Bargain Book Roundup

The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure ($8.10 Kindle), by William Goldman, is $1.99 at Kobo tonight (and coupon eligible). So, if you see this before the price goes up, you can get a great deal on this classic.

Book Description
William Goldman's modern fantasy classic is a simple, exceptional story about quests—for riches, revenge, power, and, of course, true love—that's thrilling and timeless.

Anyone who lived through the 1980s may find it impossible—inconceivable, even—to equate The Princess Bride with anything other than the sweet, celluloid romance of Westley and Buttercup, but the film is only a fraction of the ingenious storytelling you'll find in these pages. Rich in character and satire, the novel is set in 1941 and framed cleverly as an “abridged” retelling of a centuries-old tale set in the fabled country of Florin that's home to “Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passions.”

Mastering Your Gluten- and Dairy-Free Kitchen: Easy Recipes, Chef's Tips, and the Best Products for Your Pantry ($7.69 Kindle, Kobo), by Chef Einat Mazor, looks interesting and is coupon eligible at Kobo.

Book Description
In Mastering Your Gluten- and Dairy-Free Kitchen, Einat Mazor, a professional chef and culinary consultant, shares her vast knowledge and delicious recipes, so that those diagnosed with Celiac disease or food sensitivity to wheat, gluten, dairy, and casein can benefit from a quick and delicious diet.

When Einat Mazor’s six-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Celiac disease, Einat was determined to put her considerable professional experience to use. She dreamed of creating a diet rich in diverse flavors and textures so her daughter could continue to enjoy food just as she always had. Einat shares her personal story, along with simple and scrumptious recipes in a way that will help guide anyone who needs to change the way they think about food—but doesn’t know where to begin.
Einat serves up creative ways to avoid gluten and dairy in a diet, along with advice on building a pantry that is stocked with healthy and safe staples for this lifestyle diet. Each recipe begins with an anecdote and includes clear directions for tasty dishes, including cinnamon french toast, Chinese spring rolls, meatball kabobs, quinoa cookies—and even an amazing birthday cake!

Mastering Your Gluten- and Dairy-Free Kitchen provides valuable information and inspiration for those on a gluten- and dairy-free diet. It is also a valuable resource for parents and caregivers of people with autism, especially those who are attempting to alleviate symptoms through dietary changes.

Beyond the Night with Bonus Material ($1.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Joss Ware

Book Description
For a limited time and a special price, download the first installment in Joss Ware's hot paranormal romance series, the Envy Chronicles, about five men who survived the apocalypse with strange abilities and become humankind's last hope and receive deleted scenes and an excerpt from the next installment, Night Forbidden, available wherever books are sold 7/31.

Fifty years ago, the world came to an end.

Everything Elliott Drake has loved and known are gone, except the band of men who have become like brothers. Together they vow to discovered what has gone on while they slept an unnatural sleep for the last fifty years...

Jade, an auburn-hair beauty, has a mission of her own, and it does not include her attraction to Elliott. Why does he and his friends not know what has gone on in these past 50 years? Who are they? And why does Elliott's touch affect her so? But with her own secrets, does she dare to trust this man she is falling in love with?

Will Allen and the Great Monster Detective ($0.05 Kindle), by Jason Edwards and Jeffrey Friedman (Illustrator). You can also get Will Allen and the Ring of Terror for 95 cents.

Book Description
Will Allen may be one of the smallest boys at Ashford Middle School, but he is also one of the smartest. But cleverness alone isn't enough to help him when monsters infest his room!

Together with his friend Jeannine Fitsimmons, Will searches fruitlessly for help, until a strange business card appears, instructing them how to summon Bigelow Hawkins, the Great Monster Detective. With Bigelow's help, along with the use of his very special monster-fighting instruments, the RevealeR and the MonsterScope, Will must learn how to conquer his monsters and reveal the secret of the dreaded HIDDEN BEAST before it's too late...

Don't Look Back ($2.99), by Karin Fossum and Felicity David (Translator)

Book Description
Don't Look Back heralds the arrival of an exotic new crime series featuring Inspector Sejer, a smart and enigmatic hero, tough but fair. The setting is a small, idyllic village at the foot of Norway's Kollen Mountain, where neighbors know neighbors and children play happily in the streets. But when the body of a teenage girl is found by the lake at the mountaintop, the town's tranquillity is shattered forever. Annie was strong, intelligent, and loved by everyone. What went so terribly wrong? Doggedly, yet subtly, Inspector Sejer uncovers layer upon layer of distrust and lies beneath the town's seemingly perfect facade.

Critically acclaimed across Europe, Karin Fossum's Inspector Sejer novels are masterfully constructed, psychologically convincing, and compulsively readable, and are now available in the United States for the first time.

The Scent of Shadows ($0.99 Kindle), the first title in the Sign of the Zodiac series by Vicki Pettersson, is $6.99 in other stores, so it may go back up on Kindle soon. It's definitely a series to try out, at this price.

