Free Audiobook - A Christmas Carol

Tim Curry fans won't want to miss A Christmas Carol: An Original Performance by Tim Curry, by Charles Dickens, especially since it is currently a free download at Audible. This is an unabridged version and runs 3-1/2 hours.

Book Description
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens' timeless tale, has never been out of print since its original publication in 1849 and has been adapted for stage, television, film, and opera. It has often been credited with returning the jovial and festive atmosphere to the holiday season in Britain and North America, following a period of sobriety and somberness that emerged during the Industrial Revolution.

The story opens on a bleak and cold Christmas Eve as Ebenezer Scrooge is closing up his office for the day. That evening, he is visited by the ghost of his old business partner, Jacob Marley, who warns of a terrible fate for the miserly Scrooge if he does not change his ways.

As the story progresses and Christmas morning approaches, Scrooge encounters the unforgettable characters that make this story a classic: Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, and of course the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.

12 Days of Free Romance - Day 1

All Romance is having a different free book every day for the twelve days leading up to Christmas. Today is the first day and the free book is:

Holiday Affair, by Yvette Hines. As with all of All Romance's books, I'd guess it is fairly explicit, given the "heat index" of 4.

Available as a PDF or in EPUB format (convert the EPUB using Calibre or the PDF via Amazon); if you want both, just purchase it twice.

Book Description
Chanel Davidson is about to embark on a holiday vacation that will change her life. The man of her dreams has spent a year teasing her with love notes, trinkets and thoughtful gifts, doing everything but ask her out. Well, she is prepared to grab the reindeer by the antlers this season. A week off from work, a lone man in a cabin is going to give her just the opportunity she needs to set things in a sensual motion. Only one problem, it’s the right cabin, but the wrong man.

Aidan Carmichael is expecting a quite week in a friends cabin. The season has never meant much to him over the years and he is ready to relax in his time away from work. What he is not expecting is a caramel skinned goddess to come shimmying down his chimney. Aidan has had his eyes and heart set on Chanel since he first joined the accounting firm. Now, to both of their surprise she comes dancing into his holiday haven. Chanel is trapped for a week with a grey eyed temptation. With freezing temperatures outside and things heating up on the inside, Aidan tries to prove to Chanel that they can be more than just a holiday affair. Ho, ho…oh, what a Christmas.

If you sign up for the Wildfire newsletter when you create your account, you'll get an email each day to remind you about the free book of the day.

Author Spotlight: Stephen King

A few of Stephen King's titles have been on the bargain list for some time (see this post for Riding the Bullet ($2.00), UR ($2.99) and Colorado Kid ($3.99) ), but there are some new titles marked down today. The first two, The Running Man (1982) and Thinner (1984) were written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, while the last two Cujo (1981) and Misery (1987) are classic Stephen King. All four are currently marked at $3.99.

Thinner

Book Description
When an old gypsy man curses Billy Halleck for sideswiping his daughter, six weeks later he's ninety-three pounds lighter. Now Billy is terrified. And desperate enough for one last gamble...that will lead him to a nightmare showdown with the forces of evil melting his flesh away.

The Running Man

Book Description
The year is 2025. The Running Man is America's favorite television game show. Ben Richards is the program's latest contestant-and the Hunters' latest target in a rigged game of death.

Every night the whole nation watched the ultimate live game show on TV, as the contestants tried to beat annihilation at the hands of the hunters in order to win the billion dollar jackpot. And now there was a new contestant, the latest Running Man, staking his life while a nation watched.

Misery

Book Description
After an automobile accident, novelist Paul Sheldon meets his biggest fan. Annie Wilkes is his nurse-and captor. Now, she wants Paul to write his greatest work-just for her. She has a lot of ways to spur him on. One is a needle. Another is an ax. And if they don't work, she can get really nasty...

Cujo

Book Description
Acute family dog turns into a vicious family killer in King's canine classic.

Free Audiobook - Ringworld

Ringworld by Larry Niven & narrated by Tom Parker, is free at Audible.com. This is an unabridged version and runs 11-1/4 hours.

Book Description
Welcome to Ringworld, an intermediate step between Dyson Spheres and planets. It is 93 million miles in radius - the equivalent of one Earth orbit or 600 miles long - 1,000 meters thick, and much sturdier than a Dyson sphere. What other advantages are there to this world? The gravitational force created by a rotation on its axis of 770 miles per second means no need for a roof. Walls 1,000 miles high at each rim will let in the sun and prevent much air from escaping.

Larry Niven's novel Ringworld won the 1970 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1970 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1972 Ditmars, an Australian award for Best International Science Fiction.

Free Audiobook - A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole & narrated by Barrett Whitener, is free from Audible.com until December 15. This is an unabridged version and runs 13-1/2 hours.

Book Description
"A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once."

So enters one of the most memorable characters in recent American fiction. The hero of John Kennedy Toole's incomparable, Pulitzer Prize-winning comic classic is one Ignatius J. Reilly, "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter". His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures.