Several bargains for you night owls. Links are to Amazon, but since I see several of the Big-6 publishers in the mix, you'll probably find matching prices at
Barnes & Noble or
Kobo.
Lori Wilde's
The Welcome Home Garden Club was a Daily Deal yesterday, but you can also get
The First Love Cookie Club (the third title in the same
Twilight Texas series) and
The Cowboy Takes a Bride, the first novel in her
Jubilee, Texas series, for only
99 cents apiece (HarperCollins). The latter series has a new novel,
A Cowboy for Christmas, which just released this year (and it's only $4.37)
The First Love Cookie Club
"On Christmas Eve, if you sleep with kismet cookies under your pillow and dream of your one true love, he will be your destiny."
The townsfolk of Twilight, Texas, believe the legend, but not Sarah Collier—not since she was a pudgy teenager, running down the church aisle on Christmas Day in a jingle bell sweater and reindeer antlers, trying to stop Travis Walker from marrying someone else. She may be grown-up, slimmed-down, bestselling children's book author "Sadie Cool" now, but Sarah will never forget that day. And she'll never fall foolishly in love again!
But when a letter from a sick fan brings Sarah back to Twilight, she's shocked to discover that Travis is the little girl's father—unattached and hotter than ever. His smile still makes her melt, but Sarah knows that ship has sailed. Travis, however, might have different ideas.
The Cowboy Takes a Bride
Ex-champion bull rider-turned-cutting-horse cowboy Joe Daniels isn't quite sure how he ended up sleeping in a horse trough wearing nothing but his Stetson and cowboy boots. But now he's wide-awake, and a citified woman is glaring down at him. His goal? Get rid of her ASAP. The obstacle? Fighting the attraction he feels toward the blond-haired filly with the big, vulnerable eyes.
When out-of-work wedding planner Mariah Callahan learns that her estranged father has left her a rundown ranch in Jubilee, she has no choice but to accept it. Her goal? Redeem her career by planning local weddings. The obstacle? One emotionally wounded, hard-living cowboy who stirs her guilt, her heartstrings, and her long-burned cowgirl roots . . .
The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink (
$3.99), by edited by Andrew F. Smith, has such a long list of contributors that it goes on for several pages. Published by Oxford University Press, USA, this 700+ page tome goes for $65 in hardcover (and hey, there's
one left, if you act fast!). As mentioned in the description below, this is a companion book to the two volume set,
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, which can be had for only $450 (and no, I didn't forget to add a decimal point), although there isn't yet a Kindle edition (at 2560 pages, I definitely would not want to carry it around to read). I've just glanced at a little of the sample, but I'm definitely getting a copy.
Book Description
Offering a panoramic view of the history and culture of food and drink in America with fascinating entries on everything from the smell of asparagus to the history of White Castle, and the origin of Bloody Marys to jambalaya, the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink provides a concise, authoritative, and exuberant look at this modern American obsession. Ideal for the food scholar and food enthusiast alike, it is equally appetizing for anyone fascinated by Americana, capturing our culture and history through what we love most--food!
Building on the highly praised and deliciously browseable two-volume compendium the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, this new work serves up everything you could ever want to know about American consumables and their impact on popular culture and the culinary world. Within its pages for example, we learn that Lifesavers candy owes its success to the canny marketing idea of placing the original flavor, mint, next to cash registers at bars. Patrons who bought them to mask the smell of alcohol on their breath before heading home soon found they were just as tasty sober and the company began producing other flavors.
Edited by Andrew Smith, a writer and lecturer on culinary history, the Companion serves up more than just trivia however, including hundreds of entries on fast food, celebrity chefs, fish, sandwiches, regional and ethnic cuisine, food science, and historical food traditions. It also dispels a few commonly held myths. Veganism, isn't simply the practice of a few "hippies," but is in fact wide-spread among elite athletic circles. Many of the top competitors in the Ironman and Ultramarathon events go even further, avoiding all animal products by following a strictly vegan diet. Anyone hungering to know what our nation has been cooking and eating for the last three centuries should own the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink.
