Four Free Vook Books (Kindle)

The Charles River Editors at Vook have four free books for us today, starting with this illustrated edition of Current Events: Arab Spring.

Book Description
A barrel of gunpowder is relatively safe until a match is put to it, and then there’s a big bang and an awful mess. Set the barrel in an arsenal with other explosives and flammable materials, and there’s no telling how bad that mess will be. In 1914 an Archduke was shot, not a very special murder in and of itself, but it set off World War I, and that spread across a continent ready and waiting for it to be started.

Nearly 200 years later, in 2010, in keeping with the lowered tone of society, it was a barrow boy driven by despair to suicide who triggered the spreading revolution of angry Arabs against their autocratic governments. In a span of a few months, autocratic regimes that had held power for decades fell in countries like Egypt and Libya, while others in Yemen and Syria have been left barely clinging to life. Some have been mostly peaceful; others have been brutally opposed by governments. All face an uncertain future.

Current Events: The Arab Spring can’t provide the answers to all of the burning questions, but in a region whose politics and demonstrations have been turbulent and rapid, this quick primer will bring readers up to date on all of the events taking place in countries affected by the Arab Spring. With chapters on each nation in turmoil, this easy to read guide provides answers to some questions while also posing questions currently without answers.

How to Get Into an Ivy League School, by Michael Solis

Book Description
Applying to an Ivy League College? Curious to learn more about what it takes to gain admissions to America's most elite institutions? Then look no further.

Written by an Ivy League grad, How to Get Into an Ivy League School presents a comprehensive overview of what aspiring Ivy League students can and should do to strengthen their applications and improve their chances of securing admission to the school of their choice. Along with pictures of the various Ivy League campuses, this book includes several chapters breaking down the admissions process, discussing extracurriculars, Letters of Recommendation, Essays, Top 10 Tips, and more.

How to Craft the Perfect Admissions Essay for an Ivy League School, by Michael Solis

Book Description
Applying to an Ivy League College? Curious to learn more about what it takes to gain admissions to America's most elite institutions? Then look no further.

Written by an Ivy League grad, How to Craft the Perfect Admissions Essay for an Ivy League School presents a comprehensive overview of the one chance students are given to separate themselves from the pack: the essay. How to Craft the Perfect Admissions Essay for an Ivy League School provides the reader with the tools necessary for selecting well-chosen and interesting topics, drafting the essay from introduction to conclusion, sprucing up one’s writing, avoiding common college essay pitfalls, and revising effectively with the goal of creating essays that will leave admissions officers both satisfied and impressed.

Master the Tricks of the S.A.T., by Michael Solis

Book Description
No high school student wants to do it, but just about all of them will find themselves staring directly into the beast. If there are three letters high school juniors hate most, they are S, A, and T. While this three-letter word is loathed by many and dreaded by most, it is a necessary component for anyone who wishes to attend an undergraduate college in the United States.

The SAT's subject material is taught in every high school, but that hardly makes it easy, and most students will look for study guides outside of simply remembering their 10th grade algebra homework. This eBook, prepared by Ivy League graduates, presents a basic overview of what tricks SAT test-takers can learn to boost their scores in each of the testing sections. It dedicates one chapter to each of the testing sections: critical reading, writing, and mathematics, while giving sample problems that are based on SAT problems that have been seen on actual tests. The goal of this eBook is to help SAT test-takers learn the traps used to trick students, as well as ways to better prepare for each of the sections.

Free Backlist Books (Kindle)

Several free backlist titles today, in the Kindle store.

True North, by Marie Force

Book Description
The first time Travis North lays eyes on Liana McDermott, she’s wearing the most hideous bridesmaid dress he’s ever seen. He doesn't immediately recognize the world-famous model who is attending her cousin Enid's wedding at the country club he owns. Thanks to Enid's shameless matchmaking, Travis and Liana become acquainted and later embark on a two-week fling intended to be free of emotion and entanglement. As Liana's return to work gets closer, however, Travis wonders how he'll ever let her go when the time comes while Liana considers whether he might be her true north. Two high-powered careers, two amazing weeks and a love that comes along just once in a lifetime. Is she ready to give up her career for a different kind of life? Does he want the same things she does? After insisting on an emotionless affair, she can't very well ask him. Or can she?

