Today's Deals

Musa Publishing is giving a $5 coupon to anyone that registers a new account, which can be used on "one purchase", but no minimum is required (mine went to the Spam folder in GMAIL, so be sure to check for it there). I see prices as low as 99 cents, so it looks like an easy to way to get one or more a free books and try them out. Be careful before adding books to your cart, though - their default file format is PDF, but you'll want to switch that to either EPUB or MOBI (or PRC, which they have labeled for Kindle, although I'd normally pick MOBI for Kindle, as it is an upgraded PRC format that allows better formatting and font control and the Kindle handles it just fine).

BooksonBoard has put up some info on their erotica policy (which affects the bestselling series Fifty Shades of Grey, which apparently even my own library isn't carrying). Buried in the notice is the news that they are also now discounting by 40% all non-Agency, "backlist" (anything with an ebook date before Jan 1, 2012) fiction titles with a minimum list price of $4.00, plus they are adding an 8% Rewards to all purchases of audio and ebooks "for a limited time." Of course, the controversial title is an Agency title (at least for now - it's Random House and there have been news stories that they are dropping the agency requirement due to the criminal investigations into the entire Agency conspiracy), so isn't covered (and is already priced about 40% below the print cost, anyway), but you may find some other titles there that you are interested in (note that the sale doesn't cover any Kindle titles, as they just link back to Amazon for those formats; almost all of the books they sell are DRM'd EPUB and PDF).

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Seven Ox Seven; Part One: Escondido Bound: A Story of Some Ways in the West ($1.99), by P. A. Ritzer. Despite it's 672 pages, this is just the first of three volumes in this western epic.

Book Description
Seven souls risk everything to seek a home on the West Texas frontier. Will they discover a secret Eden, or have they embarked on a dangerous misadventure? Cowboys Luke Stuart and Tom Schurtz meet in the infamous Dodge City at the end of trail drives in 1877. Back in Texas, Luke and his wife, Elizabeth, divulge a secret plan to Tom. The Stuarts and Tom consequently partner up and venture out, determined to establish an ideal ranch in the canyons region of the Llano Estacado, only recently (and not completely) vacated by the Comanche.They seek the mysterious Canyon Escondido, which may not exist. They have learned of it from the family lore and legends of Apache-Mexican neighbors. In hope, the pioneers drive their herd across rolling plains through notorious settlements and the wanton buffalo slaughter. Various challenges test their determination along the path they have chosen, not least so when they finally face the success or failure of their quest and what must then follow.

Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? ($2.07 / £1.29 UK), by William Poundstone, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99). Subtitled Trick Questions, Zen-like Riddles, Insanely Difficult Puzzles, and Other Devious Interviewing Techniques You Need ... to Get a Job Anywhere in the New Economy, the book isn't really about having a high IQ so much as it is about creativity and job interviewing at young, mostly high tech companies. Should be a good pre-graduation gift for those who are starting out with interviews, as well as those who perhaps need to groom their online footprint in advance.

Book Description
You are shrunk to the height of a ten-pence piece and thrown in a blender. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do? If you want to work at Google, or any of the world s top employers, you ll need to have a convincing answer to this and countless other tricky puzzles. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? reveals the new extreme interview questions in the post-crash, hypercompetitive job-market and uncovers the extraordinary lengths the best companies will go to find the right staff. William Poundstone guides readers through the surprising solutions to over a hundred of the most challenging conundrums actually used in interviews, as well as covering the importance of creative thinking, what your Facebook page says about you, and much, much more.

Gate of the Sun ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Elias Khoury and Humphrey Davies (Translator), is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle (careful if searching; there are two editions and only one is on sale).

Book Description
Gate of the Sun: Bab al-Shams is the first true magnum opus of the Palestinian saga. Through the passing of the beloved midwife and matriarch of the Shatila refugee camp outside Beirut, the reader enters a world of displacement, fear, and tenuous hope. A doctor tells a story to a man in a coma in an attempt to keep him alive. The patient, Yunes, is from Galilee, where he left Nahla, the love of his life. The novel unfolds at his bedside through Dr. Khalil’s intimate and haunting flights of memory.

