Free Book (EPUB) - The Chinese Maze Murders

The University of Chicago Press' free book this month is The Chinese Maze Murders ($9.79 Kindle), by Robert Van Gulik. If you are willing to go a bit above free, you can also get two more in the series on sale at Fictionwise (see below), both in DRM free formats.

Book Description
Poisoned plums, a cryptic scroll picture, passionate love letters, and a hidden murderer with a penchant for torturing and killing women lead Judge Dee to the heart of the Governor’s garden maze and the answers to three interwoven mysteries. The Chinese Maze Murders represents Robert van Gulik’s first venture into writing suspense novels after the success of Dee Gong An, his translation of an anonymous Chinese detective novel from the sixteenth century.

Click HERE to sign up for the free book. You'll need to enter your email address, then check your email for the link to download the book. Mine arrived within seconds -- you get a .ACSM file, which, when opened, will load the EPUB book inside of Adobe ADE. This is a DRM'd EPUB and is not compatible with the Kindle. If you downloaded it the very first day it was available, then you probably got a DRM'd PDF and may want to redownload (the EPUB is better formatted for reading on smaller screens like the nook or Kobo/Sony readers.) There are two titles (Murder in Canton and The Red Pavilion ) you can get at 30% off on the same page (using coupon code DEE30, which drops them just below the Kindle prices (although not in a Kindle compatible format).

The Haunted Monastery ($7.38 Kindle) is the first of the two ebooks available at Fictionwise for $5.99, less 60% using the coupon code below (which I expect to work all day today, but not tomorrow).

Book Description
Judge Dee and his entourage, seeking refuge from a mountain storm, become trapped in a Taoist monastery, where the Abbott Jade mysteriously dies after delivering an ecstatic sermon. The monks call it a supernatural experience, but the judge calls it murder. Recalling the allegedly accidental deaths of three young women in the same monastery, Judge Dee seeks clues in the eyes of a cat to solve cases of impersonation and murder. A painting by one of the victims reveals the truth about the killings, propelling the judge on a quest for justice and revenge.

The Poisoned Bride and Other Judge Dee Mysteries is the second of the titles available at Fictionwise. This one is available as a paperback at Amazon under the title Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee ($8.95) or from Audible ($14.95) or as an audio CD ($76.00!).

Book Description
Authentic 18th-century Chinese detective novels. Dee and associates solve 3 interlocked cases: The Case of the Double Murder at Dawn, The Case of the Strange Corpse, and The Case of the Poisoned Bride.

Click HERE for the two books at Fictionwise. You can still use coupon code 070111 today for 60% off, which means they are $2.40 each (less for members). Best of all, they are multiformat, which means no DRM and you can download the format of your choice.

Free Book (nook) - A Storm of Love

A Storm of Love ($2.95 Kindle), by Terri Brisbin, is free from the B&N store this morning. Since this novella, originally published in the anthology Undone, is published by Kensington Books, I expect it to be free from Amazon within a day or two.

Book Description
The wild lands of Argyll hold no promise for a woman cast away--until a younger lover draws Agneis of Mull into a strong embrace. Breac's tender touch erases all sorrow...and his compelling sexuality brings her to ecstacy!

But when her past comes to haunt her future, will their love be strong enough against magic of the Fae and the curse she carries?

Click HERE for the free book from B&N.

Free Book (noDRM) - Seeing the Unseen

Seeing the Unseen ($7.99 Kindle), by T.W. Hunt, is free from ChristianBook, courtesy of Christian publisher Navpress (be sure to report the lower price to Amazon!). Also, if you had problems earlier getting Heartless or The Outsider from ChristianBook, the buy links for both have been fixed and they are still free.

Book Description
Look beyond what you can see to a richer level of experiencing the invisible hand of God in your relationships, work, and play. Sometimes God seems a bit hazy or even imperceptible in our busy day-to-day lives. Experienced author and Bible teacher T. W. Hunt directs you to see and hear from God in the supernatural, no matter where you are at work, in the kitchen, or on the road. You will come to see that God is always present.

Even devout believers unconsciously rely on the tangible things of this world for spiritual insights. Yet seasoned Bible teacher and author T.W. Hunt guides readers to look beyond the natural world and physical sense to perceive and trust the always-present God who exists beyond sight and sound. The book challenges believers to consider the "reality of the unseen" presence of God in their lives. Dr. Hunt's goal is to help believers verbalize and discover how to live by faith and "see the unseen" (2 Cor. 4:18)

Click HERE to get the free book from ChristianBook. It's a DRM-free EPUB, so can be converted for Kindle using Calibre.

