Today's Deals 12/19

Enter the Amazon Music Gift Card Sweepstakes and you could win a $500 Gift Card.

Today's Audible Daily Deal is "Books from Our ACX Collection for $3.95 each". Looks like a number of really good deals and Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1 - 5) is only $1.99 (I suspect because I have the Kindle book).

At Harlequin, FREE stocking stuffers for your loved one. "These IOU coupons make perfect stocking stuffers for your loved one! Enjoy sharing this special little treat and put a smile on your loved one's face."

If you are a student or have an .EDU email address, you can sign up for Amazon Prime on the Amazon Student for half-price. Besides free 2-day shipping, Prime Instant Videos and the Kindle Lending Library, students also get special deals throughout the year. Not a student? Send the link on to any you know.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Pocket-47 ($0.99), a Nicholas Colt Thriller by Jude Hardin.

Book Description
Fifteen-year-old Brittney Ryan has taken to the streets. Leitha, her older sister and legal guardian, hires private investigator Nicholas Colt to find her and bring her home. Piece of cake, Colt thinks. With Brittney's forbidden boyfriend's address in hand, he plans to make a surprise visit and put this one in the scrapbook.But something more sinister is behind Brittney's disappearance, and Colt soon finds himself in an ever-widening maze of deceit, betrayal, and murder. When Colt learns what the mysterious phrase Pocket-47 means, he is haunted even more by the plane crash that killed his family and rock band twenty years ago-a crash he now realizes might not have been an accident.Determined to save Brittney, Colt struggles to untangle the threads of his own tortured past. Unfortunately, one of the most heinous and violent criminals in modern history has other ideas.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is The Laws of Love ($0.99), by Lisa White.

Book Description
Associate General Counsel Livi Miller believes she has reached the top rung of Hampton Steel’s corporate ladder. She is young, ambitious, and the best deal-maker Hampton Steel has seen since her boss started drinking. However, when her high school sweetheart Jake returns home from Iraq, Livi painfully discovers that having it all does not necessarily mean having it all at once.

When a newcomer threatens to destroy Hampton Steel, Livi is forced to make a decision: save her hometown or save her happiness.

Sensuality Level: Sensual

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is Wolf's Bluff ($1.99), The third title in the Nick Lupo series by Bram Stoker Award Nominee W. D. Gagliani. The first in the series, Wolf's Trap ($5), is what earned him the nomination and the second in the series, Wolf's Gambit, was a bargain book a couple of years ago (which is when I picked it up). I had a comment left yesterday that said you could read these books from the library, but here's an example of a series I can't find (electronically) at my library, but that that is much more affordable to read due to the bargains I've posted.

Book Description
Homicide cop -- and werewolf -- Nick Lupo has battled other werewolves before, killers who unlike Nick have no problem hunting human prey. So when a new series of savage animal attacks terrifies the area, Nick already has a suspect in mind. And he knows that if he's right it'll be up to him to destroy her. But even as he begins his surveillance, someone else is out there, watching them both. Someone with a very deadly plan. Someone who knows just what it takes to kill a werewolf.

The Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK is A Selection of 8 Books for £0.99 Each.

There's something for everyone in today's Kindle Daily Deal, from Christmas-themed crime to cutting-edge psychology. The eight books are: Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, The Boy from Berlin by Michael Parker, Soul Dust by Nicholas Humphrey, Burned by Thomas Enger, The Sky's Dark Labyrinth by Stuart Clark, The Limit by Michael Cannell, If I Touched the Earth by Cynthia Rogerson and A Highland Christmas by MC Beaton.

The Given Day ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Dennis Lehane, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, bestselling author Dennis Lehane's extraordinary eighth novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads where past meets future. Filled with a cast of richly drawn, unforgettable characters, The Given Day tells the story of two families—one black, one white—swept up in a maelstrom of revolutionaries and anarchists, immigrants and ward bosses, Brahmins and ordinary citizens, all engaged in a battle for survival and power. Coursing through the pivotal events of a turbulent epoch, it explores the crippling violence and irrepressible exuberance of a country at war with, and in the thrall of, itself.

Today's Kindle Teen Daily Deal is Wicked Lovely ($1.99), by Melissa Marr. Check your libraries on this one, as there was a Bonus edition free in early 2010.

Book Description
Rule #3: Don't stare at invisible faeries.

Aislinn has always seen faeries. Powerful and dangerous, they walk hidden in mortal world. Aislinn fears their cruelty—especially if they learn of her Sight—and wishes she were as blind to their presence as other teens.

Rule #2: Don't speak to invisible faeries.

Now faeries are stalking her. One of them, Keenan, who is equal parts terrifying and alluring, is trying to talk to her, asking questions Aislinn is afraid to answer.