Khoury humanizes the complex Palestinian/Israeli -struggle for us, shedding light on the turbulent history with love and empathy. Khoury opens up a whole new territory, envisioning a place where confronting pain and humiliation might lead, if not to reconciliation, then at least to finding an element of the other in one’s self. “Us” and “Them” become inextricably entwined through this realigned 1001 Nights. Originally published in Beirut in 1998, the novel has been a sensation throughout the Arab world, in Israel, and throughout Europe.

Moving Day ($4.49 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the first title in Meg Cabot's Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls series, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.

Book Description
When nine-year-old Allie Finkle's parents announce that they are moving her and her brothers from their suburban split-level into an ancient Victorian in town, Allie's sure her life is over. She's not at all happy about having to give up her pretty pink wall-to-wall carpeting for creaky floorboards and creepy secret passageways-not to mention leaving her modern, state-of-the-art suburban school for a rundown, old-fashioned school just two blocks from her new house.

With a room she's half-scared to go into, the burden of being "the new girl," and her old friends all a half-hour car ride away, how will Allie ever learn to fit in?

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Identity: Lost ($0.99), by Pascal Marco.

Book Description
It's July, 1975 and an overworked Chicago police force receives a call that an 85-year-old white man has been attacked by a gang of black youths on the lakefront in Burnham Park. Amid public outrage, contentious Mayor Richard J. Daley commands his police to find the killers fast and make the bucolic park safe again.Uncommonly but fortunately for the police, twelve-year-old James Overstreet steps forward and identifies five of the six assailants and arrests are made. But detectives and county attorneys bungle the case, leaving the judge no choice but to release the accused.This startling turn of events jeopardizes James's life, forcing the entire Overstreet family into witness protection in Arizona, and creates a nightmare that will haunt the brave witness forever.Fast-forward thirty years. The stoic young man has grown to become Maricopa County's most feared prosecutor. But his life is about to be turned upside down when paths from the past cross into the present, veering toward a shocking climax.

London in 2012: Frommer's Express ($1.75 / £1.09 UK), a Kindle Exclusive from Frommer’s Express, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $5.52).

Book Description
London in 2012: Frommer’s Express kindle exclusive gives you the insider knowledge on where and what to visit in this inspiring capital city for the summer of 2012.

With detailed, opinionated and honest reviews of attractions, a list of the top exhibitions and events, this compact, colour eBook gives you the low-down on what’s worth your time and what’s not, providing a selection of our favourite hotels, attractions and restaurants in and around London whatever your budget, with full accompanying reviews and prices listed throughout with up-to-date advice and tips.

Discover which are the not-to-miss exhibitions, where to watch the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, how to get to the venues of the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games, and where to watch the Games for free; find out where to eat the best British pub food or enjoy an afternoon tea; follow itineraries that make the most of your day including Royal London, Literary London, New London, Greenwich and a visit to see all of the Games venues; details of world-class museums and galleries, historic sights and Royal Palaces, and the new Warner Bros. Studio Tour – The Making of Harry Potter; tips and information on what are the latest things to buy and where to shop; where to buy West End theatre tickets, or where to go for the best clubbing in London, plus suggestions for excursions and boat trips on the Thames, as well as day trips out to Bath, Brighton and Windsor Castle. This exclusive kindle ebook includes East London with venues near Spitalfields and Brick Lane, Hoxton/Shoreditch and Stratford.

Importantly, this guide provides the latest trip-planning advice to ensure you make the most of your stay in this fantastic cultural city.

Darker Still: A Novel of Magic Most Foul ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), a young adult novel by Leanna Renee Hieber (author of the Strangely Beautiful series), is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
I was obssessed.

It was as if he called to me, demanding I reach out and touch the brushstrokes of color swirled onto the canvas. It was the most exquisite portrait I'd ever seen—everything about Lord Denbury was unbelievable...utterly breathtaking and eerily lifelike.

There was a reason for that. Because despite what everyone said, Denbury never had committed suicide. He was alive. Trapped within his golden frame.

I've crossed over into his world within the painting, and I've seen what dreams haunt him. They haunt me too. He and I are inextricably linked—bound together to watch the darkness seeping through the gas-lit cobblestone strets of Manhattan. And unless I can free him soon, things will only get Darker Still.

The Fairy Tale Detectives ($5.69 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the first title in the Sisters Grimm series by Michael Buckley, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.

