Bargain Reads - Young Adult/Children

The Magician's Nephew ($4.74), by C.S. Lewis and illustrated by Pauline Baynes.

Book Description
When Digory and Polly are tricked by Digory's peculiar Uncle Andrew into becoming part of an experiment, they set off on the adventure of a lifetime. What happens to the children when they touch Uncle Andrew's magic rings is far beyond anything even the old magician could have imagined.

Hurtled into the Wood between the Worlds, the children soon find that they can enter many worlds through the mysterious pools there. In one world they encounter the evil Queen Jadis, who wreaks havoc in the streets of London when she is accidentally brought back with them. When they finally manage to pull her out of London, unintentionally taking along Uncle Andrew and a coachman with his horse, they find themselves in what will come to be known as the land of Narnia.

It's nearly over, but you can read the first volume of the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica series, Here, There Be Dragons ($7.99 Kindle), by James A. Owen, for free over on Scribd.com. It's 347 pages and you only have the weekend, as the free read expires November 9.

Book Description
An unusual murder brings together three strangers, John, Jack, and Charles, on a rainy night in London during the first World War. An eccentric little man called Bert tells them that they are now the caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica -- an atlas of all the lands that have ever existed in myth and legend, fable and fairy tale. These lands, Bert claims, can be traveled to in his ship the Indigo Dragon, one of only seven vessels that is able to cross the Frontier between worlds into the Archipelago of Dreams.

Pursued by strange and terrifying creatures, the companions flee London aboard the Dragonship. Traveling to the very realm of the imagination itself, they must learn to overcome their fears and trust in one another if they are to defeat the dark forces that threaten the destiny of two worlds. And in the process, they will share a great adventure filled with clues that lead readers to the surprise revelation of the legendary storytellers these men will one day become.

M Is for Magic and InterWorld, by Neil Gaiman (author of Coraline, $4.74), are each $3.99 today. He also has six volumes of short stories (not necessarily for young adults/children) at 99 cents each: Selections from Fragile Things

M Is for Magic
Stories to delight, enchant, and surprise you. Bestselling author and master storyteller Neil Gaiman here presents a breathtaking collection of tales that may chill or amuse readers -- but always embrace the unexpected:

• A teenage boy who has trouble talking to girls finds himself at a rather unusual party.
• A sinister jack-in-the-box haunts the lives of the children who owned it.
• A boy raised in a graveyard makes a discovery and confronts the much more troubling world of the living.
• A stray cat fights a nightly battle to protect his adopted family from a terrible evil.

These eleven stories illuminate the real and the fantastic, and will be welcomed with great joy by Neil Gaiman's many fans as well as by readers coming to his work for the first time.

InterWorld
Joey Harker isn't a hero. In fact, he's the kind of guy who gets lost in his own house. But then one day, Joey gets really lost. He walks straight out of his world and into another dimension. Joey's walk between the worlds makes him prey to two terrible forces -- armies of magic and science who will do anything to harness his power to travel between dimensions. When he sees the evil those forces are capable of, Joey makes the only possible choice: to join an army of his own, an army of versions of himself from different dimensions who all share his amazing power and who are all determined to fight to save the worlds. Master storyteller Neil Gaiman and Emmy Award-winning science-fiction writer Michael Reaves team up to create a dazzling tale of magic, science, honor, and the destiny of one very special boy -- and all the others like him.

Johnny and the Dead ($1.76), by Terry Pratchett, is the second in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy. Unfortunately, the end of the trilogy, Johnny and the Bomb, isn't available on Kindle (yet), but you can get the start, Only You Can Save Mankind, for $3.99, as well as most of his Children's Discworld series at the same price: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents , The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky. Only Wintersmith ($5.69) is above the usual cutoff for bargains (but has a $9.99 digital list price).

Book Description
The town council wants to sell the cemetery, and its inhabitants aren't about to take that lying down! Johnny is the only one who can see the outraged ghosts, and the previously alive need his help to save their home and their history. Johnny didn't mean to become the voice for the lifeless, but if he doesn't speak up, who will?

