything from natural disasters to sports scores. Now the mob wants him dead for ruining their gambling business, and the Vatican wants him debunked as a false messiah. On the run from assassins, Trinity flees with Daniel’s help through the back roads of the Bible Belt to New Orleans, where Trinity plans to deliver a final prophecy so shattering his enemies will do anything to keep him silent.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is To Whisper Her Name ($1.99), the first novel in Tamera Alexander's new Belle Meade Plantation series [HarperCollins].

Book Description
Set at Nashville's historic Belle Meade Plantation, the most influential thoroughbred stud farm in America's history, To Whisper Her Name weaves the struggles of real people of the post-war South with the journeys of a man and a woman scarred by betrayal.

Olivia Aberdeen, destitute widow of a man shot as a traitor to the South, is shunned by proper society and gratefully accepts an invitation from "Aunt" Elizabeth Harding, mistress of Belle Meade Plantation. Expecting to be the Harding's head housekeeper, Olivia is disillusioned when she learns the real reason Elizabeth's husband, Confederate General William Giles Harding, agreed to her coming. Not finding the safe haven she expects, Olivia is caught off guard by her feelings for Ridley Adam Cooper, a Southern man who seems anything but a Southern gentleman.

Branded a traitor by some, Ridley Cooper, a Southern son who chose to fight for the Union, is a man desperate to end the war still raging inside him. Determined to learn "the gift" that Belle Meade's head horse trainer and former slave, Bob Green, possesses, Ridley harbors secrets that threaten both their lives.

As Ridley seeks to make peace within himself for "betraying" the South he loved, Olivia is determined to never be betrayed again.

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is The Fallen Blade ($1.99), the first novel in the Vampire Assassin Trilogy by Jon Courtenay Grimwood [Orbit/Hachette]. Orbit always has some of the best books on the SF/Fantasy shelves and I haven't read this series, so will be checking the sample on it today.

Book Description
Venice in the early fifteenth century is at the height of its power. In theory Duke Marco commands. But Marco is a simpleton so his aunt and uncle rule in his stead. Within the Serene Republic, their word is law, but for all their influence, Venice's fate still lies in other hands . . .

Lady Giulietta is the Duke's cousin. She enjoys greater privilege than many can even dream of, but her status will demand a terrible price.

Atilo Il Mauros is head of the Assassini, the shadow army that enforces Venice's will - both at home and abroad.

Prince Leopold zum Bas Friedland is the bastard son of the German emperor and leader of the krieghund - the only force in Venice more feared than Atilo's assassins.

And then there is Atilo's angel-faced apprentice. Only a boy, Tycho is already stronger and faster than any man has a right to be. He can see in the dark, but sunlight burns him. It is said that he drinks blood.

Award-winning author Jon Courtenay Grimwood seamlessly blends history, politics and dark fantasy in a compelling vision of a Venice that might have been.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is I Love the Rain ($0.99), by Margaret Park Bridges [Chronicle Books].

Book Description
Molly hates rainy days. The gray sky, the soggy wait for the school bus, they seem to make everyone grumpy. Everyone except her friend Sophie, who shows Molly the magic she has been missing.

The simple, poetic language in this lovely book takes readers on a journey from the girls' first tentative steps into the drizzle to a rain-drenched romp in a puddle. The lyrical text is perfectly matched by the joyful watercolor paintings, which capture not only the color and beauty of a rainy day, but the warm interactions of the girls' blossoming friendship. An exuberant homage to finding pleasure where it's unexpected, the power of imagination, and the joys of friendship, I Love the Rain will have readers singing, "Sun, sun, go away!"

Bargain Book Roundup

For Audible subscription members with credits, Audible has their bi-annual Buy One Get One Free Sale going on right now (valid thru June 26).

A few I missed earlier from the HarperCollins 99 cent sale.

