Free Book - The Perfect Creation

The Perfect Creation ($0.99 Kindle), by Marie Harte, the first in her Creations series, is today's free book at AllRomance (and currently discounted, from the $4.90 the rest of the series is going for, at Amazon).

Book Description
Science can create many things, but only a troublemaking Mardu can introduce Erin to the wonders of love.

Rafe of Mardu has a problem. He's sent to baby-sit his troublesome older brother, and in the process finds himself kidnapped by a woman too perfect to be real, with the strength of an inhumanly powerful being. To make matters worse, he's mistaken for his old alter-ego, Cheltam—a criminal mastermind who actually serves as a cover for Rafe's real work as a lawman.

But Erin, his kidnapper, needs his help, and Rafe is unable to deny the protective instincts, as well as the lust, he feels in her presence. He agrees to help her, posing as Cheltam. And they seal the deal with more than a kiss, in an act that changes Rafe's world forever. When he learns that this special woman is a Creation, an 'abomination' in the eyes of the System and one that is to be terminated on sight, Rafe doesn't just bend the rules, he breaks them. Together, he and Erin will take on the laboratory that created her.

The odds are against them, but if they're successful, Rafe plans on a future with the woman he considers his mate...if only he can convince her that his love is real.

Click HERE for the free book. It may show full price until you click on Buy Now or Add to Cart; once you start to checkout, you will see a 100% discount and your total will be zero (if it isn't, stop and try again from their home page, as you need to see the discount to get it free). Available (DRM-free) formats are: Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Reader, HTML, Mobipocket (.prc), Epub.

Books for a Buck

All of the books in today's post are 99 cents (or less) in the Kindle store, unless otherwise noted. If you decide to look for these on Kobo, make sure you try the coupon code KoboSpring1 ($1 off; unlimited use) to see if they end up free.

Starting off today's Books for a Buck lineup is Glasruhen Gate, by Catherine Cooper. This is the sequel to The Golden Acorn, which just popped up free for US Kindlers this morning. If you like young adult fantasy or have kids that read (or might later on; after all, they do grow up to fit into all the reading categories), I'd grab both of them while you can get them for this price.

Book Description
When Jack Brenin found out that, beyond doubt, he was 'The One' written about in ancient prophecy, his whole life changed. Now, armed with the golden acorn, his wand and newly acquired skills, Jack must fulfill his promise to ensure that Glasruhen Gate is opened before it's too late. His new friends are depending on him. Jack doesn't want to let anyone down but he knows that he has to be courageous and overcome his doubts if they're to succeed. Jack's extraordinary magical adventure continues.

A Dog Named Slugger, by Leigh Brill, was briefly free in the Kindle store last December (and this is one you can get free from Kobo, with the coupon code).

Book Description
The true life story of a dog who changed everything for one woman. For the first time in my life, I didn't need to pretend, I didn't need to be tough: I only needed to be honest. "I have cerebral palsy. I walk funny and my balance is bad. I fall a lot. My hands shake, too. That means I'm not so good at carrying things. And if I drop stuff, sometimes it's hard to just bend down and get it." I waited anxiously for the interviewer's response. She smiled. "It sounds like a service dog could be great for you." So began Leigh Brill's journey toward independence and confidence, all thanks to a trained companion dog named Slugger. The struggling college student and the Labrador with a "a coat like sunshine" and a tail that never stopped wagging became an instant team. Together, they transformed a challenge into a triumph. Together, they inspired and educated everyone they met. Now, Leigh honors her friend with the story of their life, together.

A Night to Remember, by Celeste Bradley and Susan Donovan, is a $1.99 pre-order, but you get two novellas in the single title. The two authors also have an upcoming novel, A Courtesan's Guide to Getting Your Man ($7.99), which will be released on sale May 24, 2011.

Book Description
WEDDING KNIGHT by Celeste Bradley: Previously published in the anthology My Scandalous Bride. Alfred Knight will do anything to avoid a scandal--even marry a woman he barely knows. But his bride has a most titillating secret...one she'll share as soon as she conquers her temptation for the man she was never supposed to marry!

