New Kindle Games and Apps

Two new games and two new apps are available for Kindle today. I'm very tempted by both of the games.

Jewel Quest Solitaire ($3.99), by iWin

Game Description
The creative minds behind the popular Jewel Quest series return with a Solitaire card game filled with riches and adventure.

Play solitaire using jewel-themed card decks and mind-boggling layouts. The goal of the game is to remove all the cards from the board by finding cards that are either one value higher or lower than the one on the foundation pile. In this unique edition, you play young explorer Percy Pack as he works to unveil the story behind a mysterious lost jewel board that Professor Percy Pack had spent a lifetime searching for. To accomplish this, you must solve the 66 game layouts. Match card suits to earn more points, unearth buried cards, and discover wild cards with extraordinary powers.

An in-game tutorial makes it easy to get started playing right away, and you can get a hint if you get stuck in a particular game. Ten unique profiles means that different members of your family can play and without disturbing each others progress, or you can play several profiles at once to try and improve your high score along the way.

Embark on your card playing adventure in Jewel Quest Solitaire. Fortune and glory are in the cards!

Mahjong Butterfly ($2.99), by Namco Networks America

Game Description
Mahjong Butterfly is a Mahjong tile matching game with a strategic goal larger than just clearing the board.

You goal is to collect caterpillars and help them transform into beautiful butterflies. To accomplish this, you must match the correct kinds of tiles to get caterpillars, and then continue making the right matches to feed your caterpillars and help them grow.

To help you achieve this goal, Mahjong Butterfly offers you the ability to take and hold a tile in reserve, allowing you access to a previously inaccessible tile without having to remove a valuable piece you want to play later. As you collect butterflies through the 47 different games, you gain more entries in your collection of butterflies; a nice reference that shows you more about the butterflies you've raised.

If you are ready for a more engaging Mahjong experience, then take some time to play with butterflies!

Day Planner & Calendar ($0.99), by Magellan Interactive

App Description
Day Planner and Calendar is a personal planner that can track just about any scheduled event you could possibly plan for.

The Day Planner & Calendar lets you create scheduled events for meetings, anniversaries, vacations, or any other event you care to track. Each entry supports a location, start and stop information, personal notes, and an option to create an all-day event. You can even select one of over 50 fun icons to help you identify your event in the calendar.

To help you remember important events, Day Planner and Calendar lets you create recurring events every few days, or every week, month or year. Four views help you track your events: A year view, month view, day view, and an agenda view which gives you a compact list of your scheduled events.

Day Planner and Calendar also includes a Task List to help you manage non-event obligations such as shopping lists, to-do lists and even notes to yourself. Simple navigation and a check box for completion make this feature a hit for grocery lists and other tasks.

If you are looking for an easy way to enter your commitments and see your calendar at a glance, Day Planner and Calendar is for you.

Address Book ($0.99), by 7 Dragons

App Description
Use your Kindle as your address book with Address Book by 7 Dragons.

You can add up to 1,000 contacts in Address Book, and you can even import them from Outlook, Yahoo Mail, GMail or any source that supports VCF 3.0 format (VCard 3.0 format). You can organize your contacts into groups, and pick contacts to mark as 'Favorite' contacts. In addition to a search tool, Address Book provides a First Name Flipbook, a Last Name Flipbook to make finding any contact quick and easy.

You can make backups, and there is an automatic weekly backup to help you save your data. Address Book can export your contacts in VCF 3.0 format so you can load them into Outlook, Yahoo, Google and other VCF 3.0 compatible tools.

Address Book is your complete Address Book solution on the Kindle.

Free Book (EPUB/nook) - The Harbinger

Update: 9/23/11 Still not free from Amazon, but now free from Barnes & Noble.

The Harbinger: The ancient mystery that holds the secret of America's future ($9.99 Kindle), by Jonathan Cahn, is free over at ChristianBook, courtesy of FrontLine, an imprint of Christian publisher Charisma House.

Book Description
Is it possible…

• That there exists an ancient mystery that holds the secret of America’s future?
• That this mystery lies behind everything from 9/11 to the collapse of the global economy?
• That ancient harbingers of judgment are now manifesting in America?
• That God is sending America a prophetic message of what is yet to come?