Book Description
When she was sixteen, Joanna Archer was brutally assaulted and left to die in the Nevada desert.

By rights, she should be dead.

Now a photographer by day, she prowls a different Las Vegas after sunset—a grim, secret Sin City where Light battles Shadow—seeking answers to whom or what she really is . . . and revenge for the horrors she was forced to endure.

But the nightmare is just beginning—for the demons are hunting Joanna, and the powerful shadows want her for their own . . .

The Taken: Celestial Blues ($2.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Vicki Pettersson, is the start of a new series. I snapped this one up, too.

Book Description
Griffin Shaw used to be a PI, but that was back when gumshoes hoofed the streets . . . and he was still alive. Fifty years later, he's an angel, but that doesn't make him a saint. One small mistake has altered fate, and now he's been dumped back onto the mortal mudflat to collect another soul—Katherine "Kit" Craig, a journalist whose latest investigation is about to get her clipped.

Bucking heavenly orders, Grif refuses to let the sable-haired siren come to harm. Besides, protecting her offers a chance to solve the mystery of his own unsolved murder—and dole out some overdue payback for the death of his beloved wife, Evie.

Joining forces, Kit and Grif's search for answers leads beyond the blinding lights of the Strip into the dark heart of an evil conspiracy. But a ruthless killer determined to destroy them isn't Grif's biggest threat. His growing attraction to Kit could cost them both their lives, along with the answer to the haunting question of his long afterlife . . .

The Wildwater Walking Club ($3.03 Kindle; $3.49 B&N, Kobo), by Claire Cook, author of Must Love Dogs ($2.99). Three more of her titles, Summer Blowout, Best Staged Plans and Life's a Beach, are also marked down to $3.03.

Book Description
Just one step at a time.

After losing her boyfriend and her job in one fell swoop, Noreen finds it hard to know what the next step is--never mind take it. For the first time in a great many years, Noreen has time to herself. So she puts on a new pair of sneakers and a seriously outdated pair of exercise pants, and walks.

It isn't long before she's joined by neighbors Tess and Rosie, two women as lost as she is. As the Wildwater women walk and talk, and talk and walk, they tally their steps, share their secrets, and begin putting their lives back together. And along the way, they learn what women everywhere are finding out -- time flies, and getting fit is actually fun when you're walking with friends.

The Wild Marsh: Four Seasons at Home in Montana ($2.99 Kindle), by Rick Bass

Book Description
The Wild Marsh is Rick Bass’s most mature, full account of life in the Yaak and a crowning achievement in his celebrated career. It begins with his family settling in for the long Montana winter, and captures all the subtle harbingers of change that mark each passing month — the initial cruel teasing of spring, the splendor and fecundity of summer, and the bittersweet memories evoked by fall.

It is full of rich observation about what it takes to live in the valley — ruggedness, improvisation and, of course, duct tape. The Wild Marsh is also tremendously poignant, especially when Bass reflects on what it means for his young daughters to grow up surrounded by the strangeness and wonder of nature. He shares with them the Yaak’s little secrets — where the huckleberries are best in a dry year, where to find a grizzly’s claw marks in an old cedar — and discovers that passing on this intimate local knowledge, the knowledge of home, is a kind of rare and valuable love.

Bass emerges not just as a writer but as a father, a neighbor, and a gifted observer, uniquely able to bring us close to the drama and sanctity of small things, ensuring that though the wilderness is increasingly at risk, the voice of the wilderness will not disappear.

This last one is cheating a bit, as it isn't a book, but I just noticed at Amazon that you can get $8 off the Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition of Brave, which includes the 3D and BluRay versions. There is a "coupon" you must clip, just below the cover image (just click the button there) and then use the full check out procedure (not one-click). You'll see the $8 discount on the final page before confirming the order. I was wanting to see this at the theater, but had to choose amongst the many new releases this month - with the discount, it's less than we'd pay to see it and we can watch the 3D version as many times as we want, at home. In any case, it goes with the free copy of Brave that B&N is giving away today. It is a pre-order, so if the price goes down any between now and when it is released, you'll still get the lowest price minus the $8 discount (I don't expect it on this title, but I've actually had a few orders here and there where Amazon ended up actually paying me due to a coupon code and price match they did).

Movie Description
Set in the rugged and mysterious Highlands of Scotland, Disney Pixar's Brave follows the heroic journey of Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald), a skilled archer and headstrong daughter of King Fergus (voice of Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (voice of Emma Thompson). Determined to change her fate, Merida defies an age-old custom sacred to the unruly and uproarious lords of the land: massive Lord MacGuffin (voice of Kevin McKidd), surly Lord Macintosh (voice of Craig Ferguson) and cantankerous Lord Dingwall (voice of Robbie Coltrane), unleashing chaos in the kingdom. When she turns to an eccentric Witch (voice of Julie Walters), she is granted an ill-fated wish and the ensuing peril forces Merida to harness all of her resources including her mischievous triplet brothers to undo a beastly curse and discover the meaning of true bravery.