There are many versions of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women in the Kindle store, with prices ranging from zero to $5.00. However, you can now get an illustrated volume free over at MobileRead that also contains Good Wives (sometimes simply titled "Part II"), taken from the 1880 version titled Little Women or Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. Click HERE for the download (it's large, over 6MB, so I'd transfer to your Kindle using USB).

Game of the Day - Chicken Invaders 2 (99 cents)

Amazon's Video Game of the Day is a 99 cent download of Chicken Invaders 2 . I've played a couple of the Chicken Invaders series and so far they've all been worth several hours of arcade style shooting fun.

Game Description

• Journey To Every Planet.
• 110 Waves Of Invading Chickens.
• Collect 14 Skill Bonuses.
• 10 Weapon Power Upgrades.

Just when you thought it was safe to eat chicken again, the chickens have returned with an organized invasion to take over the entire solar system! Journey to each planet and fight your way to saving the world again! Advance through waves of invading chickens, avoiding falling eggs and collecting power-ups to boost your spaceship's firepower. It's fast-paced arcade action, for one or two players, with Chicken Invaders 2!

B1G1F on Kindle: Martin Limon

Through November 8, 2009, buy G.I. Bones ($9.99), by Martin Limon, volume six of the Sergeants Sueno & Bascom Mystery series and receive a free download of the first in the series, Jade Lady Burning. As always with these Buy One, Get One Free offers in the Kindle store, you don't actually click to buy the second book (nor will it show as having been purchased when you look at the book detail page) - it simply shows up on your Kindle with the one you do purchase (G.I. Bones) and will also appear in your Kindle Media Library, so you can redownload as desired.

G.I. Bones
A Korean fortune-teller is being bothered by a dead American soldier who wants his bones found and buried. An underage officer’s daughter is missing together with a Latino soldier. Several of the leading Korean gangsters who own the bars in the ville have been killed. Sueño and Bascom of Military Intelligence must go back to the founding of Itaewon, Seoul’s red-light district, in order to learn who killed the soldier, who’s taking revenge on the gang lords, and where to find the missing girl.

Jade Lady Burning
The bizarre killing of Miss Pak should have belonged to the Korean police. But her amorous associations with American servicemen in Seoul also made her death the business of the U.S. Army's criminal investigation arm, of which Sgt. Ernie Bascom and Sgt. George Sueno were prized digits.

George is from East L.A., Ernie is from another planet. In the army, going after the truth is usually seen as a criminal waste of time, so they are well suited to the case. The Eighth Army command is anxious only to squelch the bad press, and the boys are really only interested in enjoying their tour of duty. The two of them know Korea, they like Korea (George even speaks the language), and they are all too happy to check the tawdry dives the woman had trawled for customers. Even if they don't find the perpetrator, the consequences are minimal.

There is something odd about the Korean cops' nervousness. Also, the actual killing is pretty heinous; the oddly trussed-up victim is little more than a youngster. Nobody can't die but there are ways no one should. The case gets to George and Ernie. They even work on it after hours. In their line, though, getting involved with a victim isn't smart because you increase tremendously the odds of becoming one.

Bargain Romance

Today's post brings you romance from both new and known authors. As always, prices can change without notice at Amazon, so be sure to check the details before clicking on Buy.

To Taste Temptation ($1.99), by Elizabeth Hoyt

Book Description
The ton loves nothing more than a good scandal, and they're giddy with the appearance of wealthy Samuel Hartley. Not only is he self-made, American, and in the habit of wearing moccasins, but he is also notorious for fleeing a battle in which several English gentlemen lost their lives. What the ton doesn't know, though, is that Samuel is in London because of this massacre. He believes his regiment was given up to the enemy and won't rest until he finds the traitor.