Book Description
In book one of this bestselling series, sisters Sabrina and Daphne are sent to live with their mysterious grandmother, Relda Grimm. The sisters learn they are descendants of the Brothers Grimm, whose famous book of fairy tales is actually a collection of case files. The girls are the latest in a long line of fairy-tale detectives, and their new hometown is filled with Everafters (as magical folks like to be called) - some good and some very, very bad. When a mysterious Everafter sets a giant loose on the town, it’s up to the Sisters Grimm to save the day.

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Daughters for a Time ($1.99), by Jennifer Handford.

Book Description
When Helen Francis was a child, her mother died and her father walked out, leaving her to be raised by her older sister. Now thirty-five, married, and trying to start a family of her own, Helen has moved on but never really healed from her traumatic childhood. She has always believed that a new baby would help fill the loss of what was taken from her at such a young age. After four years of trying to become pregnant, however, she is resigned to the fact that she will never be able to bear children. Halfheartedly accepting adoption as an alternative, Helen gradually embraces and grows excited over the prospect. And when her new baby is finally in her arms, true happiness washes over her. But her unimaginable bliss is dashed when she learns that Claire, the sister who raised and loved her throughout her childhood and adult life, has been diagnosed with cancer.

For Helen, the pain of her childhood returns and the old wounds of abandonment are once again torn open. Balancing the joy of her new daughter with the painful experience of watching her sister, the physical embodiment of unconditional love in her life, slowly die, Helen must reconcile her inner feelings and heal her broken spirit. A heart-wrenching exploration of the ties that bind us and the lasting pain of childhood loss,Daughters for a Time is about longing for a family to heal a broken heart, experiencing unconditional love as a parent, and finding solid ground to stand on when suffering and elation have equally powerful holds on our life.

Rome's Executioner ($2.07 / £1.29 UK), by Robert Fabbri, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
Thracia, AD30: Even after four years military service at the edge of the Roman world, Vespasian can't escape the tumultuous politics of an Empire on the brink of disintegration. His patrons in Rome have charged him with the clandestine extraction of an old enemy from a fortress on the banks of the Danube before it falls to the Roman legion besieging it.

Vespasian's mission is the key move in a deadly struggle for the right to rule the Roman Empire. The man he has been ordered to seize could be the witness that will destroy Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guard and ruler of the Empire in all but name. Before he completes his mission, Vespasian will face ambush in snowbound mountains, pirates on the high seas, and Sejanus's spies all around him. But by far the greatest danger lies at the rotten heart of the Empire, at the nightmarish court of Tiberius, Emperor of Rome and debauched, paranoid madman.

The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Katrina Kenison, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
The Gift of an Ordinary Day is an intimate memoir of a family in transition-boys becoming teenagers, careers ending and new ones opening up, an attempt to find a deeper sense of place, and a slower pace, in a small New England town. It is a story of mid-life longings and discoveries, of lessons learned in the search for home and a new sense of purpose, and the bittersweet intensity of life with teenagers--holding on, letting go.

Poised on the threshold between family life as she's always known it and her older son's departure for college, Kenison is surprised to find that the times she treasures most are the ordinary, unremarkable moments of everyday life, the very moments that she once took for granted, or rushed right through without noticing at all.

The relationships, hopes, and dreams that Kenison illuminates will touch women's hearts, and her words will inspire mothers everywhere as they try to make peace with the inevitable changes in store.

The Quest Begins ($5.99 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the first title in Erin Hunter's Seekers series for teens, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. It's an Agency published title, so should be price matched on Kindle; you may want to check it again this afternoon to see if it drops (and report it to try to get them to notice the discrepancy).

Book Description
Three bears . . . one destiny From the author of the nationally bestselling Warriors books comes a brand-new animal fantasy series. Three young bears from different species—black, polar, and grizzly—are separated from their families when they are just young cubs. They find themselves brought together on a perilous journey. Fate is about to change all these bears lives forever, setting their paws on a path toward a future they cannot yet imagine . . .

Today's Deals

Today's Free Android App is an interactive Children's Story Book, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. It's an HD version, so made to work on larger tablets, but isn't restricted to those (so you can use them on your phone, if needed).

All Electronic Arts Android Apps are 50% off right now, including Monopoly and Kindle Fire editions of Scrabble, SimCity Deluxe, MADDEN NFL 12 and The Game of Life.

