Free Book - The Windup Girl

The fantasy short story collection The Windup Girl ($10.08 Paperback pre-order), by Paolo Bacigalupi, can be downloaded for free, directly from Night Shade Books. they are currently offering both a PDF and EPUB version. You can put the PDF directly onto the newer Kindles, but I dropped the EPUB version into Calibre and let it convert it to MOBI format for the Kindle.

Book Description
Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko. Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. What Happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? In The Windup Girl, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi returns to the world of "The Calorie Man" (Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award-winner, Hugo Award nominee, 2006) and "Yellow Card Man" (Hugo Award nominee, 2007) in order to address these poignant questions.

To get the books for free, send an email to Night Shade Books (click the link for the address). If you are interested in a book club discussion of the book, you'll want to read this post at io9.

Free Books (Smashwords) - Refuge of Delayed Souls

Miladysa has released the second volume of her Refuge of Delayed Souls series and is making it available for a limited time as a free download at Smashwords. For those who missed volume 1 when it was free, there is a new coupon for it as well.

Billy: Refuge of Delayed Souls II. Use coupon code WF76B QF33B (new coupon code, see comments below), valid thru February 27.

Book Description
Elizabeth Whyte's investigations into the past and the supernatural continue. A barguest wreaks havoc on the moors above the town and Billy Lawrence is introduced to the world of RoYds.

RoYds: Refuge of Delayed Souls. Use coupon code SX58C, valid until the end of February.

Book Description
In a story spanning many lifetimes, we follow Elizabeth Whyte's journey as she investigates the supernatural & seeks information about her own past, all while trying to keep a balance between the light & the darkness in her work for an agency known as the Refuge of Delayed Souls. A world where ghosts, angels, the Living & others exist side by side, although not always in harmony.

Free Book (Sony) - Dear John Screenplay

Based upon the novel Dear John ($4.39 Kindle), by Nicholas Sparks, the Dear John Screenplay, by Jamie Linden, is available for free in the Sony bookstore. Actually, the novel is a bargain price in the Kindle store (it's $9.99 for Sony), so you might even want to pick up both.

Book Description
An angry rebel, John dropped out of school and enlisted in the Army, not knowing what else to do with his life--until he meets the girl of his dreams, Savannah. Their mutual attraction quickly grows into the kind of love that leaves Savannah waiting for John to finish his tour of duty, and John wanting to settle down with the woman who captured his heart. But 9/11 changes everything. John feels it is his duty to re-enlist. And sadly, the long separation finds Savannah falling in love with someone else. "Dear John," the letter read...and with those two words, a heart was broken and two lives were changed forever. Returning home, John must come to grips with the fact that Savannah, now married, is still his true love--and face the hardest decision of his life.

This one isn't showing up on the Bargain Priced page in the Sony Store. So, once you are in the eBook Store in the reader software, either search for it by name or ISBN number: 9781102067665.

Free Reads - Harper Collins Teen

Harper Collins Teen has added three new books to their Full Access online reading promotion (which changes somewhat frequently) since my last posts on them in early December.

Wondrous Strange ($5.59 Kindle), by Lesley Livingston

Book Description
Since the dawn of time, the Faerie have taken. . . .

For seventeen-year-old actress Kelley Winslow, faeries are just something from childhood stories. Then she meets Sonny Flannery, whose steel-gray eyes mask an equally steely determination to protect her.

Sonny guards the Samhain Gate, which connects the mortal realm with the Faerie's enchanted, dangerous Otherworld. Usually kept shut by order of icy King Auberon, the Gate stands open but once a year.

This year, as the time approaches when the Samhain Gate will swing wide and nightmarish Fae will fight their way into an unsuspecting human world, something different is happening . . . something wondrous and strange. And Kelley's eyes are opening not just to the Faerie that surround her but to the heritage that awaits her.

Now Kelley must navigate deadly Faerie treachery-and her growing feelings for Sonny-in this dazzling page-turner filled with luminous romance.

The Summoning ($5.59 Kindle), by Kelley Armstrong, is the first book in her Darkest Powers series; the fourth book will be published in April.

Book Description
My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again.

All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don't even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost -- and the ghost saw me.

Now there are ghosts everywhere and they won't leave me alone. To top it all off, I somehow got myself locked up in Lyle House, a "special home" for troubled teens. Yet the home isn't what it seems. Don't tell anyone, but I think there might be more to my housemates than meets the eye. The question is, whose side are they on? It's up to me to figure out the dangerous secrets behind Lyle House . . . before its skeletons come back to haunt me.

Lockdown ($9.99 Kindle), by Walter Dean Myers

Book Description
When I first got to Progress, it freaked me out to be locked in a room and unable to get out. But after a while, when you got to thinking about it, you knew nobody could get in, either. It seems as if the only progress that's going on at Progress juvenile facility is moving from juvy jail to real jail. Reese wants out early, but is he supposed to just sit back and let his friend Toon get jumped? Then Reese gets a second chance when he's picked for the work program at a senior citizens' home. He doesn't mean to keep messing up, but it's not so easy, at Progress or in life. One of the residents, Mr. Hooft, gives him a particularly hard time. If he can convince Mr. Hooft that he's a decent person, not a criminal, maybe he'll be able to convince himself. Acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers offers an honest story about finding a way to make it without getting lost in the shuffle.

Click HERE and then on the Full Access tab for the free reads - there are currently five books available.

Free Read (Scribd) - Debt Hope

For a limited time, you can read the full text of Debt Hope: Down and Dirty Survival Strategies ($8.99 Kindle), by Mark S. Hankins, online at Scribd. This is a PDF version of the book, but no downloads are allowed. It's a pretty nice idea - you can preview any part of the book you wish, but to study it in depth, you'll want to buy a copy to keep (and read more comfortably than in Scribd's viewer).

Book Description
The official e-book of the Debtors' Revolution. 140 pages of inside information and actionable strategies. 180 footnotes hyperlinked to source material on the web. Ann Minch says "You Need This Book!"

The American middle class is being destroyed by credit card debt. As of December 2009 we are looking at 11% or better chargeoff rates overall through Summer 2010 according to Moody's and Fitch. Debtors need to know how to get through the pandemic of ratejacking and fee harvesting that the major credit card banks are using to shore up their sagging balance sheets. If you can't pay, you need to know what's coming and how to handle it. Bankruptcy is harder to use and provides less relief than it once did. To protect yourself and your family when you have defaulted debt in your life you need to understand who you're going to come in contact with and how to handle them.

Where other books are 90% polemic and 10% practical solutions, this book provides key information regarding the industry, its tricks, traps and vulnerabilities. It's what you need to know before you head into the rapids.

Click HERE for the free read.