I don't know about you, but I can use a break now and then from the paranormal/fantasy books that tend to dominate the both the Kindle bargain bookshelves at Amazon and the real bookshelves at local bookstores. CLAWS
($1.59) by Stacey Cochran relies on a real life setting (or at least a plausible version, thereof) and I love the cover, which was enough to get me to download a sample.Book Description
Something stalks the citizens of Arizona... Dr. Angie Rippard is an Arizona wildlife biologist who is drawn into a police investigation when two teenagers are found dead on a golf course that borders protected National Forest Land. Rippard suspects the teens were attacked by a large mountain lion. Backed into a corner, it knows no fear... Rippard believes that the resort was developed too close to wilderness lands, but her plan to relocate cougars in the area provokes the wrath of the resort's owner-Charlie Rutledge-who believes the animals should be exterminated. Eight million years have shaped its predatory skill... Deep inside the Tonto National Forest, Rippard and her grad students realize that Charlie Rutledge is hunting them. In a thrilling climax, Rippard must make a choice to kill the cougar that is certain to kill Charlie Rutledge, or kill Rutledge who is certain to kill her. Now we are the endangered species.
Stacey also has The Colorado Sequence
on Kindle, for $0.99. It's back to a fantasy theme, but it is a suspense story foremost.Book Description
Physicist Dr. Amy Levine has discovered a mathematical sequence--the Colorado Sequence--that describes an underlying pattern and a guiding force within the very fabric of reality. Now she's on the verge of an astonishing breakthrough, and the U.S. government wants to know how she has done it. How has Dr. Levine learned to accurately predict the future? And they're willing to kill her to find out. Levine and a group of friends escape to Colorado to unravel the mystery of the sequence, but there they become snowbound. They must locate a secret treasure room, find a hidden key, and answer an ancient riddle before a devastating eruption destroys them all ...and the power of the Colorado Sequence is lost forever.
The Acronym - White Nights of St. Petersburg
($1.59) by Rebecca Lerwill is the sequel to the 2007 award-winning romantic suspense Relocating Mia
($0.99).Book Description
Where does a federal witness turn when even one of the most powerful clandestine agencies can't protect you from harm?
That is precisely the horrific dilemma facing Mia Trentino. Scheduled as a witness for the prosecution, Mia returns to Russia to testify against a man whose affiliation with the Russian Mafia led to her terrifying abduction less than a year before.
During her testimony, Mia's safety is entrusted with the members of the Acronym, a covert agency consisting of former FBI, CIA, and international law enforcement agents. Their primary tasks are the war against international crime and espionage and assisting federal agencies with securing their high-profile witnesses in a special protection program.
When Mia arrives in St. Petersburg to take the stand, her fiance and Acronym agent, Douglas Farland, disappears without a trace and is accused of treason.
With only limited protection, Mia suddenly finds herself trying to negotiate a deadly double-task; can she elude the merciless pursuit of the Russian Mafia in time to find out the truth about Douglas, or will they succeed in silencing her by any ruthless means they can find?
R.W. Ridley had a contest a while back (two, in fact) and gave away a Kindle to those who read the PDF copy of his book The Takers: Book One of the Oz Chronicles
, which is now available on the Kindle ($1.59). I suspect he's a local author (who else would include posts about Tennessee Volunteer sports in their author's blog?), so I might see him out and about this upcoming Kindle & Koffee Day. In the meantime, check out the trailer for the book.Book Description
The first volume in The Oz Chronicles recalls both Stephen King’s The Stand and L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz. When 13-year-old Osmond “Oz” Griffith wakes from an illness on the floor of his closet, he discovers the world overrun by man-eating monsters, the Takers, and it’s largely his fault. In an effort to make things right, he gathers a band of survivors (a baby, an aged mechanic and a talking gorilla, among others), and sets off down his version of the yellow brick road, leading to the Atlanta Zoo. Along the way, he learns that his destiny was written by Steve, a boy from his past. Afflicted with Down Syndrome, Steve created new worlds, replete with battles between good and evil, in the comic books that served as his sole refuge from the teasing of Oz and his friends. Steve’s untimely suicide leaves only the comic books as clues to vanquishing the Takers.
