New Kindle App - Ghostboy and the Nameless Grave

Ghostboy and the Nameless Grave ($2.99), by Robot Media, is an interactive Children's book for Kindle, creating using the same Active Content platform used for games and apps on Kindle. It says it is aimed at young readers, presumably so that they can read and choose their path on their own, but it also looks as if some of it would work for children who are still in the "reading to" stage, so that they can participate in the story as you read to them. At least one screen, though, does have you choose (for example), the missing vowel needed to make sense of a sentence, which would not work as well for non-readers. Then again, you can probably just answer those pages for them (the first time or two, thru) and still enjoy the book. If it turns out it is too advanced for your child, you can either return it for a refund (as with all Kindle content, within 7 days of purchase) or just hold on to it a bit, until your child's reading level has caught up with the story.

Book Description
Ghostboy and the Nameless Grave is an interactive children's book in which your child gets to make choices in the story and solve basic reading and writing puzzles that help advance the adventure.

Your child chooses an avatar and a name, and becomes ghostboy's best friend. The goal is to help Tristan (soon to be ghostboy) uncover the mystery of the little ghost girl. Why is she haunting Tristan on his birthday? How did she become a ghost? The answers lie within four illustrated chapters, and a secret epilogue which will be unlocked for those who solve all the puzzles.

As your child explores a town full of mysteries on the night before Halloween, their choices affect how the story unfolds, and only the most curious will achieve the maximum score. Did they miss something? They can always retrace their steps to find that detail they overlooked.

Ghostboy and the Nameless Grave is perfect for children who are established early readers. So if you are looking for a fun way to share the joy of reading with your kids, or if you are looking for a way for early readers to explore interactive fiction, then the haunting world of Ghostboy is for you.

Free Book (nook) - Footsteps in the Dark

Footsteps in the Dark ($9.39 Kindle), by Georgette Heyer, is this week's Free Friday book at Barnes and Noble. As I just commented below, there is a decent chance it will show up free at Amazon, but it may take a week. I still think that reporting the lower price to Amazon speeds that along.

Book Description
What begins as an adventure soon becomes a nightmare…

Locals claim it is haunted and refuse to put a single toe past the front door, but to siblings Peter, Celia, and Margaret, the Priory is nothing more than a rundown estate inherited from their late uncle—and the perfect setting for a much-needed holiday. But when a murder victim is discovered in the drafty Priory halls, the once unconcerned trio begins to fear that the ghostly rumors are true and they are not alone after all! With a killer on the loose, will they find themselves the next victims of a supernatural predator, or will they uncover a far more corporeal culprit?

Click HERE for the free book from B&N.

Free Audiobooks - Immortal and Wuthering Heights

Audiobook Sync's summer of free audiobooks continues. First, I've linked in the info from Amazon for each title (Amazon has the best reviews), then a link below to get your audio copies free. You can't get any titles that have been missed, but once they are loaded into Overdrive (which you will need to install, if you are not already using it for library books), they are yours to keep (there is no expiration date).

Two new titles each Thursday, so be sure to check back next week.!

Immortal ($7.99 Kindle; $22.60/$15.82 Audible), by Gillian Shields, read by Emily Durante.

Book Description
Wyldcliffe Abbey School for Young Ladies, housed in a Gothic mansion on the bleak northern moors, is elite, expensive, and unwelcoming. When Evie Johnson is torn away from her home by the sea to become the newest scholarship student, she is more isolated than she could have dreamed. Strict teachers, snobbish students, and the oppressive atmosphere of Wyldcliffe leave Evie drowning in loneliness.

Evie's only lifeline is Sebastian, a rebellious, mocking, dangerously attractive young man she meets by chance. As Evie's feelings for Sebastian grow with each secret meeting, she starts to fear that he is hiding something about his past. And she is haunted by glimpses of a strange, ghostly girl—a girl who is so eerily like Evie, she could be a sister. Evie is slowly drawn into a tangled web of past and present that she cannot control. And as the extraordinary, elemental forces of Wyldcliffe rise up like the mighty sea, Evie is faced with an astounding truth about Sebastian, and her own incredible fate.

