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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Nook Daily Find 4/10

Vanished ($9.99 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the first title in the Private Justice series by Irene Hannon [Revell], is the Nook Daily Find.
Book Description
Reporter Moira Harrisons is lost. In the dark. In a thunderstorm. When a confusing detour places her on a rural, wooded road, she's startled by the sudden appearance of a lone figure caught in the beam of her headlights. Though Moira jams on her brakes, the car careens across the wet pavement--and the solid thump against the side of the vehicle tells her she hit the person before she crashes into a tree on the far side of the road.

A dazed Moira is relieved when a man opens her door, tells her he saw everything, and promises to call 911. Then everything fades to black. When she comes to an hour later, she is alone. No man. No 911. No injured person lying on the side of the road. But she can't forget the look of terror she saw on the person's face in the instant before her headlights swung away. The person she hit had been in trouble. She's sure of it. But she can't get anyone to believe her story--except a handsome former police detective, now a private eye, who agrees to take on the case.

From the very first page, readers will be hooked into this fast-paced story full of shocking secrets from fan-favorite Irene Hannon. Vanished is the exciting first book in the Private Justice series: Three justice seekers who got burned playing by the rules now have a second chance to make things right.

UK Kindle Daily Deal 4/10

Circle of Bones (£0.99 UK), by Christine Kling, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $3.19/KLL Eligible; companion audiobook $1.99).
Book Description
Sex and adventure meet history and intrigue in this breathless nautical thriller that spans decades to imagine a fascinating answer to the real-life mystery of the vanished French sub, Surcouf.

When Maggie Riley sets sail for the Caribbean, all she wants is a little R&R before starting a work assignment in Dominica.

The last thing Maggie expects is to rescue Cole Thatcher, a sexy—but possibly nuts—conspiracy-spouting archaeologist found swimming nude off the island of Guadeloupe. It turns out Cole is searching for the wreckage of a vanished World War II submarine, claiming it holds millions in gold coins and classified documents from a powerful inner circle of the secret society Skull and Bones.

Maggie has enough skeletons to deal with. But when she learns her own past may intersect this inner circle of Bonesmen, she realizes Cole might not be so crazy after all—and joining him in the search for the sub may be her only course to uncover a hidden truth.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

New Releases 4/9

Today's featured new release is four volumes by Theodore Sturgeon, one of the most influential SF writers from the 1940's thru the 1960s. These are all priced at $9.99 on Kindle, which is a bargain compared to the print editions, which range from $26 to over $30, and all run to around 400 pages in length. The current price is $11.79 at Kobo, but using coupon codes you should be able to get that down to at or below the Kindle prices, while B&N is just above Amazon at $10.44
  • The Ultimate Egoist: Volume I: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon
    The Ultimate Egoist, the first volume of The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, contains the late author's earliest work, written from 1937 to 1940. Although Sturgeon's reach was limited to the lengths of the short story and novelette, his influence was strongly felt by even the most original science fiction stylists, including Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Gene Wolfe, each of whom contributes a laudatory foreword. The more than 40 stories here showcase Sturgeon's masterful knack with clever, O. Henry-ish plot twists, sparkling character development, and almost archetypal, why didn't I think of that? story ideas. Early Sturgeon masterpieces include "It," about the violence done by a creature spontaneously born from garbage and mud, and "Helix the Cat," about an inventor's bizarre encounter with a disembodied soul and the cat that saves it. Sturgeon's unique genius is timelessly entertaining.
  • Microcosmic God: Volume II: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon
    The second of a planned 10 volumes that will reprint all Sturgeon's short fiction covers his prolific output during 1940 and 1941, after which he suffered five years of writer's block. Showcasing Sturgeon's early penchant for fantasy, the first six selections include whimsical ghost stories, such as "Cargo," in which a World War II munitions freighter is commandeered by invisible, peace-loving fairies. With the publication of his enduring SF classic, "Microcosmic God," Sturgeon finally found his voice, combining literate, sharp-edged prose with fascinating speculative science while recounting the power struggle between a brilliant scientist, who creates his own miniature race of gadget makers, and his greedy banker. Voice found or not, every one of the stories here is readable and entertaining today because of Sturgeon's singular gifts for clever turns of phrase and compelling narrative.
  • Killdozer!: Volume III: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon
    Killdozer! is the third volume of a series of the complete short stories from Theodore Sturgeon's career. It contains a few of his best and most famous short stories: "Medusa", "Killdozer!" and "Mewhu's Jet." The series editor Paul Williams has dug into the background of each story, and come up with a lot of interesting lore about Sturgeon. Especially of interest in this volume is the alternative original ending to "Mewhu's Jet."
  • Thunder and Roses: Volume IV: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon
    Thunder and Roses is the fourth volume in The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon. Included in Thunder and Roses are 15 stories, with major works like "Maturity," "The Professor's Teddy Bear," "A Way Home," and the title story, in addition to two works never published before.

In addition, here are a few bargain priced new releases that caught my eye:
* This is an imprint of Amazon, not the KDP publishing used by indie authors, from what I can tell.

Diesel Daily Deal - Four Times the Trouble (E)

Four Times the Trouble ($5.99 $4.61 Kindle), a novel by Tara Taylor Quinn [Harlequin], is today's Deal of the "Day" at Diesel E-Books, where it's discounted to $0.80 (1 copy left).