Before its destruction as a nation, ancient Israel received nine harbingers, prophetic omens of warning. The same nine harbingers are now manifesting in America—with immediate ramifications for end-time prophecy.

Hidden in an ancient biblical prophecy from Isaiah, the mysteries revealed in The Harbinger are so precise that they foretold recent American events down to the exact days. The revelations are so specific that even the most hardened skeptics will find it hard to dismiss or put down. It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood thriller – with one exception… IT’S REAL.

The prophetic mysteries are revealed through an intriguing and engaging narrative the reader will find hard to put down. The Harbinger opens with the appearance of a man burdened with a message he has received from a mysterious figure called The Prophet. The Prophet has given him nine seals, each containing a message about America’s future. As he tells of his encounters with The Prophet, from a skyscraper in New York City, to a rural mountaintop, to Capitol Hill, to Ground Zero, the mystery behind each seal is revealed. As the story unfolds, each revelation becomes a piece in a greater puzzle – the ramifications of which will even alter the course of world history.

Get the free ebook from ChristianBook.
Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.

Today's Deals and Bargain Books

As expected, last night's UK Kindle books turned up free in the US this morning; two of them are also free from Barnes & Noble.

• The Manicurist (Kindle)
• Hurry Less, Worry Less (Kindle)
• The Glory of Green (Kindle/nook)
• Delivered with Love (Kindle/nook)

Today's free audiobook from The Guardian UK is A Perfect Spy by John le Carré. I'm all caught up on my downloads from them now, except for this one.

For those who have a Twitter account, be sure to click HERE and follow the directions to get a free $2 credit in the Amazon Android Appstore. You'll have until December 15th, 2011, to use the credit. Don't be surprised if it doesn't work the first time or two you try it (if twitter usage is too high, it can take a few tries). When it does work, you'll see a green Congratulations message and can then go spend your $2 in the Appstore. While you are there, be sure to pick up today's free game, Happy Vikings.

If you shop at Kobo, be sure to take advantage of these new promotion codes for any non-Agency priced book (all expire Sept 23 and are one use/account):

• save10sept291 (10% off)
• save15sept891 (15% off)
• save20sept292 (20% off)
• save20sept892 (20% off)
• Firstreadca1 ($1 off)

True Detective ($0.99), by Max Allan Collins, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day. This is the very first Nate Heller book, originally published in 1983, and it appears that the low price is available outside the US on this one, as the publisher is AmazonEncore. In addition to giving a first chance to new authors, this Amazon label is apparently bringing back into publication books by well established authors: Max Allan Collins has earned ten Private Eye Writers of America Shamus nominations for his historical thrillers, winning twice for his Nathan Heller novels, True Detective and Stolen Away. He has a new collection of short stories, Chicago Lightning: The Collected Nathan Heller Short Stories, published by Thomas & Mercer, coming out in October.

Book Description
In the mob-choked Chicago of 1932, private detective Nathan Heller may be willing to risk his life to earn a Depression dollar, but he never sacrifices his slicing wit. That’s why mystery fans and critics alike rank the historical thriller True Detective at the top of their lists —and why the book swept up a Shamus Award for best novel from the Private Eye Writers of America.

The Convent of the Pure ($0.99 Kindle, Smashwords), by Sara M. Harvey, is on sale today, courtesy of small press Apex Publications.

Book Description
Secrets and illusions abound in a decaying convent wrapped in dark magic and scented with blood. Portia came to the convent with the ghost of Imogen, the lover she failed to protect in life. Now, the spell casting caste wants to make sure that neither she nor her spirit ever leave.

Portia's ignorance of her own power may be even more deadly than those who conspire against her as she fights to fulfill her sworn duty to protect humankind in a battle against dark illusions and painful realities.

Get the first book of Harvey's Penemue trilogy for the promotional price of 99 cents. Continue Portia's adventure in THE LABYRINTH OF THE DEAD. And don't miss the thrilling conclusion in THE TOWER OF THE FUTURE.

