Nook Daily Find 4/24

Tangled Ashes ($9.09 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Michele Phoenix [Tyndale House], is the Nook Daily Find.

Book Description
When Marshall Becker arrives in Lamorlaye, France, to begin the massive renovation of a Renaissance-era castle, he unearths a dark World War II history few in the village remember. The project that was meant to provide an escape for Becker instead becomes a gripping glimpse into the human drama that unfolded during the Nazi occupation and seems to live on in midnight disturbances and bizarre acts of vandalism.

Kindle Daily Deals 4/23

It's video game day in the Amazon Gold Box and Lightning Deals today - Up to 33% Off "God of War: Ascension" and Legacy Bundle all day (or until sold out) and the current Lightning deal is on Halo 4 and there look to be more games all day long. Also, Select Disney Video Games are on sale (but not necessarily a today-only deal), with versions for WII, PS3 and XBOX included.

Today's Kindle Teen Daily Deal is The Namesake ($1.99), by Steven Parlato [Merit Press].

Book Description
Gifted artist? Standout student? All his teachers are sure certain that Evan Galloway can be the graduate who brings glory to small, ordinary St. Sebastian's School. As for Evan, however, he can't be bothered anymore. Since the shock of his young father's suicide last spring, Evan no longer cares about the future. In fact, he believes that he spent the first fifteen years of his life living a lie. Despite his mother's encouragement and the steadfast companionship of his best friend, Alexis, Evan is mired in rage and bitterness. Good memories seem ludicrous when the present holds no hope. Then Evan's grandmother hands him the key--literally, a key--to a locked trunk that his father hid when he was the same age as Evan is now. Digging into the trunk and the small-town secrets it uncovers, Evan can begin to face who his father really was, and why even the love of his son could not save him.

In a voice that resonates with the authenticity of grief, Steven Parlato tells a different kind of coming-of-age story, about a boy thrust into adulthood too soon, through the corridor of shame, disbelief, and finally...compassion.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Pretty Little Liars ($2.99), the first in the YA series by Sara Shepard [HarperCollins], the companion audiobook for $3.95. Pretty Little Liars #3: Perfect, is also on sale at $4.99 (50% off).

Book Description
Everyone has something to hide—especially high school juniors spencer, aria, emily, and hanna.

Spencer covets her sister's boyfriend. Aria's fantasizing about her English teacher. Emily's crushing on the new girl at school. Hanna uses some ugly tricks to stay beautiful.

But they've all kept an even bigger secret since their friend Alison vanished.

How do I know? Because I know everything about the bad girls they were, the naughty girls they are, and all the dirty secrets they've kept. And guess what? I'm telling.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is No Foolin' ($1.99), by Lisa Scott [Bell Bridge Books].

Book Description
Welcome to Willowdale, North Carolina, a small town where the folks are friendly, the romances are as sweet as the tea, and the biddies at the diner gobble up gossip like it’s peach cobbler. This may be their biggest scoop ever.

When sexy Hollywood bad-boy Teague “T-Rex” Reynolds comes to this quiet Southern town, he needs a fake girlfriend to hide the secret that brought him there. School nurse Kate Riley takes the job, but she won’t fall for a movie star, no ma’am. That’s fine with Teague. He hung a closed sign on his heart years ago.

Convincing the press they’re in love is one thing. Fooling each other they’re not is getting harder each day. Despite scandal, heartache, and misunderstandings galore, they might just find the sweet thrill of true love. Book one of The Willowdale Romances.

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is The Hunt ($2.99), the first novel in The Hunt Trilogy by Andrew Fukuda [St. Martin's Griffin/Macmillan].

Book Description
Don’t Sweat. Don’t Laugh. Don’t draw attention to yourself. And most of all, whatever you do, do not fall in love with one of them.

Gene is different from everyone else around him. He can’t run with lightning speed, sunlight doesn’t hurt him and he doesn’t have an unquenchable lust for blood. Gene is a human, and he knows the rules. Keep the truth a secret. It’s the only way to stay alive in a world of night—a world where humans are considered a delicacy and hunted for their blood.