Newly free from Sony:

• Pillow Talk (N/E) *also now marked down to $0.99 on Kindle
• The Book of the King (K/N/E)
• The Search Committee (K/N/E)
• Everything the Bible Says About Angels and Demons (K/N/E)
• More Glimpses of Heaven (K/N/E)
• Reclaiming Lily (K/N/E)
• Hollywood Nobody (N/E/DF)
• The Messenger (K/N/E)

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Desperate Passage ($1.99), by Ethan Rarick.

Book Description
In late October 1846, the last wagon train of that year's westward migration stopped overnight before resuming its arduous climb over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, unaware that a fearsome storm was gathering force. After months of grueling travel, the 81 men, women and children would be trapped for a brutal winter with little food and only primitive shelter. The conclusion is known: by spring of the next year, the Donner Party was synonymous with the most harrowing extremes of human survival. But until now, the full story of what happened--and what it tells us about human nature and about America's westward expansion--remained shrouded in myth.

Drawing on fresh archeological evidence, recent research on topics ranging from survival rates to snowfall totals, and heartbreaking letters and diaries made public by descendants a century-and-a-half after the tragedy, Ethan Rarick offers an intimate portrait of the Donner party and their unimaginable ordeal: a mother who must divide her family, a little girl who shines with courage, a devoted wife who refuses to abandon her husband, a man who risks his life merely to keep his word. Rarick resists both the gruesomely sensationalist accounts of the Donner party as well as later attempts to turn the survivors into archetypal pioneer heroes. "The Donner Party," Rarick writes, "is a story of hard decisions that were neither heroic nor villainous. Often, the emigrants displayed a more realistic and typically human mixture of generosity and selfishness, an alloy born of necessity."

A fast-paced, heart-wrenching, clear-eyed narrative history, Desperate Passage casts new light on one of America's most horrific encounters between the dream of a better life and the harsh realities such dreams so often must confront.

Night Train to Lisbon ($1.59 / £0.99 UK), by Pascal Mercier, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.60).

Book Description
Raimund Gregorius teaches classical languages at a Swiss lycée, and lives a life governed by routine. One day, a chance encounter with a Portuguese woman inspires him to question his life—and leads him to an extraordinary book that will open the possibility of changing it. Inspired by the words of Amadeu de Prado, a doctor whose intelligence and magnetism left a mark on everyone who met him and whose principles led him into a confrontation with Salazar’s dictatorship, Gergorius boards a train to Lisbon. As Gregorius becomes fascinated with unlocking the mystery of who Prado was, an extraordinary tale unfolds.

Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Steve Harvey, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Steve Harvey, the host of the nationally syndicated Steve Harvey Morning Show, can't count the number of impressive women he's met over the years, whether it's through the "Strawberry Letters" segment of his program or while on tour for his comedy shows. These are women who can run a small business, keep a household with three kids in tiptop shape, and chair a church group all at the same time. Yet when it comes to relationships, they can't figure out what makes men tick. Why? According to Steve it's because they're asking other women for advice when no one but another man can tell them how to find and keep a man. In Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, Steve lets women inside the mindset of a man.

Sometimes funny, sometimes direct, but always truthful, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man is a book you must read if you want to understand how men think when it comes to relationships.

Grim Tuesday ($6.15 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the second title in the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. Nix has a new release today, A Confusion of Princes, which is more Science Fiction than Fantasy and is a stand-alone title, rather than a part of a series (at least, it is so far). Aimed at the Young Adult market (and adults that read Space Opera as teens). The only really negative review said it was "too much Sci-Fi", which I don't really find to be a negative for Space Opera. I've put it on my wish list, to explore later on.

Book Description
Arthur Penhaligon's magical adventures continue as he faces a new grave danger -- in the form of an enemy named Grim Tuesday. More amazing fantasy from best-selling author Garth Nix.

Arthur doesn't think he will ever have to return to the strange house that nearly killed him on Monday -- the house that contains an entire world. But Tuesday brings new challenges -- in the form of an enemy named Grim Tuesday, who threatens the well-being of both Arthur's family and his world. Arthur must retrieve the Second Key from Grim Tuesday in order to save everything -- an adventure that will include stealing a Sunship, surviving a very weird work camp, befriending a bearlike spirit, fighting the voidlike Nithlings, and traveling to the scary Far Reaches for the ultimate showdown.

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is The Last Explorer ($1.99), by Simon Nasht.