Today's Deals

Don't forget to play the Trivia Teaser game daily at Kobo for discount coupons and a chance at a Vox ereader/tablet (ends July 20).

On B&N's Facebook page, you can now vote for this weekend's $3.99 deal: Runner by Thomas Perry vs. Patient One by Leonard Goldberg. So far, voting is running almost even between the two.

Additional formats on free books:

• Interrupted Aria (K/I/DF)
• Torch Red (N/DF)

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead ($1.99), the first title in a planned series by Sara Gran.

Book Description
Claire DeWitt believes she is the world’s greatest PI, even if few agree with her. A one-time teen detective in Brooklyn, she is a follower of the esoteric French detective Jacques Silette, whose mysterious handbook Détection inspired Claire’s unusual practices.

Claire also has deep roots in New Orleans, where she was mentored by Silette’s student the brilliant Constance Darling—until Darling was murdered. When a respected DA goes missing she returns to the hurricane-ravaged city to find out why.Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead is a knockout start to a bracingly original new series.

Fatal Tango ($1.54 / £0.99 UK), by Wolfram Fleischhauer , is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $2.99/KLL eligible).

Book Description
Giulietta Battin has devoted herself to ballet, earning a coveted spot as a dancer with the Staatsoper Berlin. But when she decides to explore a new style of music—the tango—life as she knows it changes forever. Soon after beginning her musical adventure, she meets Argentinean tango dancer Damián Alsina. They begin a torrid affair…which quickly turns into a nightmare. Damián suddenly sabotages his own performance with a bizarre, improvised choreography. His passionate creativity excites Giulietta, until Damián’s strange behavior culminates in a shocking act: he kidnaps and tortures her jealous father. Horrified, she demands answers, but Damián has fled to Buenos Aires and her father, his victim, is being suspiciously unforthcoming. So Giulietta follows her lover to South America, where her journey into the world of tango confronts her with the unspeakable horrors of the country’s brutal past. But denial will never silence art, and as Giulietta learns to decipher the true significance of Damián’s dance style, she finds the key to the mystery of her lover´s past and the terrifying truth that connects it with her own.

Into the Darkest Corner ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Elizabeth Haynes, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Catherine Bailey has been enjoying the single life long enough to know a catch when she sees one. Gorgeous, charismatic and spontaneous, Lee seems almost too perfect to be true. And her friends clearly agree, as each in turn falls under his spell.

But what begins as flattering attentiveness and passionate sex turns into raging jealousy, and Catherine soon learns there is a darker side to Lee. His increasingly erratic, controlling behaviour becomes frightening, but no one believes her when she shares her fears. Increasingly isolated and driven into the darkest corner of her world, a desperate Catherine plans a meticulous escape.

Four years later, Lee is behind bars and Catherine—now Cathy—compulsively checks the locks and doors in her apartment, trusting no one. But when an attractive upstairs neighbour, Stuart, comes into her life, Cathy dares to hope that happiness and love may still be possible . . . until she receives a phone call informing her of Lee’s impending release. Soon after, Cathy thinks she catches a glimpse of the former best friend who testified against her in the trial; she begins to return home to find objects subtly rearranged in her apartment, one of Lee’s old tricks. Convinced she is back in her former lover’s sights, Cathy prepares to wrestle with the demons of her past for the last time.

Utterly convincing in its portrayal of obsession, Into the Darkest corner is an ingeniously structured and plotted tour de force of suspense that marks the arrival of a major new talent.

Jinxed! ($3.60 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the first title in Kurtis Scaletta's children's series Topps League, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. Although not price matched at Amazon, it is apparently discounted (I see prices from $5 to over $10 for subsequent books a B&N) and the real deal is the second in the series, Steal That Base!, only $1.50 on Kindle. The third in the series, Zip It!, is also being discounted as a pre-order.

Book Description
It’s Chad’s first spring as a batboy, and the Pine City Porcupines are hot—until they come up against the league-leading Heron Lake Humdingers. Now Chad’s got a whole lineup of problems: his favorite player, shortstop Mike Stammer, thinks he’s jinxed; Dylan, the other batboy, doesn’t even like baseball; there’s a goofy new porcupine mascot on the field; plus, Chad has to fill in as batboy for the Herons. It’s a good thing there’s something in the cards—his baseball cards, that is—that can help Chad sort it all out.

Grade Level: 2 and up

Today's Deals

It looks like Amazon is giving away a $1 MP3 credit with the purchase of any CD (limit one per customer). That's a pretty good albums on albums such as John Mayer's Born and Raised, which is cheaper than the MP3 version, or you can pre-order The Dark Knight Rises: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack ($10, ships tomorrow and has three tracks not on the MP3 version). You'll have to wait a bit to get the credit (it's added to your account automatically after the CD ships), but you might want to go ahead and get today's MP3 Album deal anyway, since it's Doo-Wops & Hooligans by Bruno Mars for only 99 cents! Then, when you get the credit, you can use it on something like Queen's Greatest Hits ($2.99).