HAVE MERCY by Susan Donovan: Previously published in the anthology Honk if You Love Real Men. Win Mackland is a stressed-out screenwriter who holes up in her agent’s Berkshire mountain retreat to finish a script. Win soon gets distracted--and then inspired--by her outrageously sexy neighbor.

Hawk of May, by Gillian Bradshaw, is $1.59 in the Kindle store, but only 79 cents from Kobo after using the coupon.

Book Description
On The Path Toward Greatness, Every Hero Makes a ChoiceLegends sing of Sir Gawain, one of the most respected warriors of King Arthur’s reign and one of the greatest champions of all time. But this is not that story. This is the story of Gwalchmai, middle son of the beautiful, infinitely evil sorceress Morgawse, and gifted student of her dark magical arts. A story of an uncertain man, doubting his ability to follow his elder brother’s warrior prowess and seeking to find his own identity by bonding with his frightening and powerful mother. Disappointed in himself and despised by his father, Gwalchmai sets out on a journey that will lead him to the brink of darkness…A tale of loss, redemption, and adventure, Hawk of May brings new depth and understanding to Sir Gawain, the legend of King Arthur, and the impact of choices made—and the consequences that follow.

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre, by Amanda Grange, is another you can grab free from Kobo.

Book Description
Sourcebooks Landmark, the leading publisher of Jane Austen-related fiction, is excited to announce a major release: Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by international bestselling author Amanda Grange.

Amanda Grange, bestselling author of Mr. Darcy's Diary, gives us something completely new—a delightfully thrilling, paranormal Pride and Prejudice sequel, full of danger, darkness and deep romantic love…

Amanda Grange's style and wit bring readers back to Jane Austen's timeless storytelling, but always from a very unique and unusual perspective, and now Grange is back with an exciting and completely new take on Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre starts where Pride and Prejudice ends and introduces a dark family curse so perfectly that the result is a delightfully thrilling, spine-chilling, breathtaking read. A dark, poignant and visionary continuation of Austen's beloved story, this tale is full of danger, darkness and immortal love.

Montfort: The Revolutionary 1253 to 1260, by Katherine Ashe, the third in her Montfort The Founder of Parliament series, which is just making it's way to Kindle (the first two are available at $2.99 each).

Book Description
The Revolutionary.

Restored to his titles Earl of Leicester, Steward of England, Simon, as permanent ambassador to France, is living contentedly in Paris when Prince Edward commits an atrocity, and the Earl must save him and his friends from Llewellyn.

In England again, unbidden, Simon becomes entangled in the barons' revolt against King Henry's misrule. He rescues the Provisions of Oxford, the constitution of the new, elective government -- and modern democracy is born -- at risk of his life.

Miranda's Big Mistake, by Jill Mansell

Book Description
Miranda's track record with men is horrible.

Her most recent catastrophe is Greg. He seems perfect—gorgeous, witty, exciting. And he and Miranda are in love… until Miranda discovers he left his wife when he found out she was pregnant.

With the help of her friends, Miranda plans the sweetest and most public revenge a heartbroken girl can get. But will Miranda learn from her mistake, or move on to the next "perfect" man and ignore the love of her life waiting in the wings…

Even the worst mistake of your life can lead to true love in the end…

Kingmaking, by Helen Hollick, the first book in the Pendragon's Banner Trilogy is $1.59 on Kindle and 79 cents at Kobo after coupon. This edition includes bonus reading group guide.

Book Description
Who was THE MAN
Who became THE LEGEND
We know as KING ARTHUR?

"You are the Pendragon, rightful Lord of Dumnonia and the Summer Land; Lord of less Britain. By all that is right, you ought be seated where Vortigern sits…You ought to be King."

Here lies the truth of the Lord of the Summer Land.

This is the tale of Arthur flesh and bone. Of the shaping of the man, both courageous and flawed, into the celebrated ruler who inspired armies, who captured Gwenhyfar's heart, and who emerged as the hero of the Dark Ages and the most enduring hero of all time.