- DT Nearly 1,000 articles on American food and drink, from the curious to the commonplace
- DT Beautifully illustrated with hundreds of historical photographs and color images
- DT Includes informative lists of food websites, museums, organizations, and festivals
To Have and to Kill: A Wedding Cake Mystery (
$0.99), the first novel in the
Piper Donovan series by New York Times bestselling author Mary Jane Clark
Book Description
Piper Donovan never imagined that decorating wedding cakes could be so dangerous! A struggling actress with no immediate prospects and a recently broken engagement, Piper moves back in with her parents to take stock of her life. She steps tentatively into the family bakery business and finds herself agreeing to create a wedding cake for the acclaimed star of a daytime television drama. But soon someone close to the bride-to-be is horribly murdered and it seems that that someone is ruthlessly determined to stop the wedding.
With the help of her former neighbor, Jack, a handsome FBI agent with a soft spot for the gorgeous cake-maker, Piper moves closer to the truth. And as she narrows in on a suspect, she realizes that it's hotter in the kitchen than she may be able to handle. . . .
Eyes Wide Open (
$1.99), a stand-alone novel by Andrew Gross, was also published under the title
Killing Hour.
Book Description
A horrible family tragedy that may not be what it seems...
A past encounter with an infamous killer turns deadly today...
An ordinary man must risk his own family to find the truth.
Jay Erlich's nephew has been found at the bottom of a cliff at Morrow Bay. It's all just a tragic suicide, until secrets from the past begin to rear up again. Did a notorious killer, jailed for many decades, have his hand in this?
Years ago, Jay Erlich's older brother, Charlie, a wayward child of the sixties, set out for California, where he fell under the sway of a charismatic but deeply disturbed cultlike figure. Tragedy ensued and lives were destroyed, but as the decades passed, Charlie married and raised a family and lived a quiet, secluded life under the radar. Yet the demons that nearly destroyed him never completely disappeared.
When Jay heads out west to help his grieving brother, he is pulled back into Charlie's past—and begins to suspect that his nephew's suicide may not have been that at all. With eyes wide open, Jay puts his own life at risk to uncover the truth, a quest that goes beyond the edge of madness and a family haunted by a secret past ... and into the depths of evil.
Drawing on two real-life experiences from his own past, Gross has crafted a richly personal, yet utterly terrifying tale of two brothers, one successful, one wayward, trying to bridge the gap of what tore them apart.
Love in a Nutshell (
$2.99), by Janet Evanovich and Dorien Kelly, also has a
companion audiobook for $3.99.
Book Description
Number one bestselling author Janet Evanovich teams up with award-winning author Dorien Kelly to deliver a sparkling novel of romantic suspense, small-town antics, secretive sabotage, and lots and lots of beer
Kate Appleton needs a job. Her husband has left her, she’s been fired from her position as a magazine editor, and the only place she wants to go is to her parents’ summer house, The Nutshell, in Keene’s Harbor, Michigan. Kate’s plan is to turn The Nutshell into a Bed and Breakfast. Problem is, she needs cash, and the only job she can land is less than savory.
Matt Culhane wants Kate to spy on his brewery employees. Someone has been sabotaging his company, and Kate is just new enough in town that she can insert herself into Culhane’s business and snoop around for him. If Kate finds the culprit, Matt will pay her a $20,000 bonus. Needless to say, Kate is highly motivated. But several problems present themselves. Kate despises beer. No one seems to trust her. And she is falling hard for her boss.
Can these two smoke out a saboteur, save Kate’s family home, and keep a killer from closing in…all while resisting their undeniable attraction to one another? Filled with humor, heart, and loveable characters, Love in a Nutshell is delicious fun.
December Dread (
$1.99), the eighth novel in the Lefty-nominated
Murder-By-Month Mysteries by Jess Lourey
Book Description
Four shining stars for the Murder-By-Month Mystery series
‘Tis the season for grinning sales-elves on TV and maddeningly jolly muzak. But for Mira James and other Battle Lake-area women, the holidays are marred by something far worse—a serial killer leaving candy canes as his calling card. His target? Thirty-something brunettes who look just like Mira. When a woman from her high school graduating class becomes the latest victim, Mira plows through a case of online dating turned deadly.