When he’s chosen for a once in a lifetime opportunity to hunt the last remaining humans, Gene’s carefully constructed life begins to crumble around him. He’s thrust into the path of a girl who makes him feel things he never thought possible—and into a ruthless pack of hunters whose suspicions about his true nature are growing. Now that Gene has finally found something worth fighting for, his need to survive is stronger than ever—but is it worth the cost of his humanity?

UK Kindle Daily Deal 4/23

The Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK is 10 Books to Celebrate World Book Night from £0.99 each (> 72% off).

Secrecy (£1.49 UK), by Rupert Thomson (no US edition)

It is Florence, 1691. The Renaissance is long gone, and the city is a dark, repressive place, where everything is forbidden and anything is possible. The Enlightenment may be just around the corner, but knowledge is still the property of the few, and they guard it fiercely. Art, sex and power - these, as always, are the obsessions.
Facing serious criminal charges, Gaetano Zummo is forced to flee his native Siracusa at the age of twenty, first to Palermo, then Naples, but always has the feeling that he is being pursued by his past, and that he will never be free of it. Zummo works an artist in wax. He is fascinated by the plague, and makes small wooden cabinets in which he places graphic, tortured models of the dead and dying. But Cosimo III, Tuscany's penultimate Medici ruler, gives Zummo his most challenging commission yet, and as he tackles it his path entwines with that of the apothecary's daughter Faustina, whose secret is even more explosive than his.

Poignant but paranoid, sensual yet chilling, Secrecy is a novel that buzzes with intrigue and ideas. It is a love story, a murder mystery, a portrait of a famous city in an age of austerity, an exercise in concealment and revelation, but above all it is a trapdoor narrative, one story dropping unexpectedly into another, the ground always slippery, uncertain...

Reef (£0.99 UK), by Romesh Gunesekera (no US edition)

A single lighted match banishes Triton from his father's home to the employ of Mister Salgado, a marine biologist obsessed by swamps, sea movements and a Sri Lankan island's disappearing reef. Stranded in London years later, Triton plumbs the depths of his childhood memories - a period of brewing political, ethical and religious turmoil - and brings us to understand how he has navigated this brave new world, which once lost will haunt him forever.

Gunesekera's debut novel, short-listed for the Booker Prize, is a haunting and elegiac love-story set in a spoiled paradise, which continues to be as vital and relevant as ever. Re-printed by Granta in a beautiful new edition.

The Buddha of Suburbia (£0.99 UK), by Hanif Kureishi (no US edition)

Winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award 'A wonderful novel. I doubt I will read a funnier one, or one with more heart, this year, possibly this decade.' Angela Carter, Guardian The hero of Hanif Kureishi's first novel is Karim, a dreamy teenager, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announces itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving - albeit with some rude and raucous results. 'One of the best comic novels of growing up, and one of the sharpest satires on race relations in this country that I've ever read.' Independent on Sunday 'Brilliantly funny. A fresh, anarchic and deliciously unrestrained novel.' Sunday Times 'A distinctive and talented voice, blithe, savvy, alive and kicking.' Hermione Lee, Independent

Burnt Shadows (£0.99 UK), by Kamila Shamsie (US edition $8.89)

In a prison cell in the US, a man stands trembling, naked, fearfully waiting to be shipped to Guantánamo Bay. How did it come to this? he wonders... August 9th, 1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko Tanaka steps out onto her veranda, taking in the view of the terraced slopes leading up to the sky. Wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across the back, she is twenty-one, in love with the man she is to marry, Konrad Weiss. In a split second, the world turns white. In the next, it explodes with the sound of fire and the horror of realisation. In the numbing aftermath of a bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost. In search of new beginnings, she travels to Delhi two years later. There she walks into the lives of Konrad's half-sister, Elizabeth, her husband James Burton, and their employee Sajjad Ashraf, from whom she starts to learn Urdu. As the years unravel, new homes replace those left behind and old wars are seamlessly usurped by new conflicts. But the shadows of history - personal, political - are cast over the entwined worlds of the Burtons, Ashrafs and the Tanakas as they are transported from Pakistan to New York, and in the novel's astonishing climax, to Afghanistan in the immediate wake of 9/11. The ties that have bound them together over decades and generations are tested to the extreme, with unforeseeable consequences. Sweeping in its scope and mesmerising in its evocation of time and place, Burnt Shadows is an epic narrative of disasters evaded and confronted, loyalties offered and repaid, and loves rewarded and betrayed.