Dead Space (Charlie Willis), by Lee Goldberg

Book Description
Ex-cop Charlie Willis handles "special security" at Pinnacle Pictures. His job: to protect the studio and its stars, to stop scandals before they explode, to keep the peace in the land of make-believe. When Pinnacle revives the cult, 1960s TV series "Beyond the Beyond" as the cornerstone of a fourth network, two powerful forces fight for control of the show--a talent agency that uses blackmail, torture, and murder to keep its clients on the A-list, and a homicidal legion of rabid fans led by an insane actor who thinks he's in outer space.

(This book, the sequel to "My Gun Has Bullets," was originally entitled "Beyond the Beyond" when it was published by St. Martin's Press in 1997)

In Legend Born: Book One of the Silerian Trilogy, by Laura Resnick

Book Description
"I CAN TAKE CARE OF MY ENEMIES, BUT DAR SHIELD ME FROM MY FRIENDS..."

For a thousand years, the mountainous island nation of Sileria, wherein dwells Dar the destroyer goddess, has toiled under the yoke of one foreign conqueror after another. But now, as the empires which surround the Middle Sea battle for supremacy on the mainland, Sileria's long-forgotten dream of independence is reborn in the mystical visions of a fiery young sorcercess. The subjugated nation's perpetually feuding factions make their violent bid for freedom when a bold mountain bandit, a mysterious exile with a deadly bloodvow on his head, a seductive aristocrat, and a notoriously vengeful water wizard are all reluctantly united by prophecy, destiny, and necessity. If these treacherous enemies can maintain a truce, they might change the world; but betrayal has always been a way of life in Sileria...

** This ebook edition contains Color Maps, as well as Directories of Characters, Settings, and a Glossary

Shepherd Avenue, by Charlie Carillo and Tony Carillo (Illustrator)

Book Description
First published in 1986. Named one of the Best Books of that year by the American Library Association.

After his mother's death, a shy 10-year-old boy from the suburbs must find a place for himself with his grandmother's boisterous Italian-American family in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood in the summer of 1961.

Free Book (Kindle) - Career Progression Guide For Soldiers

Career Progression Guide For Soldiers: A Practical, Complete Guide for Getting Ahead in Today's Competitive Army, by Audie G. Lewis, is free in the Kindle store.

Book Description
This fully updated and expanded third edition is an ideal how-to book for soldiers wanting to attain rank in the service. Includes advice and proven techniques for improving duty performance and increasing promotion points, together with samples of forms and formats for applying for promotion and for appearing before promotion boards. Includes requirements for warrant officer and commissioned officer opportunities, and methods for overcoming obstacles to promotion.

About the Author
Audie G. Lewis is a product of this method. He entered the U.S. Army as a private and served as an NCO and as an officer. He currently resides in Florida.

Today's Deals

Play the Puzzle contest at Kobo, daily thru Christmas!

AllRomance/OmniLit has a 50% rebate on all incentive eligible titles on 12/25 & 12/26 and Harlequin has a $4 off coupon code for ebooks: SPEND4E11

Additional formats on free books:

• Sophie and the Rising Sun (Kindle US)
• Alias Dragonfly (Kindle US)
• Ruby (Kindle US)
• Sweet Tea & Jesus Shoes (Kindle/EPUB)
• Desperate Housedogs (Kindle/EPUB)
• The Past Came Hunting (Kindle/EPUB)

Today only, five holiday romance novels from authors Debbie Macomber, Sherryl Woods, Susan Wiggs, Robyn Carr, and Linda Lael Miller for 99 cents apiece, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day.

• Bring Me Home for Christmas (Virgin River) , by Robyn Carr
• Call Me Mrs. Miracle , by Debbie Macomber
• That Holiday Feeling , by Robyn Carr, et al
• Holiday in Stone Creek: A Stone Creek Christmas\At Home in Stone Creek (Hqn), by Linda Lael Miller
• Lakeshore Christmas (The Lakeshore Chronicles) , by Susan Wiggs

Death Comes to Pemberley ($2.63 / £1.69 UK), by P. D. James, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $12.99).