Don't forget to play the Trivia Teaser game daily at Kobo for discount coupons and a chance at a Vox ereader/tablet (ends July 20).

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is the New York Times bestselling novel Damage ($1.99), by Josephine Hart.

Book Description
Damage is the gripping story of a man’s desperate obsession and scandalous love affair. He is a man who appears to have everything: wealth, a beautiful wife and children, and a prestigious political career in Parliament. But his life lacks passion, and his aching emptiness drives him to an all-consuming, and ultimately catastrophic, relationship with his son’s fiancée.

Chilling and brilliant, Damage is a masterpiece—a daring look at the dangers of obsession and the depth of its shattering consequences.

The Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK is MC Beaton's Regency romance The Six Sisters series for £0.99 ($1.54) apiece. These were originally published under the author's own name, Marion Chesney, rather than the more widely recognized pseudonym used on today's editions. For those in the US, you can get any in the series for $5.69 or borrow them from the Kindle Lending Library.

Minerva (Main/UK)

When the Reverend Charles Armitage, an impecunious country vicar in Regency England, announces that raven-haired Minerva, the eldest of his six daughters, is to have her coming-out in London, the news is not well received by the rest of the family. Mrs. Armitage has one of her Spasms and has to be brought round by burning a quantity of feathers under her nose. Annabelle, the nearest in age to Minerva, is clearly jealous, the boys are all surly, and the other girls just start off crying.

Minerva is despatched to Town under the wing of the disreputable old Lady Godolphin. Her task - to find a rich husband and thereby restore the ailing family fortunes.

The Taming of Annabelle (Main/UK)

From the moment honey-tressed young Annabelle met her sister Minerva's intended, Lord Sylvester, she developed a secret passion for him that obsessed her. Now she was determined to take him away from Minerva - no matter what!

Deirdre and Desire (Main/UK)

Red-haired, jade-eyed Deirdre is determined to marry for Love - nothing else will do. So the fact her father's candidate for her hand, Lord Harry Desire, is well bred and good looking, interests her not a jot!

Daphne (Main/UK)

Black-haired, exquisite Daphne is certain she can avoid the turmoil of true love by demanding nothing more of a husband than to be an elegant companion. But when Mr Simon Garfield agitates Daphne's calm outward manner, the results are dramatic and delightful!

Diana the Huntress (Main/UK)

How can plain Frederica withstand a Season's scrutiny after the five beauties before her have married so magnificently? Yet she had not counted on the Duke of Pembury; whether dressed in her finery or disguised as a chambermaid, that magnificent gentleman wanted her just the same!

Frederica in Fashion (Main/UK)

With her lustrous black hair and enormous dark eyes, Diana is shy of men yet dreams of the freedom they must enjoy. And what of the gypsy, who prophesised a dark stranger, and warned of a fair one? Surprising twists and turns await Diana on the path of true love.

Just Run It! ($10.39 Kindle, $2.99 B&N), by Dick Cross, is the Nook Daily Find.

Book Description
The growth engine of the global economy is no longer through mega-production and huge conglomerates, but rather through the proliferation of smaller enterprises. These smaller businesses often struggle. In America alone, tens of thousands of businesses crop up each year. Unfortunately, few will succeed, though not due to a lack of ingenuity, initiative, or even capital. Why, then? Because so few of the would-be drivers of the new economy know how to convert their dreams, their ideas, their courage, and their initiatives into successful enterprises. According to Dick Cross, author of Just Run It!: Running an Exceptional Business Is Easier Than You Think, most business owners lack not just the fundamentals, the nuts and bolts of operating a business effectively day in and day out, but the bigger picture of how to achieve business success. This shortcoming is pervasive: it handicaps most new businesses from the start and it prevents the lion's share of existing ones from ever becoming significant.

After taking dozens of mainstream companies from underperforming to high performance, Cross observed a pattern, out of which he devised a formula for success. Using his Just Run It! framework, he is now teaching small and medium-sized enterprises how to understand their mainstream businesses on "the back of an envelope" and to achieve the next level of success. The book showcases a Vision-Strategy-Execution exercise to help business owners crystallize their primary business advantage and then focus efforts to maximize performance around it. Financial reporting, management and leadership, teamwork, communicationsall skills needed to run a "one business" business are covered in detail. In closing, Cross makes the case that for "those who can't adjust their thinking to new realities, the decline in America's global standing as an industrial power is a death knell. For those who can, it's the reveille of opportunity."

Moon Mater ($2.99 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), a Cars Toons title by Disney Book Group, is the Nook Daily Find for Families and requires a NOOK Color, NOOK Tablet or NOOK Kids for iPad; the Kindle edition runs on the Kindle Fire, Kindle Cloud Reader, Kindle for iPad and Kindle for Android.