She Rises (£1.39 UK), by Kate Worsley (US edition $14.29)

It is 1740 and Louise Fletcher, a young dairymaid on an Essex farm, has been warned of the lure of the sea for as long as she can remember - after all, it stole away her father and brother. But when she is offered work in the bustling naval port of Harwich, as maid to a wealthy captain's daughter, she leaps at the chance to see more of the world. There she meets Rebecca, her haughty young mistress, who is unlike anyone Louise has encountered before: as unexpected as she is fascinating. 15-year old Luke is drinking in a Harwich tavern when it is raided by His Majesty's Navy. Unable to escape, Luke is beaten and press ganged and sent to sea on board the warship Essex. He must learn fast and choose his friends well if he is to survive the brutal hardships of a sailor's life and its many dangers, both up high in the rigging and in the dark below decks. Louise navigates her new life among the streets and crooked alleys of Harwich, where fine houses concealing smugglers' tunnels are flooded by the Spring tides, and love burns brightly in the shadows. And Luke, aching for the girl he left behind and determined to one day find his way back to her, embarks on a long and perilous journey across the ocean.The worlds they find are more dangerous and more exciting than they could ever have imagined, and when they collide the consequences are astonishing and irrevocable. A breathtakingly accomplished love story and a gripping search for identity and survival, She Rises is a bold, brilliant and utterly original novel.

Beacons: Stories for our not so distant future (£1.19 UK), by Gregory Norminton, Tom Bullough, David Constantine, Clare Dudman, et al (US edition $9.99)

Beacons throws down the gauntlet, challenging well-known authors to imagine our worst and best possible futures and, in imagining them, to help us change things for the better. From Joanne Harris’ powerful vision of a near future where ‘outside’ has become a thing of history to Nick Hayes’ beautifully illustrated tale of the bond between man and nature, this is where dystopian satire meets speculative and historical fiction, metaphorical flights of fancy, quiet tragedy, and farcical comedy, crafting stories that are as various as our possible futures.

Provocative, encouraging, and deeply moving, Beacons represents the best of British writing – and collectively illuminates the immediacy of the ecological problems at hand.

All author royalties will go to the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, the UK’s largest group of people dedicated to action on climate change and limiting its impact on the world’s poorest people.

Orkney (£1.39 UK), by Amy Sackville (US edition $11.99)

On a remote island in Orkney, a curiously matched couple arrive on their honeymoon. He is an eminent literature professor; she was his pale, enigmatic star pupil. Alone beneath the shifting skies of this untethered landscape, the professor realises how little he knows about his new bride and yet, as the days go by and his mind turns obsessively upon the creature who has so beguiled him, she seems to slip ever further from his yearning grasp. Where does she come from? Why did she ask him to bring her north? What is it that constantly draws her to the sea?

The Soldier's Song (£0.99 UK), by Alan Monaghan (no US edition)

Dublin, 1914. As Ireland stands on the brink of political crisis, Europe plunges headlong into war. Among the thousands of Irishmen who volunteer to fight for the British Army is Stephen Ryan, a gifted young maths scholar whose working class background has marked him out as a misfit among his wealthy fellow students. Sent to fight in Turkey, he looks forward to the great adventure, unaware of the growing unrest back home in Ireland. His romantic notions of war are soon shattered and he is forced to wonder where his loyalties lie, on his return to a Dublin poised for rebellion in 1916 and a brother fighting for the rebels. Everything has changed utterly, and in a world gone mad his only hope is his growing friendship with the brilliant and enigmatic Lillian Bryce. The Soldier's Song is a poignant and deeply moving novel, a tribute to the durability of the human soul.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes: Volumes 1-4 (The Heirloom Collection) (£0.99 UK), by Arthur Conan Doyle (US edition $2.99) [Thomas & Mercer; Deluxe ed edition]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tales are rightly ranked among the seminal works of mystery and detective fiction. The splendid illustrations in this collection more than befit that classic status. Included are all four full-length Holmes novels and more than forty short masterpieces—from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes to The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes and more. At the center of each stands the iconic figure of Holmes—brilliant, eccentric, and capable of amazing feats of deductive reasoning. By his side is Dr. John Watson, his steadfast assistant and our trusty narrator. This set is a must-have for every discriminating bibliophile and Sherlock Holmes fan.