A Visit From Sir Nicholas ($0.99 Kindle, B&N), by Victoria Alexander, looks to be a nice, light Regency romance for the holidays.

Book Description
Everyone knows that an Effington always getsher way ... but this time it's not going to be easy!

Lady Elizabeth Effington simply could not suitably feel the joy of the Christmas season. Ten years had passed since she had boldly declared her love for Sir Nicholas Collingsworth. He rebuffed her and set out to seek his fortunes, while Elizabeth was left a woman scorned. Now, she discovers in horror that the inheritance she's managed beautifully was never hers to control. No, power over her finances lay in the hands of the last man she ever wants to see again: Nicholas!

But running Elizabeth's life isn't part of Nick's plans. He's intrigued when he discovers that the frivolous and flighty girl he once knew has turned into a beautiful and capable woman. Nick vows to woo -- and win -- her, and while she seems unmoved by his fervent seduction, he swears he will not rest until she accepts that most precious gift of all -- the gift of love.

Swinging from My Heels: Confessions of an LPGA Star ($3.09), by Alan Shipnuck and Christina Kim

Book Description
Christina Kim is the brashest, bawdiest, funniest player on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour. Golf fans know her for her colorful wardrobe, even more colorful on-course antics, and an explosive game. But in this rollicking account of the 2009 season, Kim invites readers deep into her life, providing an intimate diary of a young woman's struggles on and off the golf course, and revealing the glory and heartbreak of life on the tour.

Once known as a prodigy who shot a 62 in her first LPGA event some six years ago, Kim has newly rededicated herself to realizing her potential, and she takes readers between the ropes for all the action, including her nail-biting near misses at two major championships. She also goes inside the team room at the Solheim Cup, revealing the hijinks and late-night gab sessions that bonded the victorious U.S. team. Along the way we get intimate portraits of her close friends on tour, including tour leaders such as Michelle Wie, Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel, and Natalie Gulbis.

In this courageous telling, no topic is out-of-bounds, as Kim dishes about the LPGA's sexual mores, the culture clash of an American-based tour increasingly dominated by Koreans, the tumultuous economic forces squeezing the players, and her own battles with body image and her traditional upbringing. Winsome and good-natured, but never afraid of a laugh line or choice profanity, Christina Kim provides a must-read for anyone who loves golf or has wondered about the inner self of a professional athlete.

Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune ($9.99) is a double volume by Jeffrey Archer, at a bargain price. If you bought these individually, you would pay $9.99 and $8.99, respectively, effectively giving your the second title free (or a $5/title average).

Book Description
Kane and Able:

William Lowell Kane and Abel Rosnovski, one the son of a Boston millionaire, the other a penniless Polish immigrant. Two men, born on the same day, on opposite sides of the world, their paths destined to cross in their ruthless struggle to build a fortune.

An unputdownable story, spanning sixty years, of two powerful men linked by an all-consuming hatred, brought together by fate to save—and finally destroy—each other.

Sons of Fortune:
#1 New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Archer has mesmerized thousands of readers over the years with his riveting novels and unforgettable characters. Now he returns with another remarkable novel that proves he is still one of the most gifted writers of all time...

In hushed maternity ward, an infant dies, while twin brothers thrive. By morning, one mother is told that her only child is doing fine. Another is told that she has tragically lost one of her sons...

Twins seperated at birth, Nathaniel Cartwright and Fletcher Davenport have been raised in different worlds, and have both thrived among the best and brightest of their generation. In an era of violent change, freee love, and blind ambition, Nat goes off to war, while Fletcher enters political combat. With each choice they make--in love and career, through tragedy and triumph--their lives mirror one another...until a high-profile murder case brings them together. Until a high-stakes political battle turns them into rivals. Until a decades-old secret is exposed...and two powerful men must confront their bonds of fate and fortune.

To Cut a Long Story Short ($0.99 B&N, Kobo), a collection of short stories by Jeffrey Archer, isn't available on Kindle (at least, not that I can find), so is a bargain exclusive for those who can use EPUB formats.