Book Description
Mater is the first tow truck on the moon! When an auto-naut gets stranded on his lunar mission, it's up to Mater to venture into space and tow him back to Earth (with a little help from his friend Lightning McQueen, of course).

In this NOOK Kids Read to Me book, children can choose to hear the story read aloud, tap to enlarge text and pinch & stretch to zoom in on pictures.

Bargain Book Roundup, Part II

For those who enjoy a little classical while they read, be sure to check out these compilations:

• Big Mahler Box ($0.99)
• Big Summer Box ($0.99)
• The Beethoven Piano Sonatas ($1.99)
• 100 Rachmaninoff Piano Favorites ($1.99)
• Big Gustav Leonhardt Box The Bach Guild Recordings 1952-1955 ($2.79)

And now, the rest of the bargain book roundup:

Flowertown ($4.99), by S.G. Redling

Book Description
When Feno Chemical spilled an experimental pesticide in rural Iowa, scores of people died. Those who survived contamination were herded into a US Army medically maintained quarantine and cut off from the world. Dosed with powerful drugs to combat the poison, their bodies give off a sickly sweet smell and the containment zone becomes known simply as Flowertown.

Seven years later, the infrastructure is crumbling, supplies are dwindling, and nobody is getting clean. Ellie Cauley doesn’t care anymore. Despite her paranoid best friend's insistence that conspiracies abound, she focuses on three things: staying high, hooking up with the Army sergeant she's not supposed to be fraternizing with and, most importantly, trying to ignore her ever-simmering rage. But when a series of deadly events rocks the compound, Ellie suspects her friend is right—something dangerous is going down in Flowertown and all signs point to a twisted plan of greed and abuse. She and the other residents of Flowertown have been betrayed by someone with a deadly agenda and their plan is just getting started. Time is running out. With nobody to trust and nowhere to go, Ellie decides to fight with the last weapon she has—her rage.

Flowertown is a high-intensity conspiracy thriller that brings the worst-case scenario vividly to life and will keep readers riveted until the final haunting page.

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War ($4.99), by Karl Marlantes

Book Description
Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Jones’s The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever.

Written by a highly decorated Marine veteran over the course of thirty years, Matterhorn is a spellbinding and unforgettable novel that brings to life an entire world—both its horrors and its thrills—and seems destined to become a classic of combat literature.

The Immortalists ($4.99), by Kyle Mills

Book Description
Dr. Richard Draman is trying desperately to discover a cure for a disease that causes children to age at a wildly accelerated rate—a rare genetic condition that is killing his own daughter. When the husband of a colleague quietly gives him a copy of the classified work she was doing before her mysterious suicide, Draman finally sees a glimmer of hope. The conclusions are stunning, with the potential to not only turn the field of biology on its head, but reshape the world. Soon, though, he finds himself on the run, relentlessly pursued by a seemingly omnipotent group of men who will do whatever it takes to silence him.

Magic Tree House #1: Dinosaurs Before Dark ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca (Illustrator)

Book Description
Jack and Annie's very first fantasy adventure in the bestselling middle-grade series—the Magic Tree House!

Where did the tree house come from?

Before Jack and Annie can find out, the mysterious tree house whisks them to the prehistoric past. Now they have to figure out how to get home. Can they do it before dark . . . or will they become a dinosaur's dinner?

Grade Level: K and up

Blues Highway Blues ($4.99), by Eyre Price

Book Description
Music mogul Daniel Erickson’s life has come to a perilous crossroads. Literally. He has a ruthless pair of killers on his tail and is chasing a million dollars that he owes a Russian mobster.

Standing along the same Mississippi highway where legend claims that bluesman Robert Johnson traded his immortal soul for matchless command of the guitar, Daniel finds himself on a path that parallels the evolution of American music from the Mississippi Delta to New Orleans and on to Memphis, Nashville, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, the Jersey Shore, New York, and Seattle.

At every stop, Daniel’s tour gets more dangerous with the hit men closing in, an FBI agent obsessed with his capture, and a rogue motorcycle gang hunting him down. Blues Highway Blues, Eyre Price’s debut novel, is a compelling and unique combination: part edge-of-your-seat road trip across America and part examination of the music that comprises its soundtrack.

The Janus Affair ($0.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), the second title in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series by Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine. Hopefully you grabbed the first in the series, Phoenix Rising, back when it was on sale for the same price.

Book Description
Evildoers beware! Retribution is at hand, thanks to Britain's best-kept secret agents!!

Certainly no strangers to peculiar occurrences, agents Wellington Books and Eliza Braun are nonetheless stunned to observe a fellow passenger aboard Britain's latest hypersteam train suddenly vanish in a dazzling bolt of lightning. They soon discover this is not the only such disappearance . . . with each case going inexplicably unexamined by the Crown.

The fate of England is once again in the hands of an ingenious archivist paired with a beautiful, fearless lady of adventure. And though their foe be fiendishly clever, so then is Mr. Books . . . and Miss Braun still has a number of useful and unusual devices hidden beneath her petticoats.

Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life ($3.99), by Natalie Goldberg

Book Description
An inspirational, practical, and often lighthearted guide on how to find time to write, how to discover your personal style, and how to make sentences come alive

Natalie Goldberg, author of the bestselling Writing Down the Bones, shares her invaluable insight into writing as a source of creative power, and the daily ins and outs of the writer’s task. Topics include balancing mundane responsibilities with a commitment to writing; knowing when to take risks as a writer and a human being; coming to terms with success, failure, and loss; and learning self-acceptance—both in life and art.

Thought-provoking and practical, Wild Mind provides an abundance of suggestions for keeping the writing life vital and active, and includes more than thirty provocative “try this” exercises as jump-starters to get your pen moving.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Natalie Goldberg, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips ($3.79), by James Hilton

Book Description
Hilton’s inspiring short novel about a beloved teacher’s remarkable role in his students’ lives, through decades of triumph and tragedy in Britain

For three generations, through war and peace, prosperity and misfortune, Arthur Chipping’s students at the Brookfield School have called him Mr. Chips. Beginning in his unpolished first years as a new teacher, through the end of the nineteenth century and well into radical changes of the twentieth, Mr. Chips has shaped the lives of the young men in his class. And when Britain is threatened by the outbreak of the First World War, it is Mr. Chips who must lead the school that has already counted on him for so much.

Made into two remarkable films and other retellings on stage and television, Goodbye, Mr. Chips has endured as a revelation of the difference one good teacher can make in countless lives.

Big Mouth & Ugly Girl ($1.99), by Joyce Carol Oates

Book Description
Big Mouth

No I did not. I did not, I did not. I did not say those things, and I did not plan those things. Won't It anyone believe me?

Ugly Girl

All right, Ugly Girl made a mistake. I'd told my mom what I'd heard in the cafeteria, and she'd told Dad. Evidently. I'd thought for sure they would want me to speak up for the truth.

Grade Level: 8 and up

Box Nine: Quinsigamond Series ($1.99), by Jack O'Connell

Book Description
A narcotics detective wages war against a deadly new stimulant

The drug is called Lingo, and it’s the most powerful narcotic Lenore has ever seen. This cheaply manufactured pill races straight for the brain’s language center, supercharging it so that even a dimwitted person can speak and read at 1,500 words per minute. It induces giddiness, confidence, and sexual euphoria—with a side effect of murderous rage. The drug has come to Quinsigamond, a fading industrial center in the heart of Massachusetts, and it’s going to tear this town apart.

Lenore believes she can stop that from happening. A narcotics detective with a few addictions of her own—amphetamines and heavy metal, to name a couple—she loves nothing more than her gun, until she meets Dr. Frederick Woo, the linguist assisting her on the case. Together they can stop the drug—if it doesn’t take hold of them first.

Anathem ($3.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Neal Stephenson

Book Description
Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizable -- yet strangely inverted -- world.

Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside "saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outside -- the Extramuros -- for the last of the terrible times was long, long ago.

Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert, the fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concent's gates -- at the same time opening them wide to welcome the curious "extras" in. During his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasn't seen since he was "collected." But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change.

Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros -- a threat that only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can oppose -- as, one by one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world -- as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet . . . and beyond.

The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids ($0.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Madeline Levine, PhD

Book Description
Madeline Levine has been a practicing psychologist for twenty-five years, but it was only recently that she began to observe a new breed of unhappy teenager. When a bright, personable fifteen-year-old girl, from a loving and financially comfortable family, came into her office with the word empty carved into her left forearm, Levine was startled. This girl and her message seemed to embody a disturbing pattern Levine had been observing. Her teenage patients were bright, socially skilled, and loved by their affluent parents. But behind a veneer of achievement and charm, many of these teens suffered severe emotional problems. What was going on?

Conversations with educators and clinicians across the country as well as meticulous research confirmed Levine's suspicions that something was terribly amiss. Numerous studies show that privileged adolescents are experiencing epidemic rates of depression, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse -- rates that are higher than those of any other socioeconomic group of young people in this country. The various elements of a perfect storm -- materialism, pressure to achieve, perfectionism, disconnection -- are combining to create a crisis in America's culture of affluence. This culture is as unmanageable for parents -- mothers in particular -- as it is for their children. While many privileged kids project confidence and know how to make a good impression, alarming numbers lack the basic foundation of psychological development: an authentic sense of self. Even parents often miss the signs of significant emotional problems in their "star" children.

In this controversial look at privileged families, Levine offers thoughtful, practical advice as she explodes one child-rearing myth after another. With empathy and candor, she identifies parenting practices that are toxic to healthy self-development and that have contributed to epidemic levels of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse in the most unlikely place -- the affluent family.