The Sandglass (£0.99 UK), by Romesh Gunesekera (no US edition)

The Sandglass tells the story of two feuding families whose lives are interlinked by the changing fortunes of postcolonial Sri Lanka. Moving back and forth between London and Sri Lanka, the novel brings to life Prins Ducal and his search for answers about his family's past, including his father's rise to wealth, rivalry with the Vatunas family, and a suspicious death - a mystery that further unfolds upon Prins's arrival in London for his mother's funeral. Re-printed by Granta in a beautiful new edition.

Nook Daily Find 4/23

Big Stone Gap ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Adriana Trigiani [Random House], is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the tiny town of Big Stone Gap is home to some of the most charming eccentrics in the state. Ave Maria Mulligan is the town's self-proclaimed spinster, a thirty-five year old pharmacist with a "mountain girl's body and a flat behind." She lives an amiable life with good friends and lots of hobbies until the fateful day in 1978 when she suddenly discovers that she's not who she always thought she was. Before she can blink, Ave's fielding marriage proposals, fighting off greedy family members, organizing a celebration for visiting celebrities, and planning the trip of a lifetime—a trip that could change her view of the world and her own place in it forever. Brimming with humor and wise notions of small-town life, Big Stone Gap is a gem of a book with a giant heart. . . .

Kindle Daily Deals 4/22

Today's Earth Day and (of course) Amazon has several interesting items in their Make Every Day Earth Day Sale, from Zojirushi and Ms Bento Lunch on the Go items to Goal Zero Yeti solar generators (which are slightly cheaper at CostCo, if you have a membership, but with Amazon you may not have to pay sales tax and get free Prime shipping, straight to your door). One of the more intriguing selections is the Eton Rugged Rukus All-Terrain Portable Solar Wireless Sound System, currently available to pre-order for $30 off. This joins their Rukus Portable Bluetooth Solar Powered Wireless Speaker System as a solution for listening to your devices when you aren't in your living room and want to share the program with more than one person. Both are solar powered (or can be wall charged), can charge your USB devices in a pinch (acting as a solar charger system) and connect to your phone, tablet or Kindle via Bluetooth, while the existing devices is larger, with a carrying handle and a pocket to stash your phone and has a standard audio jack for use with any device. The new device is much more portable (1.2 lbs vs. 3.5), will be much more backpack friendly and is water resistant. If you need truly waterproof, tho, you might want to look at something like the ECOXGEAR ECOXBT, which you can clip on your pack (it's solar charger is entirely separate, also) or use at the beach, beside the pool, in the shower, or while kayaking the rapids.

Amazon's Android Free App of the Day is Pepi Tree, a kid's game that is very appropriate for Earth Day!

Today's Free MP3 Pick is the radio edit of Hillbilly Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus, which matches the title of Cyrus' new memoir, now available on Kindle and, at $5.99, it's a bargain compared to the hardcover edition ($15 or more).

Starting today, Get a $10 or $20 Amazon.com Gift Card with Purchase of Select Paula Deen Cookware or Dinnerware (deal expires May 12).

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is King of Swords ($1.99), by Russell Blake.

Book Description
Book 1 of the Assassin series, King of Swords is an epic assassination thriller framed against a gritty backdrop of brutal drug cartel violence in modern Mexico.