This is the unexpected story of the making of a king — the legend who united all of Britain.

Child of the Northern Spring, by Persia Woolley, the first book of her Guinevere Trilogy series, is also $1.59 on Kindle and 79 cents at Kobo after coupon.

Book Description
The story of a queen who deserves to become a legend - a startlingly original tale of Arthur & Guinevere

Often portrayed as spoiled, in Persia Woolley's hands Guinevere comes alive as a high-spirited, passionate woman. When she is chosen by Arthur to be his wife, Guinevere's independence wars with her family loyalty. As the wedding approaches and hints of rebellion abound, she learns that the old gods are in revolt against the new Christian church, and that scattered kingdoms are stirring from their uneasy peace. This is Arthurian epic at its best, filled with romance, adventure, authentic historical detail, and a landscape alive with the mystery of Britain in the Dark Ages.

Boost Your Child's Confidence, by Lucy Morgans and Steve Hemsley

Book Description
Whether you're fresh out of education or looking for a new direction in your existing career you need some new ideas to get you to the top. In Cultivate a cool career organisations expert Ken Langdon provides 52 brilliant ideas to put some zing into your career. With realistic and practical advice on everything from dealing delicately with the boss to proving your worth in a tight spot, via ideas on networking effectively and rubbing along with even the most useless of colleagues, Cultivate a cool career is your ticket to the MD's chair.

Cultivate a Cool Career, by Ken Langdon (the product page has the wrong description, so I grabbed this one from the paperback edition; be sure to sample first, to make sure you are getting the right book).

Book Description
52 fresh ideas for climbing the ladder...two steps at a time.

Cultivate a Cool Career offers the guidance and hints to help job-seekers-whether they're recent college grads or are experienced workers looking for new directions-achieve their professional goals.

- Idea #7: Lead with style
- Idea #23: Draw your own map
- Idea #29: Changing horses mid-career
- Idea #48: Make me an offer

Knockout Interview Answers, by Ken Langdon

Book Description
Knockout interview answers is a collaboration between best-selling business author Ken Langdon and human resources specialist Nikki Cartwright. Unlike the majority of interview techniques books this book steers clear of blindingly obvious advice such as not to wear track-suit bottoms or turn up drunk to your interview, and instead provides a way into the mind of the interviewer so that you can spot the likely questions and know how to answer them differently depending on the perspective of the interviewer.

Free Book - Deadly Nightshade

Deadly Nightshade ($4.79 Kindle), a LGBT novel by Victor J. Banis, is today's free book at AllRomance. He is also one of the authors in the anthology Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling (White Crane Wisdom Series) ($1.00 Kindle), if you want to sample more of his writing (it's a penny cheaper at AllRomance, but only in PDF, so the Kindle version is a better choice, as it's DRM-free and can be easily converted for other ereaders).

Book Description
Straight cop, gay cop, and a woman who "isn't real." Tom and Stanley are on the trail of a drag queen serial killer, and along the way, they find themselves engaged in a more intimate pursuit, trying to resolve another mystery: their unexpected attraction to one another.

Click HERE for the free book. It may show full price until you click on Buy Now or Add to Cart; once you start to checkout, you will see a 100% discount and your total will be zero (if it isn't, stop and try again from their home page, as you need to see the discount to get it free). Available (DRM-free) formats are: Adobe Acrobat, Mobipocket (.prc), Epub, HTML.

Happy Monopoly Day!

Today is Global Monopoly Day and you can pick up MONOPOLY for your Kindle for only 99 cents (thru 4/10). I know that at least one Kindle in this household seems to be playing Monopoly every day, so this one is a winner, in that respect. I wonder how long it will be before all the many co-branded versions of Monopoly are available on the Kindle (or in the Amazon Android Appstore), such as Volopoly (UT Volunteers themed, of course), etc.?

Book Description
Enjoy the original MONOPOLY board game on your Kindle.

You can play against your Kindle or with a combination of up to 3 friends with Pass 'N Play multiplayer. Choose between 3 different difficulty levels for your opponents - Easy, Medium, and Hard. You can even customize your house rules to change how Free Parking, Taxes, Get Out of Jail and other rules work within your game.