Some Kind of Wonderful (
$0.99), by NYT Bestselling and RITA Award-winning author Barbara Freethy, is a self-pubbed backlist romance, originally published by Avon Books.
Book Description
"ABANDONED BABY FOUND"
It's the kind of story investigative reporter Matt Winters writes about -- not the kind he wants to be living. When he discovers a newborn baby girl on his doorstep, he panics ... then he desperately turns to his temptingly pretty neighbor Caitlyn Devereaux for help. After all, women are supposed to know everything about babies!
Caitlyn's natural sensuality intrigues Matt ... and her aching vulnerability as she holds the precious bundle piques his curiosity. The wedding gowns she creates are famous for fulfilling every bride's fantasies, yet she firmly says that marriage -- and motherhood -- are not for her. But her kisses suddenly have Matt dreaming of something wonderful -- and soon he's determined to get this reluctant woman to change her mind.
Astor + Blue, a relatively new, digital first publisher, has several of their titles on sale for
$0.99 apiece. I've highlighted four of them below, but you might want to look at
the entire list.
- Deadly Errors, by Allen Wyler
A comatose man is given a fatal dose of insulin in the emergency room, even though he isn't diabetic. An ulcer patient dies of shock after receiving a transfusion of the wrong blood type. A recovering heart patient receives a double dose of medication and suffers a fatal heart attack.Brain surgeon Dr. Tyler Matthews suspects that something is seriously wrong with the hospital’s new “Med-InDx” computerized medical record system. But he doesn’t suspect that there’s something murderously wrong with it.As Matthews begins to peel back the layers of deception that cover the deadly errors, he crosses powerful corporate interests who aren’t about to let their multi-billion dollar medical record profits evaporate. Now a target, Matthews finds himself trapped in a maze of deadly conspiracy, with his career, his marriage, and his very life on the line.Once again, Wyler blends his unparalleled expertise as a world class surgeon with his uncanny knack for suspense to create a true “best-of-breed” medical thriller. Deadly Errors is a lightning-quick action procedural that is destined to win new fans to the medical thriller genre.
- The Car Thief, by Theodore Weesner
Described as “one of the best coming of age novels of the Twentieth Century,” Theodore Weesner’s modern American classic is now re-launched for a new generation of readers to discover. It’s 1959. Sixteen year-old Alex Housman has just stolen his fourteenth car and frankly doesn’t know why. His divorced, working class father grinds out the night shift at the local Chevy Plant in Detroit, looking forward to the flask in his glove compartment, and the open bottles of booze in his Flint, Michigan home. Abandoned and alone, father and son struggle to express a deep love for each other, even as Alex fills his day juggling cheap thrills and a crushing depression. He cruises and steals, running from—and then forcing run-ins with—the police, compelled by reasons he frustratingly can’t put into words. And then there’s Irene Shaeffer, the pretty girl in school whose admiration Alex needs like a drug in order to get by. Broke and fighting to survive, Alex and his father face the realities of estrangement, incarceration, and even violence as their lives unfold toward the climactic episode that a New York Times reviewer called “one of the most profoundly powerful in American fiction.” In this rich, beautifully crafted story, Weesner accomplishes a rare feat: He’s written a transcendent piece of literature in deceptively simple language, painting a powerful portrait of a father and a son, otherwise invisible among the mundane, everyday details of life in blue collar America. A true and enduring American classic.