Book Description
The key to a good short story is to never give away the...

With intriguing characters, and surprise endings cleverly twisted with irony, the all-new stories in this collection will thrill Archer fans old and new. Astonishingly, of the 14 stories, more than half are based on true incidents that were related to the author during his travels around the world. Mail on Sunday calls Jeffrey Archer "probably the best storyteller of our age" and the Washington Post declares that he is "a storyteller in the class of Alexander Dumas." His mastery of character and suspense and his gift for the unexpected plot twist show why he is Britain's most successful author—and why three of his novels have been New York Times bestsellers.

Wild and Wicked ($2.99), a medieval romance, and Born To Die ($4.79), the latest in the Montana 'To Die' series, are just two titles by Lisa Jackson novels that have dropped below the $5 mark (with various publishers)

Wild and Wicked
This #1 New York Times bestselling author takes medieval romance to new heights as vengeance stirs the forbidden passion of a lord and a lady in danger . . . and in love.
Every eye is on Lady Apryll as she floats through the revelers, a wanton angel in a clinging white gown. Not even Lord Devlynn can resist the promise of ecstasy she offers. But Apryll vanishes before the night is over—along with the castle jewels, Devlynn’s finest horses . . . and his young son.
Devlynn is determined to make the temptress pay for her deceit, but he soon discovers there is more to Apryll’s betrayal than he knows. And though her kisses carry the sting of treason, they also arouse a desire he cannot deny

Born To Die
Appearances…
A sad, strange coincidence…that's Dr. Kacey Lambert's initial response to the deaths of two women who bear an uncanny resemblance to herself. It's not like there was any real connection between Kacey and the B-movie actress or the elementary school teacher. But Detective Selena Alvarez suspects otherwise.

Can Be…
One of the bodies contained traces of poison at the time of death. Selena and her partner, Detective Regan Pescoli, can find no motive for murder. But Kacey has started to notice ties between the dead women's lives and her own-all close in age, born within miles of each other. And all have links to Trace O'Halleran, the man Kacey just started dating.

Deadly…
The deeper Kacey digs, the more reason she has to fear. More look-alikes are dying, and the killer is getting bolder and more brutal. And Kacey knows it's only a matter of time before hers is the next name on a list of those who were born to die…

Kindle Books now available in 11,000 Libraries

The Kindle Lending Beta at the Seattle Libraries has been all over the news on the 'net the last couple of days, but today over 11,000 libraries are participating with Overdrive and have Kindle books available as an option. There has been a lot of misinformation out there on how it will work: these are not EPUB's converted to Kindle or some type of Kindle wrapper around a PDF, but the same Kindle books that you can buy at Amazon. No upgrade of your Kindle is required (although one is coming, for Special Offers Kindles, to allow you to get local offers, starting in NYC) and Amazon has NOT added support for EPUB (which would require license fees to Adobe; why bother, when they already have the books in their catalog and own their own DRM scheme, the same as Adobe and B&N?).

What Overdrive has done is tag all books that are in their library system with the ASIN at Amazon, so that they can simply pass to Amazon a "lend" of a book (just as if you had borrowed a book from a friend). All features work just like you are used to (highlights are saved on your Kindle and to your kindle.amazon.com page) and if you buy the book later, all your notes and bookmarks get re-downloaded to your Kindle, so you can start reading where you left off. Amazon has set up a special help page (that appeared yesterday), for the very few questions you might have on how it works. However, it's just a matter of a few clicks, for most people - on the library checkout page, you click on "get for kindle" instead of "download", then are transferred to an Amazon page. Make sure you are logged in to the correct Amazon account (for households that have more than one or if on a shared/public computer), then pick your Kindle and click to send it. It works exactly the same as received a gift book or borrowing a book from a friend.

I just checked my local library and it certainly looks as if any book that has an EPUB edition available is now available as a Kindle edition, as well. I finally found a PDF only edition that didn't update (so, it's still PDF only), but many of the PDF editions also added EPUB and Kindle during the update. Not every library has switched over - a library I belong to in California is still showing the "coming soon" logo (and they are not stocked nearly as well as our local library, that started a major push into ebooks last year and now has a tremendous selection). For those overseas - it doesn't look like library books are coming soon; I checked at least one non-US Overdrive served library and there is no mention of Kindle books as an option. On the other hand, I know there are overseas members at some US libraries - you should now have the same access as other patrons in the US.