Rule #1: Don't ever attract their attention.

But it's too late. Keenan is the Summer King who has sought his queen for nine centuries. Without her, summer itself will perish. He is determined that Aislinn will become the Summer Queen at any cost—regardless of her plans or desires.

Suddenly none of the rules that have kept Aislinn safe are working anymore, and everything is on the line: her freedom; her best friend, Seth; her life; everything.

Faerie intrigue, mortal love, and the clash of ancient rules and modern expectations swirl together in Melissa Marr's stunning 21st century faery tale.

Today's Deals 12/18

Join the festivities with 12 Days and 12 FREE comics during comiXology’s 12 Days of Gifting! Today, (until 1PM) get Happy #1, the first issue of the new image series for FREE today!

Today's Kindle Teen Daily Deal is Legend ($2.99), the first novel in the series by Marie Lu.

Book Description
What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic's wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic's highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country's most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem.

From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths - until the day June's brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family's survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias's death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.

Full of nonstop action, suspense, and romance, this novel is sure to move readers as much as it thrills.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Devil of Nanking ($1.99), by Mo Hayder.

Book Description
With the redolent atmosphere of Ian Rankin and the spine-chilling characters of Thomas Harris, Mo Hayder's The Devil of Nanking, takes the reader on an electrifying literary ride from the palatial apartments of yakuza kingpins to deep inside the secret history of one of the twentieth century's most brutal events: the Nanking Massacre.

A young Englishwoman obsessed with an indecipherable past, Grey comes to Tokyo seeking a lost piece of film footage of the notorious 1937 Nanking Massacre, footage some say never existed. Only one man can help Grey. A survivor of the massacre, he is now a visiting professor at a university in Tokyo. But he will have nothing to do with her.

So Grey accepts a job in an upmarket nightspot, where a certain gangster may be the key to gaining the professor's trust. An old man in a wheelchair surrounded by a terrifying entourage, the gangster is rumored to rely on a mysterious elixir for his continued health. Taut, gritty, sexy, and harrowing, The Devil of Nanking is an incomparable literary thriller set in one of the world's most fascinating cities-Tokyo-from an internationally best-selling author.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is Love, Eternally ($0.99), the first title in the Roman Time Travel series by Morgan O'Neill.

Book Description
A witch's ancient curse propels talented flutist Gigi Perrin back to A.D. 408, to the court of the depraved Roman Emperor Honorius and his admirable sister, Princess Galla Placidia.

There, Gigi grapples with her disbelief about what has happened, and with the strange, new world of violent politics, social upheaval, and Visigoth barbarians straining at the very gates of an empire.

Through it all, she must struggle with her powerful attraction to a pagan senator and military commander, Quintus Magnus, a man exotically different from anyone she has ever known. On the brink of a dark and war-torn age, Gigi joins forces with Magnus, battling to save a princess and her people, and ultimately finding love amid the chaos, before the fall of Rome.

Sensuality Level: Sensual

Morgan O’Neill: Two authors writing as one, Cary Morgan Frates and Deborah O’Neill Cordes invite the reader on a journey to worlds of ancient splendor and abiding love.

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is Old Man's War ($2.99), by John Scalzi, with the companion audiobook for $3.95. This is a good price for those that didn't manage to grab it for free in 2008.

Book Description
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.

The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce--and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.

Trains and Lovers: The Heart's Journey ($1.60 / £0.99 UK), by Alexander McCall-Smith, is the first Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $11.99 pre-order).

Book Description
In the words of Alexander McCall Smith: 'You feel the rocking of the train, you hear the sound of its wheels on the rails; you are in the world rather than suspended somewhere above it. And sometimes there are conversations to be had, which is what the overarching story in this collection is all about. It is a simple device: people brought together entertain one another with tales of what happened to them on trains. It takes place on a journey I frequently make myself and know well, the journey between Edinburgh and London. It is best read on a train, preferably that one.'

The Invisible Circus ($1.60 / £0.99 UK), by Jennifer Egan, is the second Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $11.99).

Book Description
In Jennifer Egan's highly acclaimed first novel, set in 1978, the political drama and familial tensions of the 1960s form a backdrop for the world of Phoebe O'Connor, age eighteen.

Phoebe is obsessed with the memory and death of her sister Faith, a beautiful idealistic hippie who died in Italy in 1970. In order to find out the truth about Faith's life and death, Phoebe retraces her steps from San Francisco across Europe, a quest which yields both complex and disturbing revelations about family, love, and Faith's lost generation.

This spellbinding novel introduced Egan's remarkable ability to tie suspense with deeply insightful characters and the nuances of emotion.

