Free Book - Blue Limbo

Blue Limbo ($5.99 Kindle), the second of two in the Mitch Helwig series by Terence M. Green, is this month's free book from Phoenix Pick. Sneaky, as once you get to the free download page, there will be a link to buy Barking Dogs ($6.99 Kindle), the first in the series, for $1.99. I know I'd pick it up at that price, but I grabbed it last year, when they had it for free.

Book Description
Mitch Helwig is a cop on the edge, “a man who’s gone through the valley of the shadow and hasn’t quite made it out the other side” (Toronto Globe & Mail). Vengeance and heroism, the subtleties of family woven into the metaphysics of life and death, all come together here in a page-turner, “a near-future tech-noir thriller” (SF Site) that moves at breakneck speed.

Click HERE for the free book from Phoenix Pick. You'll need to scroll down to find the book's listing, then click on "FREE EBOOK of the Month", then enter coupon code 9991437. Click thru the next page and then scroll down and get the format of your choice. They are DRM-free, so you can convert to other formats, if desired.

Phoenix Pick is also giving you 35% off all their books when bought direct from their website using the DIRDEC coupon throughout the month of December. They already give 15% off their suggested retail list prices when buying direct and the discount stacks on top of that. Also, their books are DRM-free. You do have to choose a format (EPUB or MOBI), but can convert if needed (the Mobi doesn't need converting before mailing to a Kindle).

Free Book (Kindle/nook/EPUB) - A Victorian Christmas

Update: 12/5/11 Now free from Sony.
Update: 12/4/11 Now free for US Kindle customers and from Barnes & Noble and ChristianBook.

A Victorian Christmas (US/UK), an anthology by Catherine Palmer, is free for UK customer in the Kindle store, courtesy of Christian publisher Tyndale House. I expect this one to be free in the use by morning.

Book Description
A beautiful patchwork of four novellas about love and joy at Christmastime by best selling author Catherine Palmer. These four novellas were previously published in four anthologies—A Victorian Christmas Quilt, A Victorian Christmas Tea, A Victorian Christmas Cottage, and A Victorian Christmas Keepsake. Return to a time when life was uncomplicated, faith was sincere … and love was a gift to be cherished forever. Includes author’s favorite holiday recipes.

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

Free Book (Kindle/nook/EPUB) - The Strategy of Satan

Update: 12/5/11 Now free from Sony and ChristianBook.
Update: 12/4/11 Now free for US Kindle customers and from Barnes & Noble.

The Strategy of Satan: How to Detect and Defeat Him (US/UK), by Warren Wiersbe, is free to pre-order for UK customer in the Kindle store, courtesy of Christian publisher Tyndale House. I expect this one to be free in the use by morning.

Book Description
Dr. Wiersbe zeroes in on Satan's attacks as deceiver, destroyer, ruler, and accuser. He emphasizes that conquering the enemy comes by obeying God's truth.

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

Four Free Short Stories by Joe R. Lansdale (Kindle/iBooks)

Four free short stories by Joe R. Lansdale are free in the Amazon store and from iTunes, courtesy of small publisher Gere Donovan Press. This US publisher specializes in bringing backlist titles back as ebooks, scanning paperbooks into ebook form for authors who don't have electronic editions (including at least two read-throughs to check for OCR errors). It looks like they are also publishing some short stories, as well as full novels, such as Dana Stabenow's backlist (two of which are still free Fire and Ice and Second Star).

Incident On and Off a Mountain Road (Kindle/iTunes)

Book Description
"Easing her back against a tree trunk, she sat and listened, watching for that strange face, fearing it might abruptly burst through the limbs and brush, grinning its horrible teeth, or worse, that he might come up behind her, reach around the tree trunk with his knife and finish her in a bloody instant."

“Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” is one of Joe Lansdale’s most popular and terrifying short stories. Adapted for television, it appeared as an episode of Showtime’s Masters of Horror series.

Bullets and Fire (Kindle/iTunes)

Book Description
"Dad told me once, that if people don't care about where they live, the way they act, people they associate with, they get lost in the dark, can't find their way back cause there's no light left. I had taken a pretty good step into the shadows tonight." It's payback time, in this short story by Joe R. Lansdale.

The Steel Valentine (Kindle/iTunes)

Book Description
“Even before Morley told him, Dennis knew things were about to get ugly. A man did not club you unconscious, bring you to his estate and tie you to a chair in an empty storage shed out back of the place if he merely intended to give you a valentine. Morley had found out about him and Julie.”

A short story in the tradition of Fleming or Dahl, “The Steel Valentine” is a gem, exemplifying the suspense writing of Joe Lansdale.

Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back (Kindle/iTunes)

Book Description
They did it — they launched the damned nukes and the world went pretty much straight to hell. Not many survived, but some of those who did emerged twenty years later, to a world where mutant whales heaved themselves across the blackened, dry seabed of the Pacific, and the roses… oh God, the roses.

“Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back” is a chilling post-nuclear short story by Joe R. Lansdale.

Free Short Story (Kindle) - Cursed (UK)

Cursed: A Jack Nightingale Short Story (US/UK), by Stephen Leather, is free for UK customers in the Kindle store. It doesn't look like this one will cross over to the US store (although his short story Inspector Zhang Gets His Wish is still free for those in the US). Those in the UK can also get his novel Hard Landing: The First Spider Shepherd Thriller for $0.78/£0.49 (Hodder has it set to $8.66 for those in the US).

Cursed: A Jack Nightingale Short Story (US/UK)
A Jack Nightingale supernatural short story. Ex-cop turned private eye Jack Nightingale is used to dealing with tricky situations. He's faced down the powers of hell a couple of times, too. Then he's called in to help a policeman who's lying at death's door. The doctors can't work out what's wrong. But the dying man's colleagues swear blind that he was cursed by a gypsy during the Dale Farm clearance. And Nightingale could be his only hope.

Inspector Zhang Gets His Wish (US/UK)
Inspector Zhang loves mysteries, but as a Detective Inspector with the Singapore Police Force he knows that mysteries are few and far between. There are relatively few crimes in the city state and those that are committed are usually solved quickly. But that all changes when Inspector Zhang is called to a top Singapore hotel where a guest has been found murdered in a locked room. The guest made a phone call to room service shortly before he was killed - but CCTV footage shows that nobody entered or left the room. So finally Inspector Zhang has his wish - a mystery to solve. But will it be too much for him?

Hard Landing: The First Spider Shepherd Thriller (US/UK)
Hard Landing is the first book in the best-selling Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd series. Former SAS trooper Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line. Working for an elite undercover squad he has lied, cheated and conned in order to bring Britain’s most wanted criminals to justice.

But when a powerful drug baron starts to kill off witnesses to his crimes, Shepherd is given his most dangerous assignment yet. He has to go undercover in a top security prison, a world where one wrong move will mean certain death.As Shepherd gambles everything to move in on his quarry, he soon realises that the man he is hunting is even more dangerous than the police realise. And that he is capable of striking outside the prison walls and hitting Shepherd where it hurts most – his family.