Another new feature at the library - you add the book as a whole to your wishlist (rather than each format), but a reservation/hold is against a specific format. Every book that was already in my library wishlist is now showing a Kindle edition choice -- I didn't have to go back and add them again for Kindle. It also appears that the changeover granted the library access to both EPUB, Kindle (and in some cases PDF) editions of books that they only had as Audiobooks, before, as I had Port Mortuary on my wishlist and the library only had an audiobook - this morning, they have EPUB, Kindle and PDF, so I snagged it immediately. You are not restricted to a single Kindle device, either - once I went thru the page to get the book delivered to my primary Kindle, I was given a choice of downloading the book via USB and also told that I could transfer the book to any of my other Kindles, as well (so, I promptly did). Be careful on the Manage My Kindle page, though -- there is now a new "Purchase this book" option, just below the "Deliver to" action; if you are on an iPad, you know that the page doesn't display well, so blow it up to a huge size, to make sure you don't fumble-finger a purchase when you meant to click on Read Now or Deliver To. That's also where you can return a book, in case you finish reading it before your lending period is up. My library allows 7, 14 or 21 day lending periods, so it's nice to be able to pick a longer loan, but return if if you finish early (or can't finish it at all!).

There is one restriction of a library lending, that you may not have considered: library books can only be wirelessly delivered by WiFi, not 3G (so that Amazon doesn't incur a charge for the transfer and neither do you), to a Kindle device (this restriction does not apply to an iPad or phone/tablet running the Kindle app, since you pay for any 3G charges there). You can borrow a library book and read it on ANY kindle device, but you use USB to transfer the book, if the Kindle you have doesn't have WiFi.

Two New Kindle Games

Sudoku Works ($0.99), by Oak Systems Leisure Software, looks to be a great bargain for Sudoku aficionados, as you get an unlimited number of puzzles, rather than just enough for a month or two.

Game Description
Millions of Sudoku puzzles are at your fingertips with Sudoku Works for Kindle.

Sudoku Works can create puzzles in four grid sizes (4x4, 6x6, 8x8 and 9x9) with five difficulty levels, so it can make puzzles for everyone from beginner to expert. And with over 50 million possible puzzles, it's unlikely you'll ever run out of puzzles to play.

An exciting way to share the Sudoku experience is with the "Puzzle of the Day". With "Puzzle of the Day", all Sudoku Works players will be given the same puzzle to solve so you can play with or against your friends. A puzzle timer is available to make it easy to compare results.

Special features in Sudoku Works make playing Sudoku easy and fun. You can use "penciling" to make notes in the squares, and use the "auto-pencil", "show mistakes" and "show selected number" features to help you if you need it. If you want to take a break, you can always return to a partly completed puzzle, or you can replay any previously completed puzzle.

If you'd like a virtually limitless supply of Sudoku Puzzles and a great way to play them, then Sudoku Works is for you!

Jewels ($1.99), by Mobigloo, looks to be a fun variation of the traditional matching game.

Game Description
Jewels is a matching game which will put your planning and pattern recognition skills to the test.

The rules of Jewels are simple: you swap adjacent jewels (horizontally or vertically) to create combinations of three or more jewels of the same type. Once matched, the jewels are removed and the remaining jewels above it slide down to take their place. The challenge comes when there are few potential matches to find, and you must pick your next move carefully or risk eliminating remaining matches when the jewels shift down. If that's not challenge enough, then consider playing the timed mode where you race against a relentlessly decreasing timer and each successful match adds just a bit of time back to the clock.

If you cannot find a match, use the Hint feature to show you the next move. The game keeps track of your ten best scores for both Easy and Timed modes, so you can see just how much the pressure of the timer affects your performance!

If planning and pattern matching appeal to you, then you will love Jewels for Kindle.