$5 Instant Video Credit at Amazon (KSO)

Just a quick note, first: I've added a list of the KSO offers and their ending dates on the menu sidebar to the right (only visible on the website). If you are like me, you may have signed up for a number of offers that you haven't taken advantage of and it's easy to forget that one is about to expire (for example, tomorrow is the last day for the 25% an entire order from Endless.com and that huge savings on an HDTV has less than a week left to go -- I saved an incredible amount on the 55" Samsung 3D HDTV I mentioned in the blog post and I LOVE the picture, whether it's a 3D movie or not; we were already shopping for an HDTV when this offer popped up, so this was a true savings of over a thousand dollars, with the movies, glasses and blu-ray player that were also free with the TV). So, I'll update the list as I add offers in the blog and as older offers expire. Now, back to today's offer....

This offer is for those with selected Kindle Wi-Fi with Special Offers or Kindle 3G + Wi-Fi with Special Offers only. Turn on your wireless, click Menu, Sync & Check for New Items, then on View Special Offers after the sync has completed. You should see this new offer:

Get a $5 credit towards movies and TV shows at Amazon Instant Video

Click on the offer, then click on the link on the offer page sign up and get an email with the promotion code. Sign-up for this offer expires on July 7.

You'll get an email (right away), a link to the Instant Video page, a promotion code and a link to the redemption page. This one works like a gift card and you need to apply the credit to your account first, before going shopping. Once you have entered the promotional code(s), you have until August 7 to complete your purchases.

Once again, this offer can be used more than once per accounts, so long as you have more than one KSO registered (per the offer page on the KSO itself). Just click on the ad on each device to receive the individual promotion codes via email.

You can use this credit on a rental or to purchase single items or entire movie seasons. Be sure to check out the $1.99 Rental Sale this weekend or the daily 99 cent movie rental (today is Hereafter, starring Matt Damon and Cecile De France). If purchasing and TV shows is more your thing, all seasons of Weeds are $14.99 right now (thru July 9) and there are a number of other shows currently discounted on Amazon's current TV Show Sale, including "House", "The Office," "30 Rock," and "Battlestar Galactica."

Between all the instant video credits Amazon has sent my way, I now have enough to pick up Sons of Anarchy Season 3 for free or get the HD version for about $8 (my biggest problem is trying to choose; both are great deals vs the $60+ Blu-Ray available for pre-order).

Free Audiobook - The Millennials

Christianaudio teamed up with David C Cook to give away an unabridged audiobook download of The Millennials ($11.99 Kindle), by Thom S. Rainer and Jess W. Rainer, narrated by Ray Porter, for free during the month of July (the ebook was free on Kindle last month). You'll find two more of Rainer's audiobooks, plus a third from Swindoll, marked down to $4.98 each this month, at the bottom of the download page.

Book Description
At more than 78 million strong, the Millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000—have surpassed the Boomers as the larger and more influential generation in America. Now, as its members begin to reach adulthood, where the traits of a generation really take shape, best-selling research author Thom Rainer (Simple Church) and his son Jess (a Millennial born in 1985) present the first major investigative work on Millennials from a Christian worldview perspective.

Sure to interest even the secularists who study this group, The Millennials is based on 1200 interviews with its namesakes that aim to better understand them personally, professionally, and spiritually. Chapters report intriguing how-and-why findings on family matters (they are closer-knit than previous generations), their desire for diversity (consider the wave of mixed race and ethnic adoptions), Millennials and the new workplace, their attitude toward money, the media, the environment, and perhaps most tellingly, religion.

The authors close with a thoughtful response to how the church can engage and minister to what is now in fact the largest generation in America’s history.

Get your free audio download HERE and scroll down the page for the discounted titles. The checkout process is very streamlined (a coupon code is no longer required), as isthe download process (no longer do you have to download each part of the book separately). You can also send a gift download of the free audiobook to someone else!

After you finishing your order, you download a zip file with the entire audiobook - select MP3 if you want to be able to play the book on your Kindle. Unzip the contents to the \audiobooks directory on your Kindle (not \music) in order to have audiobook controls and see it on your Kindle home page.