Bargain Book Roundup, Part I

Amazon has a Grisly Reads for Summer sale going on, with "mysteries and thrillers from Amazon Publishing for $4.99 or less on Kindle and up to 60% off in print." I've included a few of them below, mixed in with a few lighter reads, romance, paranormal fantasy and even a kid's book or two. Most of the bargains are in the Kindle store, but a few are either matched at other stores or are for non-Kindlers, as noted below.

If you are a Christian Fiction fan, be sure to check out Abingdon Press' sale, with just over 100 titles under $4. I'm amazed at how many of them I've picked up free over the last few years; for those that missed one or two in a series, it's a great time to fill in your lists.

Open Road also has a number of titles on sale, including the omnibus All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, and All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics by James Herriot for $7.99; most of the others are under $4.

The Bad Beginning ($0.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), the first title in A Series of Unfortunate Events series by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Brett Helquist and Michael Kupperman, is the title those of us that lucked into most of the series free (back in April '10) have been waiting for (assuming you didn't grab this one already, since we got the next five books in the series from that major pricing snafu).

Book Description
Imagine tales so terrible that as many as fifty million innocents have been ruined by them – tales so indelibly horrid that the New York Times bestseller list has been unable to rid itself of them for seven years. Now imagine if this scourge suddenly became available in a shameful new edition so sensational, so irresistible, so riddled with lurid new pictures that even a common urchin would wish for it. Who among us would be safe?

Begin at the beginning – even if it is a bad one – with the first in A Series of Unfortunate Events, now even more disposable in paperback[sic]!

Grade Level: 5 and up

Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter ($0.99 Kindle, B&N), by A. E. Moorat, should appeal to those who enjoyed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Also at Amazon (and only there), his Henry VIII: Wolfman, is marked down to $4.97.

Book Description
There were many staff at Kensington Palace, fulfilling many roles; a man who was employed to catch rats, another whose job it was to sweep the chimneys. That there was someone expected to hunt demons did not shock the new Queen; that it was to be her was something of a surprise.

London, 1838. Queen Victoria is crowned; she receives the orb, the scepter, and an arsenal of bloodstained weaponry. If Britain is about to become the greatest power of the age, there’s the small matter of the undead to take care of first. Demons stalk the crown, and political ambitions have unleashed ravening hordes of zombies even within the nobility itself.

But rather than dreams of demon hunting, Queen Victoria’s thoughts are occupied by Prince Albert. Can she dedicate her life to saving her country when her heart belongs elsewhere?With lashings of glistening entrails, decapitations, zombies, and foul demons, this masterly new portrait will give a fresh understanding of a remarkable woman, a legendary monarch, and quite possibly the best demon hunter the world has ever seen.

In another incarnation as a more serious (though still satirical) author, A. E. MOORAT has won critical acclaim and been shortlisted for awards. Here, however, he was chained in the dungeon, fed tea and ghost stories, and kept busy writing the adventures of Queen Victoria, Demon Hunter.

A Sweethaven Summer ($0.99 Kindle, B&N), by Courtney Walsh

Book Description
Campbell Carter’s mother, Suzanne, has just lost her battle with cancer, and Campbell is surprised to learn that Suzanne recently reached out to her childhood friends from a place called Sweethaven, Michigan. Campbell journeys to the town to find answers to her questions about her mother’s history. Suzanne’s three friends—Lila, Jane, and Meghan—torn apart by long-buried secrets and heartbreak, haven't spoken in years, but each has pieces of a scrapbook they made during their summers at this idyllic lakeside town. Just after Suzanne’s death they all receive letters that lead them back to Sweethaven. There, they discover that Suzanne had made many plans before her death to restore their broken friendship. When they meet Suzanne’s daughter, they begin to remember what was so special about their long Sweethaven summers. The scrapbook helps them heal and restore the friendships that have been broken for far too long. As secrets are revealed one by one, old wounds are mended and lives are changed—just as Suzanne intended.

Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book ($2.24), by Ben Cohen, Jerry Greenfield and Nancy Stevens

Book Description
With little skill, surprisingly few ingredients, and even the most unsophisticated of ice-cream makers, you can make the scrumptious ice creams that have made Ben & Jerry's an American legend.

Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book tells fans the story behind the company and the two men who built it-from their first meeting in 7th-grade gym class (they were already the two widest kids on the field) to their "graduation" from a $5.00 ice-cream-making correspondence course to their first ice-cream shop in a renovated gas station.

But the best part comes next. Dastardly Mash, featuring nuts, raisins, and hunks of chocolate. The celebrated Heath Bar Crunch. New York Super Fudge Chunk. Oreo Mint. In addition to Ben & Jerry's 11 greatest hits, here are recipes for ice creams made with fresh fruit, with chocolate, with candies and cookies, and recipes for sorbets, sundaes, and baked goods.

Only Time Will Tell ($3.61 Main / £2.51 UK), the first title in The Clifton Chronicles by Jeffrey Archer, is on sale for UK customers only in both the Kindle store and at KoboBooks, where you can combine that sale with coupon code TimeWillTell (exp Jul 18) for an additional 50% off! Limit one coupon code per customer, but it can be given as a gift. The US edition on this one is $9.99 and the second in the series, The Sins of the Father, is now available.