Featuring all the classic properties like Park Place and Boardwalk, you can buy, sell, and build houses and hotels all around the MONOPOLY board.

Kids Books for a Buck

Most of these are deals at Amazon, but a few are for Kobo, where using the coupon code KoboSpring1 will get your $1 off an unlimited number of books this month.

The multi-award winning Dust ($0.99 Kindle only) is a self-published backlist book by Arthur Slade, whose newest books, like The Hunchback Assignments, are being sold by Random House for $8.99 and up. The cover in this edition is much cooler than the one from the old print editions (and makes me want to open it up to find out how those butterflies came to be pouring out of the kid's mouth). He also has several other titles at $2.99, all aimed at the tween to young adult crowd, it appears. Audience: Grades 8-12.

Book Description
For fans of Stephen King and Ray Bradbury...

Imagine a depression-era town where it hasn’t rained for years. A pale rainmaker with other-worldly eyes brings rain to the countryside and mesmerizes the townspeople, but the children begin to disappear one by one. Only young Robert Steelgate is able to resist the rainmaker’s spell and begin the struggle to discover what has happened to his missing brother and the other children.

Hollowland ($0.99 Kindle ) is the first book in a new series, The Hollows, from the bestselling Amanda Hocking. She was kind enough to send me a review copy and I was up until 4am the first night reading it (I finally gave in to suggestions to turn out the light in bed, though, so finished it the next day). I'd recommend it for the older teen (and any adult) or more mature tween, as there are some scenes that younger readers might find disturbing (most adults are dead, kids on their own), although most eleven year olds can probably handle the fight scenes (boys perhaps more so than their moms, as it seems that these zombies are quite easy to kill, but quite messy). The protagonist has a mission, which she carries forward well, with a bit of romance (kissing and not much more) to spice u what is otherwise teen dystopian sci-fi. She also has a secret, which you may guess at before it is revealed near the end; that secret then becomes the foundation of the ending, which neatly sets the reader up for a next novel in the series (yet, nothing is left unresolved in the end, so the book can be read stand-alone).

This title is cheapest at Amazon, but some of her other titles are lowest on Kobo, after using the $1 coupon code; some titles show up twice in the search, but the duplicates appear to be older editions that were removed (you have to click on both entries to find the one that is still active). You can get both My Blood Approves and Switched (Trylle Trilogy #1) there for free using the coupon. Over at Amazon, the lowest price is 99 cents, but there are six at that price (3 of which are not on Kobo at all; two of which she edited, with co-author credits), as well as the remaining titles in her series at $2.99 each.

Book Description
Hollowland - the first book in the young adult dystopian series The Hollows..

"This is the way the world ends - not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies breaking down the back door."

Nineteen-year-old Remy King is on a mission to get across the wasteland left of America, and nothing will stand in her way - not violent marauders, a spoiled rock star, or an army of flesh-eating zombies.

This is a young adult title with some language, violence, and mild sexual situations recommended for ages sixteen and up.

Percival's Angel ($1.59 Kindle), by Anne Eliot Crompton, is under a buck using the above coupon code at Kobo (like Amazon, you can buy a gift certificate there and apply to your account, to stop small charges from upsetting your credit card company). The reviews are a bit mixed (but no really bad ones), so I'd say it's worth taking a 79 cent chance upon.

Book Description
Lili, an apprentice of the Lady of the Lake, is the childhood friend of Percy, the boy who will become one of Arthur's greatest knights. But as they grow older, Lili begins to see their differences. She has otherworldly magic while he has the magic that lives within the Human Heart. Lili dreams of knowing human love while Percy dreams of finding the Holy Grail. Neither can succeed without the other.

Once again Crompton weaves together nature, feminist perspective, and Arthurian legend for a tale that is sure to appeal to readers of all ages.