Book Description
The year is 1803, and Darcy and Elizabeth have been married for six years. There are now two handsome and healthy sons in the nursery, Elizabeth's beloved sister Jane and her husband Bingley live nearby and the orderly world of Pemberley seems unassailable. But all this is threatened when, on the eve of the annual autumn ball, the guests are preparing to retire for the night when a chaise appears, rocking down the path from Pemberley's wild woodland. As it pulls up, Lydia Wickham - Elizabeth's younger, unreliable sister - stumbles out screaming that her husband has been murdered.

Inspired by a lifelong passion for the work of Jane Austen, PD James masterfully recreates the world of Pride and Prejudice, and combines it with the excitement and suspense of a brilliantly-crafted crime story.Death Comes to Pemberley is a distinguished work of fiction, from one of the best-loved, most- read writers of our time.

Portrait of a Spy (Gabriel Allon Novel #11) ($12.99 Kindle, B&N), by Daniel Silva, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched by Amazon.

Book Description Art restorer. Assassin. Spy.Gabriel Allon has been hailed as the most compelling creation since "Ian Fleming put down his martini and invented James Bond" (Rocky Mountain News). A man with a deep appreciation for all that is beautiful, Gabriel is also an angel of vengeance, an international operative who will stop at nothing to see justice done. Sometimes he must journey far in search of evil. And sometimes evil comes to him.In a dangerous world, one extraordinary woman can mean the difference between life and death. . . .For Gabriel and his wife, Chiara, it was supposed to be the start of a pleasant weekend in London—a visit to a gallery in St. James's to authenticate a newly discovered painting by Titian, followed by a quiet lunch. But a pair of deadly bombings in Paris and Copenhagen has already marred this autumn day. And while walking toward Covent Garden, Gabriel notices a man he believes is about to carry out a third attack. Before Gabriel can draw his weapon, he is knocked to the pavement and can only watch as the nightmare unfolds.Haunted by his failure to stop the massacre of innocents, Gabriel returns to his isolated cottage on the cliffs of Cornwall, until a summons brings him to Washington and he is drawn into a confrontation with the new face of global terror. At the center of the threat is an American-born cleric in Yemen to whom Allah has granted "a beautiful and seductive tongue." A gifted deceiver, who was once a paid CIA asset, the mastermind is plotting a new wave of attacks.Gabriel and his team devise a daring plan to destroy the network of death from the inside, a gambit fraught with risk, both personal and professional. To succeed, Gabriel must reach into his violent past. A woman waits there—a reclusive heiress and art collector who can traverse the murky divide between Islam and the West. She is the daughter of an old enemy, a woman joined to Gabriel by a trail of blood. . . .Set against the disparate worlds of art and intelligence, Portrait of a Spy moves swiftly from the corridors of power in Washington to the glamorous auction houses of New York and London to the unforgiving landscape of the Saudi desert. Featuring a climax that will leave readers haunted long after they turn the final page, this deeply entertaining story is also a breathtaking portrait of courage in the face of unspeakable evil—and Daniel Silva's most extraordinary novel to date.

Free Book (Kindle) - Sophie and the Rising Sun

Update: 12/25/11 Now free in the US Kindle store.

Sophie and the Rising Sun (US/UK), by Augusta Trobaugh, is free for UK customers in the Kindle store and from Kobo, courtesy of Bell Bridge Books. I expect it to be free for US Kindle customers by morning.

Book Description
In sleepy Salty Creek, Georgia, strangers are rare. When a quiet, unassuming stranger arrives—a Japanese man with a secret history of his own—he becomes the talk of the town and a new beginning for lonely Sophie, who lost her first love during World War I.

Middle-aged Sophie had resigned herself to a passionless existence. That all begins to change as she finds herself drawn to the mysterious Mr. Oto. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Mr. Oto's newfound life comes under siege; his safety, even in Salty Creek, is no longer certain. Sophie must decide how much she is willing to risk for a future with the man who has brought such joy into her life.