Book Description
From the internationally bestselling author of Kane and Abel and A Prisoner of Birth comes Only Time Will Tell, the first in an ambitious new series that tells the story of one family across generations, across oceans, from heartbreak to triumph.

The epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920, with the words “I was told that my father was killed in the war.” A dock worker in Bristol, Harry never knew his father, but he learns about life on the docks from his uncle, who expects Harry to join him at the shipyard once he’s left school. But then an unexpected gift wins him a scholarship to an exclusive boys’ school, and his life will never be the same again.

As he enters into adulthood, Harry finally learns how his father really died, but the awful truth only leads him to question, was he even his father? Is he the son of Arthur Clifton, a stevedore who spent his whole life on the docks, or the firstborn son of a scion of West Country society, whose family owns a shipping line?

This introductory novel in Archer’s ambitious series The Clifton Chronicles includes a cast of colorful characters and takes us from the ravages of the Great War to the outbreak of the Second World War, when Harry must decide whether to take up a place at Oxford or join the navy and go to war with Hitler’s Germany. From the docks of working-class England to the bustling streets of 1940 New York City, Only Time Will Tell takes readers on a journey through to future volumes, which will bring to life one hundred years of recent history to reveal a family story that neither the reader nor Harry Clifton himself could ever have imagined.

Great Impressionist and Post/Impressionist Paintings: The Musée d'Orsay ($0.99 iTunes), by Charles Stuckey, is on sale at iTunes this week, as a Bastille Day promotion (exp July 23). Only available in the iBookstore, it features scalable reproductions of nearly 200 paintings by 26 artists including such favorites as Manet, Monet, Renoir, and Van Gogh; over three hours of original audio information about the artists and their paintings; and more than 500 hyperlinks to some of the best sites on the Internet to learn more about the artists and their work.

Book Description
Welcome to this exciting enhanced ebook, Great Impressionist and Post/Impressionist Paintings: The Musée d'Orsay. We hope that this e/book will give you the pleasure not just of the art of the Impressionists, but also lead you to discover on your own more about the artists’ lives, their work, and their world.

Vanishing and Other Stories ($1.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Deborah Willis

Book Description
A French teacher who collects fiances; a fortune-teller who fails to predict the heartbreak of her own daughter; an aging cowboy seduced by a city girl . . . these are some of the unforgettable people who live in these pages.

In Vanishing and Other Stories, secrets are both kept and unearthed, and lives are shaped by missing lovers, parents, and children. With wisdom and dexterity, moments of dark humor, and a remark- able economy of words, Deborah Willis captures an incredible array of characters that linger in the imagination and prove that nothing is ever truly forgotten.

The Humbling ($1.42) is Philip Roth's thirtieth book.

Book Description
Everything is over for Simon Axler, the protagonist of Philip Roth’s startling new book. One of the leading American stage actors of his generation, now in his sixties, he has lost his magic, his talent, and his assurance. His Falstaff and Peer Gynt and Vanya, all his great roles, "are melted into air, into thin air." When he goes onstage he feels like a lunatic and looks like an idiot. His confidence in his powers has drained away; he imagines people laughing at him; he can no longer pretend to be someone else. "Something fundamental has vanished." His wife has gone, his audience has left him, his agent can’t persuade him to make a comeback.

Into this shattering account of inexplicable and terrifying self-evacuation bursts a counterplot of unusual erotic desire, a consolation for a bereft life so risky and aberrant that it points not toward comfort and gratification but to a yet darker and more shocking end. In this long day’s journey into night, told with Roth’s inimitable urgency, bravura, and gravity, all the ways that we convince ourselves of our solidity, all our life’s performances—talent, love, sex, hope, energy, reputation—are stripped off.

The Hangman's Daughter ($3.99), by Oliver Pötzsch and Lee Chadeayne (Translator)

Book Description
Germany, 1660: When a dying boy is pulled from the river with a mark crudely tattooed on his shoulder, hangman Jakob Kuisl is called upon to investigate whether witchcraft is at play. So begins The Hangman's Daughter--the chillingly detailed, fast-paced historical thriller from German television screenwriter, Oliver Pötzsch--a descendent of the Kuisls, a famous Bavarian executioner clan.

Vaccine Nation ($2.99), by David Lender

Book Description
Dani North is a filmmaker who just won at the Tribeca Film Festival for her documentary, The Drugging of Our Children, a film critical of the pharmaceutical industry. When she is handed "whistleblower" evidence about the U.S. vaccination program, she has to keep herself alive long enough to expose it before a megalomaniacal pharmaceutical company CEO can have her killed.

Excerpts from Trojan Horse, The Gravy Train and Bull Street, David Lender's other thrillers, follow the text of Vaccine Nation.