Book Description
This riveting biography recounts the life of the world's first truly modern explorer, a life of unrelenting adventure and the high drama of polar exploration. Hubert Wilkins was the most successful explorer in history: no one saw with his own eyes more undiscovered land and sea. Largely self-taught, he was a celebrated reporter, pilot, spy, war hero, scientist, and adventurer. He captured in his lens war and famine, cheated death repeatedly, met world leaders like Lenin, Mussolini, and King George V, and circled the globe on a zeppelin. Knighted for being the first person to fly across the North Pole, Wilkins was also the first to fly in the Antarctic, discover land by airplane, and take a submarine under the Arctic ice.

Two Dark Shadows novels, Angelique's Descent ($1.60 / £0.99 UK) and The Salem Branch ($1.60 / £0.99 UK), by Lara Parker, are the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US editions are $8-$10, including a pre-order for Wolf Moon Rising, which I don't see for the UK, yet).

A deliciously macabre and erotic story of love and vengeance. Now a major motion picture by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp.

Angelique's Descent
The Dark Shadows saga is begins with the full measure of eroticism, spellbinding suspense, and gripping storytelling.

The dashing heir of a New England shipping magnate, Barnabas Collins captures the heart of the exquisite, young Angelique amidst the sensual beauty of Martinique, her island home. But Angelique's brief happiness is doomed when Barnabas deserts her for another. With this one betrayal, Barnabas unleashes an evil that will torment him for all time.

For Angelique is no ordinary woman. Vowing to destroy Barnabas, a vengeful Angelique damns him to eternal life as a vampire-a companion to accompany her forever. Little does Angelique understand the depth of Barnabas's fury...

The Salem Branch
The Dark Shadows saga is back with the full measure of eroticism, spellbinding suspense, and gripping storytelling.

The roots of the Collins family's power and wealth go deep...

Barnabas Collins is ready to embark on a new life and marriage with the virtuous Dr. Julia Hoffman. But when Antoinette, a beautiful sixties flower child with a shocking resemblance to the immortal witch Angelique, rebuilds the Old House, his past returns to haunt him. Discovering a grisly corpse in the basement, Barnabas realizes another vampire has invaded his domain.

His fight to protect his family from this new threat will take Barnabas back through time to an evil moment in America's history: the corrupt witch trials of old Salem itself.

The Hungry Season ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by T. Greenwood, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
It's been five years since the Mason family vacationed at the lakeside cottage in northeastern Vermont, close to where prize-winning novelist Samuel Mason grew up. The summers that Sam, his wife, Mena, and their twins Franny and Finn spent at Lake Gormlaith were noisy, chaotic, and nearly perfect. But since Franny's death, the Masons have been flailing, one step away from falling apart. Lake Gormlaith is Sam's last, best hope of rescuing his son from a destructive path and salvaging what's left of his family.

As Sam struggles with grief, writer's block, and a looming deadline, Mena tries to repair the marital bond she once thought was unbreakable. But even in this secluded place, the unexpected--in the form of an over-zealous fan, a surprising friendship, and a second chance--can change everything.

From the acclaimed author of Two Rivers comes a compelling and beautifully told story of hope, family, and above all, hunger--for food, sex, love and success--and for a way back to wholeness when a part of oneself has been lost forever.

The Capture ($4.49 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the first novel in the Guardians of Ga'Hoole children's series by Kathryn Lasky, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.

Book Description
In the first book in the GUARDIANS... series, the reader is introduced to Soren, a barn owl and the centerpiece of the series. When Soren is pushed from his family's nest by his older brother, he is rescued from certain death on the forest floor by agents from a mysterious school for orphaned owls, St. Aggie's. When Soren arrives at St. Aggie's, he suspects there is more to the school than meets the eye. He and his new friend, the clever and scrappy Gylfie, find out that St. Aggie's is actually a training camp where the school's leader can groom young owls to help achieve her goal -- to rule the entire owl kingdom.

In the first book in this series, the reader follows the adventures of Soren and Gylfie as they subvert the attempted brainwashing that takes place at St. Aggie's, learn to fly, and eventually escape from the evil school.

Later books in the series will focus on Soren's reunion with his evil brother and beloved sister and his and Gylfie's quest for the tools to free the owl kingdom from the threat of St. Aggie's.