Romance/Women's Fiction:

• Flight Lessons, by Patricia Gaffney
• Homeplace, by Anne Rivers Siddons
• One Touch of Scandal, by Liz Carlyle
• Someone Irresistible, by Adele Ashworth
• Marry Me (Marrying Miss Bright), by Susan Kay Law
• The Bad Man's Bride, by Susan Kay Law

Plus, a couple of repeat bargains (prices noted):

• Mistborn: The Final Empire ($2.99), by Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy; new edition, DRM-Free)
• Gardens of the Moon ($2.99), by Steven Erikson (Fantasy)
• Twice Tempted: A Night Prince Novel ($2.99), by Jeaniene Frost (Urban Fantasy)
• Speaker for the Dead: Ender Wiggin #2 ($2.99), by Orson Scott Card (Science Fiction)
• Old Man's War ($2.99), by John Scalzi (Science Fiction)
• The Eye of the World: ook One of 'The Wheel of Time #1 ($2.99), by Robert Jordan (Fantasy)

The Meryl Streep Movie Club ($3.79 Kindle), by Mia March [Simon and Schuster]

Book Description
In the bestselling tradition of The Friday Night Knitting Club and The Jane Austen Book Club, three women find unexpected answers, happiness, and one another with Meryl Streep movies as their inspiration.

Two sisters and the cousin they grew up with after a tragedy are summoned home to their family matriarch's inn on the coast of Maine for a shocking announcement. Suddenly, Isabel, June, and Kat are sharing the attic bedroom--and barely speaking. But when innkeeper Lolly asks them to join her and the guests in the parlor for weekly Movie Night--it's Meryl Streep month--they find themselves sharing secrets, talking long into the night--and questioning everything they thought they knew about life, love, and one another.

Each woman sees her complicated life reflected through the magic of cinema: Isabel's husband is having an affair, and an old pact may keep her from what she wants most . . . June has promised her seven-year-old son that she'll somehow find his father, who he's never known . . . and Kat is ambivalent about accepting her lifelong best friend's marriage proposal. Through everything, Lolly has always been there for them, and now Isabel, June, Kat--and Meryl--must be there for her. Finding themselves. Finding each other. Finding a happy ending.

This Man ($0.99 Kindle) and Beneath This Man ($1.99 Kindle), the first two novels in the This Man Trilogy by Jodi Ellen Malpas [Hachette]

This Man

Young interior designer Ava O'Shea has no idea what awaits her at the Manor. A run-of-the-mill consultation with a stodgy country gent seems likely, but what Ava finds instead is Jesse Ward--a devastatingly handsome, utterly confident, pleasure-seeking playboy who knows no boundaries. Ava doesn't want to be attracted to this man, and yet she can't control the overwhelming desire that he stirs in her. She knows that her heart will never survive him and her instinct is telling her to run, but Jesse is not willing to let her go. He wants her and is determined to have her.

Beneath This Man

Jesse Ward drowned her with his intensity and blindsided her with his passion, but he kept her away from his dark secrets and broken soul. Leaving him was the only way Ava O'Shea could survive. She should have known that Jesse Ward is impossible to escape--and now he's back in her life, determined to remind her of the sensual pleasures they had shared. Ava is equally determined to get at the truth beneath this man's steely exterior. That means letting herself get close to the Lord of the Manor once more. And it's exactly where Jesse wants her--within touching distance...

Confessions of a Scary Mommy: An Honest and Irreverent Look at Motherhood: The Good, The Bad, and the Scary ($2.99 Kindle; $4.49 companion audiobook), by Jill Smokler [Simon and Schuster]

Book Description

Sometimes I just let my children fall asleep in front of the TV.

In a culture that idealizes motherhood, it’s scary to confess that, in your house, being a mother is beautiful and dirty and joyful and frustrating all at once. Admitting that it’s not easy doesn’t make you a bad mom; at least, it shouldn’t.

If I can’t survive my daughter as a toddler, how the hell am I going to get through the teenage years?

When Jill Smokler was first home with her small children, she thought her blog would be something to keep friends and family updated. To her surprise, she hit a chord in the hearts of mothers everywhere.

I end up doing my son’s homework. It’s wrong, but so much easier.