There are exactly ten Horrid Henry books, by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross (illustrator), in the Amazon (and Kobo) stores and that's exactly how many of them you can get for 99 cents each at Amazon or completely free from Kobo, using the above coupon code. I'm going to list each of them below, with the title link going to Amazon and a separate link for Kobo, to make it easier to track them down. The entire series hasn't made it to ebook form yet (these ten are from the first sixteen print volumes), it appears. I've listed them below in order of publication.

About the Authors
Francesca Simon is one of the world's best-loved children's authors. She is the only American to have ever won the Galaxy Book Award, and her creation, Horrid Henry, is the #1 bestselling chapter book series in the UK—with a hit TV show and over fifteen million copies sold! Each book contains four easy-to-read stories and hilarious illustrations by the one and only Tony Ross, so even the most reluctant of readers won't be able to resist Henry's amazing talent for trouble!

Horrid Henry (Kobo)
Horrid Henry and his neighbor Moody Margaret decide to make the most sloppy, slimy, sludgy, sticky, smelly, gooey, gluey, gummy, greasy, gloppy glop possible. Is it the best glop in the world or the worst thing that's ever happened to them? Plus three other stories so funny we can't even mention them here.

Horrid Henry Tricks the Tooth Fairy (Kobo)
When Perfect Peter's tooth falls out, Henry gets a great idea. He will steal the toth and put it under his own pillow so that the Tooth Fairy gives him the reward instead of Peter. Will the Tooth Fairy fall for it? Plus three other stories so funny they are sure to make your teeth fall out. (Okay, not really-)

Horrid Henry and the Mummy's Curse (Kobo)
Horrid Henry indulges his favorite hobby—collecting Gizmos; has a bad time with his spelling homework; starts a rumor that there's a shark in the swimming pool; and spooks Perfect Peter with the mummy's curse.

Horrid Henry and the Scary Sitter (Kobo)
Horrid Henry encounters the worst babysitter in the world; traumatizes his parents on a long car trip; goes trick-or-treating at Halloween (with disastrous results); and emerges victorious from a raid on Moody Margaret's Secret Club.

Horrid Henry's Stinkbomb (Kobo)
Horrid Henry and Moody Margaret are a perfect pair. Henry has a secret club that doesn't allow girls in. Margaret has a secret club just for girls, and both Henry and Margaret love to play pranks. But with Perfect Peter and Sour Susan acting as spies, which secret club will win? Plus three other stories that totally don't stink.

Horrid Henry's Underpants (Kobo)
Horrid Henry makes a deal with his parents in return for eating his veggies; accidentally wears girls' underwear to school; tries to prove he is sicker than his brother; and writes the meanest thank-you cards ever (and makes money on it too).

Horrid Henry and the Mega-Mean Time Machine (Kobo)
Horrid Henry invents a time machine and promises to send his brother, Perfect Peter, to the future (as soon as Peter puts on one of Mom's dresses). But when Peter gets there, it isn't exactly what he had in mind. In fact, everything looks kind of the same- plus three more out-of-this-world funny stories.

Horrid Henry and the Soccer Fiend (Kobo)
Horrid Henry reads Perfect Peter's diary and improves it; goes shopping with Mom and tries to make her buy him some really nice new sneakers; is horrified when his old enemy Bossy Bill turns up at school; and tries, by any means, to win the class soccer match and defeat Moody Margaret.

Horrid Henry's Christmas (Kobo)
In this installment in a best-selling chapter-book series from the U.K., self-centered Horrid Henry wreaks total havoc at the Nativity play, destroys the Christmas tree, and almost ruins the holiday lunch. His irreverent actions are made tolerable through the ridiculousness of the incidents and the appeal to the naughty side in readers' personalities. Ross's mischievous black-and-white cartoon drawings are the perfect choice to carry them off. Large print and simple vocabulary make this title an easy read and a fun read-aloud.

Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman (Kobo)
There's a snowman-building contest in town and the grand prize is a year's supply of free ice cream Horrid Henry just has to beat Moody Margaret and her dumb old ballerina snowman. So Henry makes the biggest monster snowman ever. But Henry might have to use a few last-minute tricks to win this one. Plus three other stories that won't melt.