Book Description
Girl trouble. Jacob's seven-year-old triplets are a handful. Allie is organizing her teacher to death. Jessie is crying in class. Meggie is becoming almost reclusive. Jacob is told what the triplets need is a woman in their lives. But the last thing Jacob needs is to exchange girl trouble for…

Woman trouble. Jacob's gone that route before. All it did was get his daughters' hopes up—his hopes up—only to end in disappointment. Maybe the answer is to enlist the help of a friend, someone like his partner, Michelle.…

Big trouble. Unfortunately, what Jacob begins to feel for Michelle is more than just friendship. And while Michelle's willing to be a surrogate mother to Jacob's children, it's going to take a lot of convincing for her to consider the idea of being a wife to him.
Get the book from Diesel; be sure to check the sales price, as the Deal of the Day often sells out.

Kindle Daily Deals 4/9

If you are looking for a more inspirational workout program, you might want to check out the sale on Body Gospel Workout DVD Program: Inspire Your Soul & Transform Your Body, currently 65% off.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Cryptonomicon ($1.99), by Neal Stephenson [HarperCollins], which I highly recommend. Be careful if searching on your Kindle, as there are two editions and only the one linked here is on sale (and the other is in German). I'd definitely grab it at this price, if it weren't one of my earliest ebook buys, back when Fictionwise as a major player.
Book Description
With this extraordinary first volume in what promises to be an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century.

In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse—mathematical genius and young Captain in the U.S. Navy—is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Waterhouse and Detachment 2702—commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe-is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. It is a game, a cryptographic chess match between Waterhouse and his German counterpart, translated into action by the gung-ho Shaftoe and his forces.

Fast-forward to the present, where Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia—a place where encrypted data can be stored and exchanged free of repression and scrutiny. As governments and multinationals attack the endeavor, Randy joins forces with Shaftoe's tough-as-nails granddaughter, Amy, to secretly salvage a sunken Nazi submarine that holds the key to keeping the dream of a data haven afloat. But soon their scheme brings to light a massive conspiracy with its roots in Detachment 2702 linked to an unbreakable Nazi code called Arethusa. And it will represent the path to unimaginable riches and a future of personal and digital liberty...or to universal totalitarianism reborn.

A breathtaking tour de force, and Neal Stephenson's most accomplished and affecting work to date, Cryptonomicon is profound and prophetic, hypnotic and hyper-driven, as it leaps forward and back between World War II and the World Wide Web, hinting all the while at a dark day-after-tomorrow. It is a work of great art, thought and creative daring; the product of a truly iconoclastic imagination working with white-hot intensity.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is The Most to Lose ($1.99), by Laura Landon [Montlake Romance], with the companion audiobook also $1.99.
Book Description
“Some day, when you have the most to lose…I’ll take it all.”

Jonah Armstrong, Earl of Haywood, and the Duke of Hadleigh were best friends until a scandal involving Hadleigh’s fiancĂ©e destroyed their friendship. Three years later, Jonah returns from the Crimea as a war hero and London’s most eligible bachelor, setting the gossip afire and fanning Hadleigh’s long-simmering rage into an inferno. Hadleigh has not forgotten his old friend’s betrayal, and now that Jonah has returned, he will take his revenge.

Lady Cecelia Randolph has loved Jonah Armstrong for as long as she can remember. The moment they share a passionate kiss, she dares to hope that he feels the same for her and that his attention is driven by more than his desire to taunt her brother or his desperation for her dowry. It isn’t until Hadleigh’s quest for vengeance nearly destroys her that she realizes that Jonah loves her enough to risk everything to protect her.

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is The Secret of Ji: Six Heirs ($1.99), by Pierre Grimbert, translated by Matthew Ross and Eric Lamb [AmazonCrossing], with the companion audiobook also $1.99. The first volume in the internationally bestselling Secret of Ji series and winner of the Prix Ozone and Prix Julia Verlanger, this exclusive translation from Amazon introduces Grimbert's work to an entirely new audience.
Book Description
The Known World is a sprawling region ruled by mortals, protected by gods, and plied by magicians and warriors, merchants and beggars, royals and scoundrels. Here, those with the gift of the Erjak share a psychic bond with animals; a far-reaching fraternity unites criminals of every persuasion in a vast army of villainy; and upon the mighty river Alt, the dead will one day sail seeking vengeance on the enemies of their descendants.

But for all the Known World’s wonders, splendors, and terrors, what has endured most powerfully is the strange legacy of Ji. Emissaries from every nation—the grand Goranese Empire; desolate, frozen Arkary; cosmopolitan Lorelia; and beyond—followed an enigmatic summons into the unknown. Some never returned; others were never the same. Each successive generation has guarded the profound truth and held sacred the legendary event. But now, the very last of them—and the wisdom they possess—are threatened. The time has come to fight for ultimate enlightenment…or fall to infinite darkness.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is The Very Fairy Princess: Here Comes the Flower Girl! ($1.99), by Julie Andrews, Emma Walton Hamilton and Christine Davenier (Illustrator) [Hachette].
Book Description
Gerry is asked to be the flower girl in Aunt Sue's wedding, and she couldn't be more excited. Her imagination runs wild with thoughts of extravagant decorations, a billowy white gown, and hundreds of guests. When she finds out the bride prefers a small celebration, Gerry can't help but be disappointed... but she soon realizes that having the wedding in her own backyard will let her put her creative stamp on everything. Even when disaster strikes in the form of rain on the big day, Gerry finds a way to bring sunshine to the party, reminding everyone that the most important thing at a wedding is the most special sparkle of all - happiness and love.

Christine Davenier's whimsically elegant illustrations include lush garden scenes and plenty of wedding flowers in this spirited follow-up to The Very Fairy Princess and The Very Fairy Princess Takes the Stage from the renowned mother-daughter team.

Age Range: 3 - 6 years
This book requires Kindle Fire/HD or select Kindle Reading Apps (Kindle Cloud Reader, Kindle for iPad or Kindle for Android).