26 Free Books from Borders

Borders.com has finally managed to get their ebookstore up and running. So far, it wins my award for worst ebook design by a major company, but they do have up a page where you can download a number of free books. It appears that the list changes from time to time (it's changed just since yesterday, for me) and there is no particular order to the list.  You do need to create an account at Borders.com and be logged in before you try to "buy" the book and most of these are in DRM'd epub format, while a few are DRM'd PDF's (none are Kindle compatible). When you click on the button to get the book, if you are successful, you'll see a message to that effect and an offer to be taken to your ebook library. If unsuccessful for any reason, you see a message that there were technical difficulties. This may mean that the book is only available to download via the Border's Kobo app (which is free) or that you already have the book in your library or that gremlins interfered and you should just try again (which actually worked on a couple of these, for me). If you must use the Border's app, you have to search for these by name and you may or may not even be able to find the book there (did I mention that they have the worst design ever?). If you do, just check to make sure that the app shows that the book is free (if it is not, the price will be clearly displayed on the purchase button).  Books purchased in this way must be read in the Kobo app, but I have had most of them eventually appear as epubs in my library, which means that you can then download them for any epub compatible reader.

Here is the current list:

1. Colters’ Woman
2. A Safe Harbor
3. Crazed Hearts
4. Collision Course, by K. A. Mitchell
5. Distracting The Duchess, by Emily Bryan
6. Fade The Heat, by Colleen Thompson
7. Double Enchantment, by Kathryne Kennedy
8. Hara’s Legacy
9. Fiance At Her Fingertips, by Kathleen Bacus
10. Long Hard Ride
11. Rapture’s Tempest, by Bobbi Smith
12. Lord Of Devil Isle, by Connie Mason
13. Shadow Bound, by Erin Kellison
14. Marked, by Elisabeth Naughton
15. Sin’s Daughter, by Eve Silver
16. The River Nymph, by Shirl Henke
17. Sunrise In A Garden Of Love & Evil, by Barbara Monajem
18. Standoff, by Lauren Dane
19. The Magic Knot, by Helen Scott Taylor
20. The Ghost Exterminator
21. Trey
22. Weddings Can Be Murder, by Christie Craig
23. The Strangely Beautiful Tale Of Miss Percy Parker, by Leanna Renee Hieber
24. To Tempt A Knight, by Gerri Russell
25. The Wicked House Of Rohan, by Anne Stuart
26. Wolf Signs, by Vivian Arend

Click HERE to get the books from Borders.

Pre-Order The Land of Painted Caves for $10

This is a bit above my usual bargain limit, but you can now pre-order The Land of Painted Caves, by Jean M. Auel, for $9.99. This was nearly $15 when it was first made available to pre-order and the digital list price is $30.00; the Hardcover pre-order price is $16.20 and the Large Print edition is nearly $20 (at at over 1200 pages, I hesitate to think how heavy and awkward it would be to carry around and read). I know that a lot of my readers jumped on The Clan of the Cave Bear: with Bonus Content when it became availabe at $1.59 (and so did I), but no doubt hesitated to order the final volume in this series at the initial price. Remember, with a pre-order Kindle book, you'll get the lowest of the price at the time you order or when it is released, but there is no low-price guarantee to get the lowest price in between (although it does happen now and then, I've heard of the former occuring a lot more often). So, if you did have the higher price, be sure to click over and cancel it (on the Manage My Kindle page) and then re-order at this price.

Book Description

The highly anticipated sixth book of Jean Auel's Earth's Children® series, THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES, is the culmination fans have been waiting for. Continuing the story of Ayla and Jondalar, Auel combines her brilliant narrative skills and appealing characters with a remarkable re-creation of the way life was lived more than 25,000 years ago. THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES is an exquisite achievement by one of the world's most beloved authors.

Free Game - Bejeweled 2 (Today/Tonight Only)

I found this one pretty late, but if you see this post in the next few hours, you can pick up Bejeweled 2 ($11.82 PC), from PopCap Games, as a free download, tonight only, until 10:00 PM PST.

Game Description
Get set to play the PopCap game that set the standard in casual gaming! Match sparkling gems three at a time to make them burst in showers of color and points. Match four or more to create flashy power gems that boost your score and your mood with brilliant cascades and combos.