Gillian Shields's electrifying tale will dazzle readers with suspense, mysticism, and romance.

Wuthering Heights (free Kindle; $20.97/$14.68 Audible), by Emily Brontë, read by Carolyn Seymour.

Book Description
Wuthering Heights, first published in 1847, the year before the author's death at the age of thirty, endures today as perhaps the most powerful and intensely original novel in the English language. The epic story of Catherine and Heathcliff plays out against the dramatic backdrop of the wild English moors, and presents an astonishing metaphysical vision of fate and obsession, passion and revenge. "Only Emily Brontë," V. S. Pritchett said, "exposes her imagination to the dark spirit." And Virginia Woolf wrote, "Hers...is the rarest of all powers. She could free life from its dependence on facts...by speaking of the moor make the wind blow and the thunder roar."

Click HERE to sign up for an account and get the free downloads. Don't forget, you'll also need to install the Overdrive software (there is a link at Sync). In addition, you end up clicking about three pages, for each book, before the audiobook actually downloads. Don't stop so long as you still see a button that talks about your Sync download (or until you see the Overdrive software open up). Once in Overdrive, you'll need to tell it where to save the files (just click OK to use the default location, since Overdrive will keep track of them for you), then again to actually start the download (by default, all parts of the book are downloaded; I would suggest not changing this in the last dialog box, just click on OK to get the download started).

Free Book (nook) - Pompeii

Pompeii: City of Fire ($9.72 Kindle), by T. L. Higley, is free in nook format in the Barnes & Noble ebookstore, courtesy of Christian publisher B&H Publishing Group. If you enjoy the author's work, you may want to check out the one self-published novel she has, Marduk's Tablet, which is 99 cents both on Kindle and from B&N.

Book Description
Pompeii, a city that's many things to many people. For Cato, it's the perfect escape from a failed political career in Rome. A place to start again, become a winemaker. But when a corrupt politician wrongfully jails Cato's sister, he must oust the man from power to save her.

For Ariella, Pompeii is a means to an end. As a young Jew, she escaped the fall of Jerusalem only to endure slavery to a cruel Roman general. She ends up in Pompeii, disguised as a young man and sold into a gladiator troupe. Her anger fuels her to fight well, hoping to win the arena crowds and reveal her gender at the perfect time. Perhaps then she will win true freedom.

But evil creeps through the streets of Pompeii. Political corruption, religious persecution, and family peril threaten to destroy Ariella and Cato, who are thrown together in the battle to survive. As Vesuvius churns with deadly intent, the two must bridge their differences to save the lives of those they love, before the fiery ash buries Pompeii, leaving the city lost to the world.

Click HERE for the free book from B&N.

Kindle WiFi for $99; Kindle 3G for $129; No Ads!

First off, I'll be the first to say that I actually like the ads (well, the offers, anyway, while the ads don't bother me anymore than in a magazine or on TV, not that I spend much time looking at them). But, for those that do and for those who have been waiting for a mainstream ebook reader to break the $100 mark, today is the day. Amazon has refurbished units of both of their ad-free models on sale and you save $40-$60, depending on which one you choose. I have received a refurbished unit in the past (I bought an original Kindle refurb as our second Kindle and have had a couple of returns over the last few years) and there is absolutely no way to tell that the unit itself is any different from brand new, other than there is sometimes a colored dot on the outside of the box (they may now add "refurbished" to the label, but that wasn't even on mine). These have the exact same warranty, but one item is missing - there is no charging block to go with the included USB cable. All that means is that you will either need to charge it using your computer or buy a USB to AC adapter (I use a number of third party adapters, rather than the one that came with my Kindle, so that I can charge a Kindle and my phone at the same time). If you are picking up a second Kindle for your house, you can use the same charger you are using now, since you won't need to charge it every day, anyway (unlike my phone).

Kindle, Wi-Fi, Graphite, 6" Display with New E Ink Pearl Technology ($99.99)

Kindle 3G, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 3G Works Globally, Graphite, 6" Display with New E Ink Pearl Technology ($129.99)