Lady Emeline Gordon is captivated with Samuel. Not only does he defy convention with his unusual dress, his sensual smile, and his forthright manner, but he survived the battle that killed her beloved brother. Samuel suspects that the person responsible for her brother's death is Jasper Renshaw, Viscount Vale, a family friend since childhood--and Emeline's fiancé. Despite Emeline's belief in Vale's innocence and her refusal to break off her betrothal, she and Samuel begin a passionate affair. But can their relationship survive the fallout from Samuel's investigation?

Faking It ($0.99), by Elisa Lorello

Book Description
What happens when a writing professor and a male escort become friends? Thirty-four-year old professor Andi Cutrone has broken up with her fiancé in Massachusetts, moved back to her native New York, and wants to be a better lover. So after meeting Devin, a handsome, charming escort, she proposes an unusual arrangement: lessons about writing in exchange for lessons about sex. When Devin accepts Andi’s proposal, he draws up a contract in which the two are forbidden to see each other socially. There’s just one problem: Andi also wants Devin. Faking It is a witty, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heart-wrenching story about relationships, writing, and getting real.

Posh ($1.96), by Lucy Jackson

Book Description
It’s a world of over-the-top entitlement and tribal customs, a world of surface interactions and deep needs—a world of private schools and privilege. Griffin is a preparatory school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side with the best students—and the richest parent body—the city has to offer. The emotionally charged lives of the teenagers and adults that collide and intersect at Griffin include those of:

• Kathryn “Lazy” Hoffman is the headmistress at the Griffin School, in the midst of an affair she almost can’t remember why she started. Lazy ministers to children, but her cross to bear is the parents—especially those who wonder why their little darlings aren’t going to Harvard
• Michael Avery, smart driven, and clearly on the fast track to Cambridge, but so troubled that he becomes a burden to his girlfriend
• Julianne Coopersmith, a sweetly compassionate child of divorce who happily wears designer hand-me-downs from her best friend, and adores Michael even in the face of his neediness and meltdowns
• Susan Avery, who is detached from her brilliant but tortured son, and finds it’s easier to love her Chinese Crested Hairless than her own child
• Dee Coopersmith, whose life driving a cab couldn’t be a bigger contrast to the rest of the parent body at Griffin, but whose sense of self and fierce protection of her daughter have unexpected consequences

Fast-paced, gently satirical, yet deeply felt, POSH is a surprisingly poignant and knowing novel distinguished by its spare and elegant prose.

Blessed Are the Cheesemakers ($2.99), by Sarah-Kate Lynch

Book Description
Set on a small Irish dairy farm, this tender and funny debut novel follows two lost souls as they try to carve out new lives amid a colorful cast of characters reminiscent of those in the hit film Waking Ned Divine. Abby has been estranged from the family farm since her rebellious mother ran off with her when she was a small child. Kit is a burned out New York stockbroker who's down on his luck. But that's all about to change, now that he and Abby have converged on the farm just in time to help Corrie and Fee, two old cheesemakers in a time of need. Full of delightful and quirky characters--from dairy cows who only give their best product to pregnant, vegetarian teens to an odd collection of whiskey-soaked men and broken-hearted women who find refuge under Corrie and Fee's roof.

BLESSED ARE THE CHEESEMAKERS is an irresistible tale about taking life's spilled milk and turning it into the best cheese in the world.

Wrapped ($0.99), by Meryl McQueen

Book Description
Set against a canvas of frenzied corporate New York City, a family farm in rural Ohio, a glass-and-chrome skyscraper in the medieval city of Milan, and a villa on the Ligurian coast, this a fast-paced story of ambition, displacement, loyalty, and love.

Twenty-two-year-old Andrea Carole is smart. Smart enough to ooze through a double math/economics degree at Cornell. Smart enough to duck serious relationships. Not smart enough to duck a dangerous romance with a handsome stranger thirty years her senior.