Total strangers were contributing their views on that strange reality called motherhood. As other women shared their stories, Jill realized she wasn’t alone in her feelings of exhaustion and imperfection.

My eighteen month old still can’t say “Mommy” but used the word “shit” in perfect context.

But she sensed her readers were still holding back, so decided to start an anonymous confessional, a place where real moms could leave their most honest thoughts without fearing condemnation.

I pretend to be happy but I cry every night in the shower.

The reactions were amazing: some sad, some pee-in-your-pants funny, some brutally honest. But they were real, not a commercial glamorization.

I clock out of motherhood at 8 P.M. and hide in the basement with my laptop and a beer.

If you’re already a fan, lock the bathroom door on your whining kids, run a bubble bath, and settle in. If you’ve not encountered Scary Mommy before, break out a glass of champagne as well, because you’ll be toasting your initiation into a select club.

I know why some animals eat their young.

In chapters that cover husbands (The Biggest Baby of Them All) to homework (Didn’t I Already Graduate?), Confessions of a Scary Mommy combines all-new essays from Jill with the best of the anonymous confessions.

Sometimes I wish my son was still little—then I hear kids screaming at the store.

As Jill says, “We like to paint motherhood as picture perfect. A newborn peacefully resting on his mother’s chest. A toddler taking tentative first steps into his mother’s loving arms. A mother fluffing her daughter’s prom dress. These moments are indeed miraculous and joyful; they can also be few and far between.” Of course you adore your kids. Of course you would lay down your life for them. But be honest now: Have you ever wondered what possessed you to sign up for the job of motherhood?

STOP! DO NOT OPEN THIS BOOK UNTIL YOU RECITE THESE VOWS!

I shall remember that no mother is perfect and my children will thrive because, and sometimes even in spite, of me.

I shall not preach to a fellow mother who has not asked my opinion. It’s none of my damn business.

I shall maintain a sense of humor about all things motherhood.

Irish Portraits ($2.99 Kindle), by Liam O'Flaherty [Bloomsbury Reader]

Book Description
From vicious rival brothers to desperate single mothers, frisky newlyweds to frigid life partners, Patrick McGinley covers all kinds of Irish (or simply human) relationship in this collection of short stories. In fourteen stories, some brief glimpses of an hour in the life, some longer explorations of years of growing animosity, McGinley explores the ties that bind us: the bond of family, unbreakable even when we wish it severed; the financial and emotional connections we make with our neighbours and colleagues; even the brief and tenuous link between a con artist and his prey. In turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, sweet and savage, Irish Portraits gives the reader a first-hand look at the lives of its characters, a handful of countrymen with one thing in common: their humanity.

Great Meadow ($2.51 Kindle), by Dirk Bogarde [Bloomsbury Reader]

Book Description
From 1927 to 1934 the young Dirk Bogarde lived in a remote cottage in the Sussex Downs with his sister Elizabeth and their strict nanny, Lally.For the children it was an idyllic time of joy and adventure: of gleaning at the end of summer, of oil lamps and wells, of harvests and harvest mice in the Great Meadow.This lost world, visited fleetingly in A Postillion Struck by Lightning, the first volume of Dirk Bogarde's autobiography, is seen here through the eyes of an innocent but shrewd eleven-year-old. With great sensitivity and poignancy it captures the sounds and scents, the love and gentleness that surrounded the young boy as the world outside prepared to go to war.

There are a number of titles in the Gideon Oliver and Chris Norgren series by Aaron Elkins [E-Reads] on sale for $3.03 right now:

• Fellowship of Fear Gideon Oliver #1
• The Dark Place Gideon Oliver #2
• Murder in the Queen's Armes Gideon Oliver #3
• Old Bones Gideon Oliver #4
• Curses! Gideon Oliver #5
• Icy Clutches Gideon Oliver #6
• Make No Bones Gideon Oliver #7
• Dead Men's Hearts Gideon Oliver #8
• Twenty Blue Devils Gideon Oliver #9
• Skeleton Dance Gideon Oliver #10
• A Deceptive Clarity Chris Norgren #1
• A Glancing Light Chris Norgren #2
• Old Scores Chris Norgren #3