The Still Point ($1.60 / £0.99 UK), by Amy Sackville, is the third Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
At the turn of the twentieth century, Arctic explorer Edward Mackley sets out to reach the North Pole and vanishes into the icy landscape without a trace. He leaves behind a young wife, Emily, who awaits his return for decades, her dreams and devotion gradually freezing into rigid widowhood. A hundred years later, on a sweltering mid-summer's day, Edward's great-grand-niece Julia moves through the old family house, attempting to impose some order on the clutter of inherited belongings and memories from that ill-fated expedition, and taking care to ignore the deepening cracks within her own marriage. But as afternoon turns into evening, Julia makes a discovery that splinters her long-held image of Edward and Emily's romance, and her husband Simon faces a precipitous choice that will decide the future of their relationship. Sharply observed and deeply engaging, "The Still Point" is a powerful literary debut, and a moving meditation on the distances - geographical and emotional - that can exist between two people.

No Proper Lady ($0.99 Kindle, B&N), by Isabel Cooper, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year; Library Journal Best Book of the Year; RT Book Reviews Seal of Excellence and Finalist for Best Book of the Year

When a half-naked woman suddenly appears on his country estate, Simon Grenville doesn't have time to be shocked. Demonic beasts are hot on his heels until the beautiful stranger unsheathes several knives strapped to her skin-tight trousers and kills them. As he stares at her fierce, heart-stopping face, Simon knows he's in a hell of a lot of trouble...

Joan is from a time where demons run rampant and humanity is fighting for its existence. To prevent this terrible future, she is sent back to Victorian England to kill the magician responsible for unleashing the dark forces. But Joan is a soldier more used to sparring than dancing. To get close to her target, she'll need Simon to teach her how to fit into polite society. Joan doesn't mind practicing proper flirtation on Simon, but she can't allow herself to be distracted by his gentle hands or devilish smile-the very future depends on it.

Free AudioBook Short Story

The audiobook edition of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, a short story by Dr. Seuss, narrated by Walter Matthau, is free from Audible.

Book Description
The Grinch, whose heart is two sizes too small, hates Who-ville's holiday celebrations, and plans to steal all the presents to prevent Christmas from coming. To his amazement, Christmas comes anyway, and the Grinch discovers the true meaning of the holiday.

Get free audiobook at Audible (use the link; the edition you find by searching isn't free).

Today's Deals 12/17

Today's Gold Box Deal at Amazon is a Roku box for $39.

At Amazon, the 5 Free Holiday Songs have updated, although I already had two of them, there are three newly free.

Amazon's Android Appstore spotlight today is on Zombiewood: Kindle Tablet Edition (free)

Today's Audible Daily Deal is The Magic Treehouse series for $1.99 Each

At Harlequin, Enter for a chance to win one of five $50 shopping sprees on Harlequin.com.

Join the festivities with 12 Days and 12 FREE comics during comiXology’s 12 Days of Gifting! Today, (until 1PM) Dynamite Entertainment proudly presents Masks #1 for FREE today only! After 1PM, the free download will change.

Today is the last day to take advantage of this KSO deal:

• $2 Instant Amazon Instant Video Credit

Today's Kindle Teens Daily Deal is Sanctum ($1.99), the first novel in Sarah Fine's Guards of the Shadowlands YA urban fantasy series. Although a relatively newly published author (this came out in October), she has another book coming out next year and a contract for two more starting in 2014, so we'll be seeing more of her work in the future.

Book Description
"My plan: Get into the city. Get Nadia. Find a way out. Simple."

A week ago, seventeen-year-old Lela Santos’s best friend, Nadia, killed herself. Today, thanks to a farewell ritual gone awry, Lela is standing in paradise, looking upon a vast gated city in the distance – hell. No one willingly walks through the Suicide Gates, into a place smothered in darkness and infested with depraved creatures. But Lela isn’t just anyone – she’s determined to save her best friend’s soul, even if it means sacrificing her eternal afterlife.

As Lela struggles to find Nadia, she’s captured by the Guards, enormous, not-quite-human creatures that patrol the dark city’s endless streets. Their all-too human leader, Malachi, is unlike them in every way except one: his deadly efficiency. When he meets Lela, Malachi forms his own plan: get her out of the city, even if it means she must leave Nadia behind. Malachi knows something Lela doesn’t – the dark city isn’t the worst place Lela could end up, and he will stop at nothing to keep her from that fate.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Last Block In Harlem ($1.99), by Christopher Herz, with the companion audiobook also $1.99.