Living Dead Man Window To Worlds
is Jed Butt's first novel (soon to be out in paperback). To get some reviews and introduce readers to his work, he's dropped the price from $5.00 down to $0.99 for a short time (not long, I suspect). In his own words: The book features zombies, vampires, werewolves, hidden organizations and ancient demons. It would be impossible to detail the entire book in 300 words. The sample looks interesting (although he does need to learn to use punctuation a little more effectively), in an Indiana Jones meets Zombie Kidnappers sort of way.
25 Language Phrasebook: German, French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, ... Chinese, Indonesian, Malay, and Thai.
($0.01) is another "free" MobileReference title (Amazon won't let them list these as free, thus the penny charge) that looks to be extremely useful for the beginning traveler (or those who encounter international travelers while at home). Basic phrases such as Hello, How are you, Please and Thank You are translated into 25 languages. That may not cover all the languages you might encounter, but should give you at least one common language nearly anywhere in the world. If not, you may be a little too far off the beaten track for someone who is relying on a beginning phrasebook and an electronic device that has to be recharged once a week.This one definitely isn't in the genre I normally read, but I do give the author credit for including more on the Kindle version than a print edition. I've purchased other Kindle editions where the "included" CD/DVD was missing and the information wasn't available thru the authors web site or you could not sign up to get it emailed to you, something that would be trivial to include (just add a link at the end of the Kindle edition for a signup page, for example) at essentially zero cost.
Braaaaaains
($0.80) by Keith Blenman. This short story/novella (98KB), is a darkly humorous disaster/horror story about the last man on Earth recalling his final years while waiting for the sun to explode. From his marriage, to the birth of his daughter, to the ever unexpected zombie uprising, Braaaaaains is the tale of man's final days, chock full of rich themes and social commentary.But that's only the beginning. Included with the story is a Kindle experiment in supplemental materials. Like bonus features on a DVD, this story includes material you wouldn't find in a typical paperback. Trivia, essays from the author, and even questions to promote subsequent readings and book discussion have been included. Priced at a mere dollar, and on sale for even less, this is the perfect story to show your friends how the Kindle and ebooks can bring something entirely new to fiction.
Finally, a true short story (12KB) from Carol Hanrahan, Timberwolf - A Spooky Short Story
. This is an adult fable featuring the sweetness of revenge.
, I was only shown 13 total books from my bookshelf, but that updated when I selected to see more on a page (at which point I had pages and pages of books). Also, authors names are missing from a number of the books in the list. The list starts out claiming to be sorted by Title, but for some reason all books with no author listed sort first anyway (and not in alphabetic order, although those with authors are properly sorted) and when sorting by author, any authors whose name uses no capital letters get sorted first, before those with proper capitalization (and all after those with no author at all). You also can't sort on just those with content or do any searches, so be prepared to dig thru the list if there is something in particular you want to find. You can sort on your rating of the book (as well as the average customer rating), which means that if you rate the book as you finish it, you can at least sort the list and quickly see which ones are unread. As you can see in the above picture, any books where you have made annotations will have an entry under Content - the pencil shows you have made highlights, while the small block entry means you have notes. Click on the graphic or the book title and a page similar to this one appears:
and now being promoted by several other kindle boards, June 6th has been declared the "official" National Kindle & Koffee Day. Take your Kindle to your local Starbucks (or other local/national coffee shop) at 10:00AM local time and read while having a cup of coffee (or another beverage of your choice). Perhaps you'll meet up with other local Kindlers or someone wanting to see a Kindle in person. You might want to work on your home page, if you've downloaded some of the racier freebies available lately, just in case you want to give someone a demo. I will say that at my local Starbucks, this won't be any different than any other time I've been there (and so far, no one has seemed to notice my Kindle or they are all too polite to interrupt my reading).
or 
for the occasion.
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