Big in China: My Unlikely Adventure Raising a Family, Playing the Blues, and Reinventing Myself in Beijing ($1.99 Kindle), by Alan Paul [HarperCollins]

Book Description
Alan Paul, award–winning author of the Wall Street Journal’s online column “The Expat Life,” gives his engaging, inspiring, and unforgettable memoir of blues and new beginnings in Beijing. Paul’s three-and-a-half-year journey reinventing himself as an American expat—while raising a family and starting the revolutionary blues band Woodie Alan, voted Beijing Band of the Year in the 2008—is a must-read adventure for anyone who has lived abroad, and for everyone who dreams of rewriting the story of their own future.

Silent Tears: A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage ($3.00 Kindle), by Kay Bratt [AmazonEncore]

Book Description
Irrepressible memories. Vacant eyes. A child being dangled from a third story window. A boy tied to a chair. Children sleeping in layers of clothing to fight off the bitter cold. An infant dying from starvation. Some things your mind will never allow you to forget.

Silent Tears is the true story of the adversity and triumphs one woman faced as she fought against the Chinese bureaucracy to help that country’s orphaned children.

In 2003, Kay Bratt’s life changed dramatically. A wife and mother of two girls in South Carolina, Bratt relocated her family to rural China to support her husband as he took on a new management position for his American employer. Seeking a way to fill her days and overcome the isolation she experienced upon arriving in a foreign country, Bratt began volunteering at the local orphanage. Within months, her simple desire to make use of her time transformed into a heroic crusade to improve the living conditions and minimize the unnecessary deaths of Chinese orphans.

Silent Tears traces the emotional hurdles and daily frustrations faced by Ms. Bratt as she tried to change the social conditions for these marginalized children. The memoir vividly illustrates how she was able to pull from reservoirs of inner strength to pursue her mission day after day, leaving the reader with the resounding message that everyone really can make a difference.

Ghost Wave ($3.03 Kindle), by Chris Dixon [Chronicle Books]

Book Description
Rising from the depths of the North Pacific lies a fabled island, now submerged just 15 feet below the surface of the ocean. Rumors and warnings about Cortes Bank abound, but among big wave surfers, this legendary rock is famous for one simple (and massive) reason: this is the home of the biggest rideable wave on the face of the earth. In this dramatic work of narrative non-fiction, journalist Chris Dixon unlocks the secrets of Cortes Bank and pulls readers into the harrowing world of big wave surfing and high seas adventure above the most enigmatic and dangerous rock in the sea. The true story of this Everest of the sea will thrill anyone with an abiding curiosity of and respect for mother ocean.

The Bleiberg Project ($0.99 Kindle), by David Khara (Author), Simon John (Translator), winner of the Blue Moon Award for Best Thriller [Le French Book].

Book Description
An adrenaline-packed ride to save the world from a horrific conspiracy straight out of the darkest hours of history.

Are Hitler’s atrocities really over? For depressive Wall Street trader Jeremy Corbin, absolute truths become undeniable lies overnight. He finds out his long-lost father is dead, he discovers his boss's real identity, and he ends up boarding a plane to Zurich. He has a Nazi medallion in his pocket, a hot CIA bodyguard next to him, and a clearly dangerous Mossad agent on his tail. What was his father investigating? Why was his mother assassinated? Why are unknown sides fighting over him with automatic weapons? Can the conspiracy be stopped? This fast-paced thriller full of humor and humanity was an instant sensation in France. Think a dash of Robin Cook, a splash of John Grisham, and pinch of Clive Cussler with a very distinctive voice all it's own.

1984 ($2.99 Kindle; $3.99 companion audiobook), by George Orwell [Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]; definitely recommended if you haven't read it (or read it in a while), it's one of the books I picked up the first time I saw it marked down (back at Fictionwise).

Book Description
In 1984, London is a grim city where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.