Book Description
All fire escapes lead back to the same block in Sugar Hill, Harlem- where kids run through hydrants and music blares from stereos plugged into lampposts. When a new resident (the story's unnamed narrator) notices the trash polluting the picturesque streets and tainting the block's beauty, he is spurred to action. However, his best intentions go awry when the clean-up brings media coverage that in turn, sets off a rash of evictions and ushers in an influx of new and affluent tenants. In an attempt to preserve his neighborhood, the tenant mobilizes a grassroots effort to improve the neighborhood from the inside out.

Realizing he has yet again polluted his reality with unintended consequences, his fight to clean up the block evolves into a quest to cleanse his soul. The choices he makes cannot change the past and the secrets that haunt him, but will alter the future for himself, his family...and the last block in Harlem.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is Sunny Days for Sam ($0.99), by Jennifer Shirk.

Book Description
Sunnyva 'Sunny' Fletcher is a firm believer in fairy tales. With the recent debt she's acquired, the hope of something magical happening in her life is the only thing keeping her going. She needs a job fast. So when Sunny learns the sexy new vacationer in town is looking for a nanny, she starts to believe she just may have a fairy godmother after all!

Internet guru Sam Calloway is only in town for the summer and needs a nanny for his two small children. However, the beautiful and inexperienced Sunny is not exactly the kind of caregiver Sam has in mind. It doesn't take long for Sunny's tenderhearted and bubble-blowing ways to soon have the children -- and Sam -- enamored with her. She's a dream come true. But after what Sam's been through, he's stopped believing in fairy tales long ago.

Sunny manages to work her way into Sam's closed-off heart, but at the end of the summer, will the workaholic dad go back to his life in New York City, or will he decide his days are much sunnier here with Sunny?

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is Roadside Picnic ($2.99), by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, a Rediscovered Classic with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin. I'm definitely adding this to my TBR list and hope the Chicago Review Press brings more of their work back into print.

Book Description
Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.

First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years. This authoritative new translation corrects many errors and omissions and has been supplemented with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin and a new afterword by Boris Strugatsky explaining the strange history of the novel’s publication in Russia.

The Dead Women of Juarez ($1.59 / £0.99 UK), by Sam Hawken, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $5.72).

Book Description
Since 1993 over 500 women have been murdered in Ciudad Juárez.

Residents believe the true number of disappeared stands at 5,000.

When a new disappearance is reported, Kelly Courter, a washed-up Texan boxer, and Rafael Sevilla, a Mexican detective, are sucked into an underworld of organised crime, believing they can outwit the corruption all around. The Dead Women of Juárez follows these two men obsessed with seeking the truth about the female victims of the Mexican border wars.

The Templeton Twins Have an Idea ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Ellis Weiner, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Suppose there were 12-year-old twins, a boy and girl named John and Abigail Templeton. Let's say John was pragmatic and played the drums, and Abigail was theoretical and solved cryptic crosswords. Now suppose their father was a brilliant, if sometimes confused, inventor. And suppose that another set of twins—adults—named Dean D. Dean and Dan D. Dean, kidnapped the Templeton twins and their ridiculous dog in order to get their father to turn over one of his genius (sort of) inventions. Yes, I said kidnapped. Wouldn't it be fun to read about that? Oh please. It would so. Luckily for you, this is just the first in a series perfect for boys and girls who are smart, clever, and funny (just like the twins), and enjoy reading adventurous stories (who doesn't?!).

Grade Level: 4 and up

Get 1 of 50 Books for $1

This offer is set up via AmazonLocal and anyone (in the US) can participate.

Free Voucher to Purchase Select eBooks from the Amazon Kindle Store for $1

Click to "purchase" the voucher, sign in (to Amazon) and click thru a few more pages and you'll find the voucher code you need under "Your Vouchers" (link in top/right corner of the page). Sign-up for this offer expires December 18, 2012 or when the number of vouchers set aside by Amazon have been exhausted.

To use the Voucher, just click back to Amazonlocal and then on View Code next to the offer title. Click to copy the code, the on the link in step #2, to apply the code to your account (make sure you see the green "Success" message after entering the code). It works like a gift card and once applied to your account first, you can then shop from your Kindle or desktop, picking any one of the 50 qualifying titles. You should be able to gift the book to someone else (I have in the past), if there isn't one you want yourself (the full price shows all the way thru, but on the invoice summary, you will see the $1 promotional price). The voucher will expire if not used toward a qualifying Kindle book purchase from Amazon.com by 11:59 p.m. PST, December 26, 2012

I don't see this offer on any of my Kindles (eInk or Fire), but it is set up just like the Fire Special Offers I've signed up for in the past (via AmazonLocal), so I wouldn't be surprised if it shows on the Special Offers page for some people.