Soar to gem-matching heights in Classic mode, or speed through matches against the clock in Action. For even more dazzling fun, bump up your brainwaves with multi-faceted Puzzles, or enter the Zen state of Endless play. Every match is high-carat fun!

Click HERE for the free game. You'll need to use a real email address or print out or save your order code, as you'll need it to activate the game.

Free Book - Barking Dogs

Barking Dogs ($6.99 Kindle), by Terence M. Green, is the free book this month from publisher Phoenix Pick. This is the first in his Mitch Helwig series, the second of which, Blue Limbo ($5.99), is also on Kindle.

Book Description
Is your boss lying to you? Your wife? Husband? Is everybody?

Suppose you could tell. Absolutely.

Suppose you had a Barking Dog.

Mitch Helwig is a cop who has gone over the edge. He’s got a Barking Dog –- an infallible, illegal lie-detector, worn under street clothes –- and he’s tired of being lied to.

He’s a criminal’s worst nightmare.

Click HERE for the free book. Scroll down to find the listing for Barking Dogs and click where it says "Free Ebook for October". After entering an email address and the coupon code 9991566, you'll be able to download the book in one of several DRM-free formats (get Mobi for the Kindle).

There's an additional bonus on the download page. You can get Carolyn Ives Gilman's novel Halfway Human ($9.99 Kindle), for only $1.99. This is an earlier work from last month's author of the then-free Arkfall ($3.89 Kindle), a 2009 Nebula Nominee. For this one, you do have to pick a format, but they have added a 60-day no questions asked money back guarantee, in case you have problems or just decide you didn't like it. I bought the EPUB, since I wasn't sure if the mobi would work on Kindle and there isn't any DRM, so it's easily converted.

Book Description
“The best science fiction novel I’ve read in a long time”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
****
Tedla is a 'bland,' an asexual class of people that exist only to serve their fellow beings.

Val is an expert on alien cultures but has never seen a bland before.

They come together after Tedla is found light-years away from its home planet—alone, isolated and suicidal. Val's mission is to help Tedla recover. But the more she learns about the beautiful alien being, the more she discovers about the torment Tedla and its kind suffer on their planet.

Little does the rest of the universe know of the hidden world of the blands, a world that hides shocking secrets and unspeakable crimes.

Halfway Human is a mesmerizing look at an intricately created alien world which is strange and distant, yet hauntingly familiar.

The Clan of the Cave Bear under Two Bucks

Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series is finally available as an ebook and you can pick up the first in the series, The Clan of the Cave Bear: with Bonus Content, for $1.59 at Amazon $1.99 at B&N or Sony). The rest of the series is also available at $6.39 each and all of them are labeled "with Bonus Content". There's no clue yet what that is on the product pages, but I peeked inside and there's a glimpse at the upcoming ending to the series, The Land of the Painted Caves, which is still a bit steeply priced, at a $14.58 pre-order price and delivery next March, and an interview with the author. The remaining titles in the series are (books 2-5):

• The Valley of Horses: with Bonus Content
• The Mammoth Hunters: with Bonus Content
• The Plains of Passage: with Bonus Content
• The Shelters of Stone: with Bonus Content

Book Description
This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love. Through Jean M. Auel's magnificent storytelling we are taken back to the dawn of modern humans, and with a girl named Ayla we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who called themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear.

A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly--she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza's way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge.

From the Publisher
The stunning epic that stirred the imagination of millions. Here is a novel of awesome beauty and power. A moving saga about people, relationships and the boundaries of love. Through Jean Auel's magnificent storytelling, we are taken back to the dawn of mankind and swept up in the wonderful world of a very special heroine, Ayla. Her enthralling story is one we all can share. A natural disaster has left young Ayla alone, wandering, fending for herself in an unfamiliar land. One day, she is discovered by the Clan of the Cave bear, men and women far different from her own people. Tall, blond, blue-eyed Ayla is a mysterious stranger to the Clan and at first they mistrust her and cast her out. But as she grows to know them and to learn the ways of the Clan, she is welcomed. And as she leads them in their struggle for survival, the Clan come to worship Ayla. For in her blood flows the future of humanity.

Click HERE to buy The Clan of the Cave Bear from B&N or HERE for all of the titles.