B&N is going to have a discounted book each weekend this summer,
chosen by the reader (a feature Amazon had, but discontinued). Voting ends early on Thursdays, so vote early, and the book will be discounted to $3.99 Fri-Sun only. From what I can tell, you will have to have a Facebook account and Like the page in order to vote, but anyone should be able to buy the discounted title.
Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is
How To Slay a Dragon (
$1.99), the first title in Bill Allen's
Journals of Myrth series. The second in the series,
How To Save A Kingdom, is now available and a third title is in the works, although
How To Stop A Witch isn't yet available for pre-order.
Book Description
Greg Hart can't slay a dragon. He'd be lucky to win a fight against one of the smaller girls at school.
His only real skill is that he can run faster than any other twelve-year-old boy in his class, a necessity, since that's who he's usually running from. Oh, it's not like he's never been the hero at the center of an adventure. It's just the kind of adventures he's been involved with have always been the made-up kind he's written about in his journal.
Now the magicians of Myrth have yanked Greg into a strange new world, where the monsters he must run from are far scarier--and hungrier--than anything he's ever run from before. He tries to tell everyone there's been a mistake. Ruuan is a very large dragon, while Greg, on the other hand, is neither large nor a dragon. He's barely much of a boy. Unfortunately, such trivialities could never stop the people of Myrth from believing Greg will rescue King Peter's daughter from Ruuan. After all, Greg has been named in a prophecy, and no prophecy has ever been wrong before.
Why, Greg wonders, does he have to be at the heart of the first one that is?
Gunshot Road (
$1.53 / £0.99 UK), the second title in the
Emily Tempest Investigation mystery series by Adrian Hyland, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the
US edition is $9.52). You can also get a good deal on the first of the series, Ned Kelly Award winning
Diamond Dove (
$3.36 / £2.14 UK), which is published under the title
Moonlight Downs ($9.52) in the US.
Book Description
Emily Tempest: short, loud, sharp as a taipan's tooth. Last seen in the award-winning Diamond Dove, Emily has a new job: an Aboriginal Community Police Officer. A cop. Not quite what she had in mind when she returned to Central Australia. But for an Aboriginal woman in a pissant mining and meatworks town, the career options are limited. And there's a car attached. Her new boss, the dour Superintendent Cockburn, sees her role as making tea and rounding up the truants. But when one old friend is murdered out on the Gunshot Road and another one gets the blame, Emily leaps into the investigation feet first, mouth never far behind.
Flowers for Algernon ($8.55 Kindle,
$1.99 B&N), by Daniel Keyes, is the Nook Daily Find. I picked this one up during one of Amazons $1 Kindle Special Offers, early in the year.
Book Description
With more than five million copies sold, Flowers for Algernon is the beloved, classic story of a mentally disabled man whose experimental quest for intelligence mirrors that of Algernon, an extraordinary lab mouse. In poignant diary entries, Charlie tells how a brain operation increases his IQ and changes his life. As the experimental procedure takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment seems to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance--until Algernon begins his sudden, unexpected deterioration. Will the same happen to Charlie?
An American classic that inspired the award-winning movie Charly.
Virus on Orbis ($6.15 Kindle,
$1.99 B&N), the first title in
The Softwire series by PJ Haarsma, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. I picked this up early last year, when it was free in several different stores/formats. For those that missed it then, this is a good price to start the YA series. With any luck, B&N will have the rest of the series discounted over the next few months.
Book Description
A human boy with an uncanny link to computers finds danger and discovery on the rings of Orbis in this riveting sci-fi adventure.
Thirteen-year-old Johnny Turnbull has always known there was something different about him, even before he and two hundred other kids landed on the first ring of Orbis. But once their spaceship lands, he is identified as the first-ever "softwire" — a human with the ability to enter and communicate with computers through his mind — and becomes the focus of intergalactic intrigue. Johnny and the rest of the refugee orphans are put to work in alien factories, and very quickly things go very wrong. When the all-knowing, all-controlling, and technologically "perfect" central computer starts malfunctioning, suspicious eyes turn to Johnny. Is he the one responsible? This action-packed, fast-paced sci-fi novel will keep kids on the edge of their seats.
Grade Level: 7 and up
Strategies for Success in Retail (US/UK), a collection of titles by Z. John Zhang, Herb Sorensen, Rick DeHerder and Dick Blatt, is a repeat freebie on Kindle and from Barnes & Noble, courtesy of publisher FT Press.