- Death's Witness, by Paul Batista
When Tom Perini, a legendary Heisman Trophy winner turned criminal lawyer, is found brutally murdered in Central Park, his widow Julie Perini suspects a wider conspiracy. Not only was her husband part of the defense team for a Congressman on trial for bribery, her intuition also tells her that the FBI is not too eager to find the killer.Relying on her skills as a journalist, Julie begins her own investigation and soon discovers her late husband’s secret underworld associations; ties that now threaten her and her toddler’s lives. Fighting grief and a sense of betrayal, Julie is pulled into an inescapable labyrinth of organized crime dealings, political corruption, brutal power grabs and murder. Desperate, Julie turns to Vincent Sorrentino, Tom’s defense partner, for help, and the two discover a shocking and terrifying truth that threatens to paralyze them. But it may also hold the key—the only key—to saving the lives of Julie and her daughter. Renowned attorney Paul Batista seamlessly combines crack legal expertise with suspenseful storytelling to produce a pulse-pounding action story and a first rate courtroom procedural; a legal thriller so authentic, it reads like tomorrow’s headlines.
- Timeless Desire, by Gwyn Cready
Two years after losing her husband, overworked librarian Panna Kennedy battles to distract herself from crushing Grief, even as she battles to deal with yet another library budget cut. During a routine search within the library’s lower levels, Panna opens an obscure, pad-locked door and finds herself transported to the magnificent, book-filled quarters of a handsome, eighteenth-century Englishman. She soon recognizes the man as Colonel John Bridgewater, the historic English war hero whose larger-than-life statue loomed over her desk.
However, the life of the dashing Bridgewater is not at all what she imagined. He’s under house arrest for betraying England, and now looks upon her—a beautiful and unexpected half-dressed visitor—as a possible spy. Despite bad first impressions (on both sides), Bridgewater nonetheless warms to Panna, and pulls her into his escape—while both their hearts pull the other headlong into their soul-stirring secrets.
Very quickly Panna is thrown into a whirlwind of high-stakes intrigue that sweeps her from Hadrian’s Wall to a forbidding stone castle in Scotland. And somewhere in the outland, Panna must decide if her loyalties lie with her dead husband, or with the man whose life now depends on her.
Written in her signature style—described as delightfully original, fun and sexy—RITA Award-winning author Gwyn Cready produces yet another lightning-paced, delectable winner of a Time Travel Romance; a genre she has quickly come to master.
The Shadowdance Trilogy (
$0.99), by David Dalglish, is self-published, but worth looking at for epic fantasy fans. Not sure you want to risk a buck? Try out his writing with
The Weight of Blood and
Night of Wolves, both currently free.
Book Description
The Shadowdance Trilogy chronicles the childhood, training, and rise to power of Haern, the Watcher of Veldaren.
A DANCE OF CLOAKS - Aaron has been groomed since birth to be heir of an underworld empire. Yet when sent to kill the daughter of a priest, Aaron instead risks his own life to protect her from the wrath of his guild. In doing so, he glimpses a world beyond poison, daggers, and the iron control of his father.
A DANCE OF BLADES - When the son of Alyssa Gemcroft, one of the three leaders of the powerful Trifect, is believed murdered, slaughter begins anew in the streets of Veldaren. Mercenaries flood the city with one goal in mind: find and kill Aaron, now known as Haern, the King's Watcher.
A DANCE OF DEATH - Haern travels south to confront a copycat killer, finding a city ruled by the corrupt, the greedy, and the dangerous. Rioters fill the streets, and the threat of war with the mysterious elves hangs over all. To stop it, Haern must confront the deadly Wraith, and the man he might become.
Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Too Good To Be True ($1.99), a memoir by Benjamin Anastas.
Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is Love 'Em or Leave 'Em ($0.99), by Angie Stanton.
Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is Theft of Swords ($1.99), an omnibus of the first two novels in the Riyria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan. Originally self-published, Orbit is now re-publishing the series of 6 novels in three omnibus editions and has already announced two novels in the planned Riyria Chronicles series to follow. I picked up the first two audiobooks in the newly packaged series in Audible BOGO sale (which I think is the one repeating right now, for those with credits) and had planned to read along with the self-pubbed editions I had, but for two bucks, I'll grab this one. 
The Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK is three titles for £0.99/$1.60 each.
Baker's Field Guide to Christmas Cookies ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Dede Wilson, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. Be careful if searching on you Kindle for this one, as the search brings up a $10 edition, instead.
Today's Kindle Teen Daily Deal is The Abduction ($2.99), the second novel in John Grisham's Theodore Boone YA series.