Across the Atlantic, Massimo Bassanini is in trouble. At fifty-three, used to wrangling his way in love, family, and corporate war, he’s a successful entrepreneur with a problem: he needs a new financial adviser, someone as driven and brilliant as he is. One phone call to New York, and the stage is set for a collision of cultures, generations, and desire.

Father Mine: Zsadist and Bella's Story ($3.19), by JR Ward, is a short fiction/novella piece in her Black Dagger Brotherhood series.

Book Description
Readers met and fell in love with Zsadist and Bella in J. R. Ward's third New York Times bestselling novel in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, Lover Awakened. As a former blood slave, Zsadist bore the scars from a past filled with suffering and degradation until Bella came along and helped heal his emotional wounds. Now, though, with the birth of their child, the demons of his past have been resurrected, called forth by the innocent eyes of his beloved daughter, Nalla. Unless Bella and Nalla can bring him back with their love, he may be lost to them forever.

Declaring Spinsterhood ($1.24), by Jamie Lynn Braziel

Book Description
What can you do when your family harps on you to get married (already!), when your delicious and alluring ex-boyfriend—cheater to the core—believes that you’ve fallen for another guy and sets out to woo and conquer (again), and when you suddenly realize that you have fallen in love with your best friend, the guy whose shoulder has always been available...but is presently being enjoyed by another woman? In Jamie Lynn Braziel’s riotous first novel, Declaring Spinsterhood, she explores the world of 30-something single women, the pressures they face to tie the knot, and what happens when that knot begins to feel more like a noose. In the world of Emma Bailey, nothing is sacred. Including, and most especially, marriage.

One-Click Buy: November 2009 Silhouette Desire and One-Click Buy: November 2009 Harlequin Blaze, from Harlequin, are each $9.99 and each contains 6 books - that's $1.66 per book.

Silhouette Desire
Bundle includes: Westmoreland's Way by Brenda Jackson, In the Arms of the Rancher by Joan Hohl, The Maverick's Virgin Mistress by Jennifer Lewis, Wedding at King's Convenience by Maureen Child, Christmas with the Prince by Michelle Celmer, His High-Stakes Holiday Seduction by Emilie Rose.

Harlequin Blaze
The temperature outside may be dropping...but we're heating things up with six sexy books from November 2009 Harlequin Blaze! Bundle includes: More Blazing Bedtime Stories by Julie Leto and Leslie Kelly, Power Play by Nancy Warren, Hot Spell by Michelle Rowen, Hold on to the Nights by Karen Foley, SEALed and Delivered by Jill Monroe, and Zero Control by Lori Wilde.

There are so many more that won't fit, I'll just link a few more for this week:

First, Jacquelyn Frank's entire catalog is on sale for $4.47 each, eight books total (there are two listings for Damien, so be careful not to buy both.

His Immortal Embrace (anthology) by Hannah Howell, Sara Blayne, Lynsay Sands & Kate Huntington ($3.83)
Dawn Encounter by Jennifer Blake ($4.32)
Challenge To Honor by Jennifer Blake ($5.04)
Seduced by A Stranger by Eve Silver ($4.47)
What A Gentleman Wants by Caroline Linden ($3.19)
Betrayed Birthright by Sheri WhiteFeather ($3.24)
Condition of Marriage by Emilie Rose ($3.24)
Birthright by Judith Arnold ($3.24)
To Do List by Lauren Dane ($2.80)

Poetic Monthly Magazine Volume # 45 is now out and can be downloaded for free (PDF) HERE. If you like it, the first 44 issues are all available as free PDF's in their store (use the VIEW option next to each issue).

Over at Night Owl Romance, you can download several free reads, all of which are in PDF format and seem to be varying heat levels of romance/erotica.

Interview on Kindle Chronicles

If you've wondered where the name for the blog originated or who is this person that keeps finding bargain books, you might want to listen to my interview today at Kindle Chronicles (hosted by Len Edgerly, I've been a listener since he started). We talked a bit about some non-Amazon sources of books and fiction magazines for the Kindle and a bit about the upcoming Nook.