The G-20 Financial Summit is planned for San Jose Del Cabo. The world's pre-eminent finance ministers will attend, along with the presidents of the U.S. and Mexico. Captain Romero Cruz of the Mexican Federal Police uncovers an assassination plot against the attendees. In a roller-coaster race against the clock, Cruz must track and stop El Rey, the "King of Swords" - a faceless super-assassin responsible for a string of the world's most spectacular killings, before he turns the G-20 into a slaughterhouse.

King of Swords is a rule-breaking rush that shatters convention to create a richly-drawn story that's sure to shock and delight even the most jaded intrigue/adventure thriller fans.

WARNING - King of Swords is controversial & contains jarring imagery & situations. It is NOT for the faint of heart. Readers interested in tame, conventional thrillers would be best advised to look elsewhere.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is Tempting the Highlander ($0.99), by Janet Chapman [Simon and Schuster].

Book Description
She has the power to tempt him beyond all reason....

Catherine Daniels arrives in Pine Creek, Maine, at just the right time for Robbie MacBain. She is on the run from her ex-husband, and Robbie is a sexy, single foster parent who needs a housekeeper while he travels back in time to medieval Scotland. Unbeknownst to Catherine, Robbie's looking for a book of spells to save the future of his family...and little did he expect to find a burning passion in Catherine's arms. Can Robbie seal his family's fate while enticing Catherine to follow him and her own heart wherever love will take them?

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is Stranded ($1.99), an anthology by Anne Bishop, Anthony Francis and James Alan Gardner [Bell Bridge Books], with the companion audiobook for $3.99 (and it counts towards the Listening Rewards Sale this month). This looks like it would be worth picking up for the first novella alone and I'll be checking the sample later this morning.

Book Description
Three Great Authors—Three Great Science Fiction Stories

A Strand In The Web
New York Times Bestselling Fantasy Author Anne Bishop makes her U.S. debut in Science Fiction with this engaging futuristic novella. The Restorers travel the universe fulfilling a purpose handed down through the generations. They live and die aboard city-ships, never knowing the worlds they create and save. What begins as a disastrous training exercise in creating and balancing ecosystems becomes an unexpected fight for survival. The only hope may be the secret project of an untried Restorer team.

Host Of Leeches
Award winning author James Alan Gardner pens a wonderfully imaginative tale, in which a young woman wakes to find herself the sole human on an orbiting, mechanical space station. To find a way home, she must navigate the dangerous politics of war between opposing robot leaders.

Stranded
Popular urban fantasy writer Anthony Francis (Dakota Frost, Skindancer series) explores the clash of ethics and survival when a young, genetically engineered centauress from the ultra-advanced Alliance lays claim to a rare, strategic garden planet, only to find herself captured by a band of rag-tag Frontier refugees who’ve crashed their vintage ship on her unexpectedly hostile world.

Kindle Daily Deal Celebrate Earth Day 2013 with four illustrated, "green"-themed books for young readers at $1.99 apiece.

Earth Day, Birthday!, by Maureen Wright and Violet Kim.

It's April 22, and Lion and his friends want to plant trees, recycle bottles, and have fun on Earth Day. But not Monkey. He wants to celebrate his birthday. Can he convince the other animals that it really is his birthday? Violet Kim's humorous artwork, rendered in paper, photographs, and colored pencil, highlight the sunny, friendly world of the animals.

Age Level: 3 and up

Nibbles: A Green Tale, by Charlotte Middleton.

In this companion book to Nibbles: A Green Tale, Nibbles and his new neighbor, Posie, are keeping six caterpillars as pets. They look after their caterpillars carefully, but one day, the caterpillars disappear! These gardening guinea pigs become the detectives of Dandeville. With the help of shop owner Mr. Rosetti, they solve their mystery in this green tale. Author and illustrator Charlotte Middleton uses a charming, unique style of mixed-media artwork.

Age Range: 6 - 8 years

Stuff! Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, by Steven Kroll and Steve Cox.

Pinch is a packrat. He collects lots of stuff. When his friends decide to hold a tag sale, Pinch is horrified. The last thing he wants to do is recycle his things. But then he realizes that he can make money at a tag sale—enough money to buy more stuff! How Pinch changes and finds a way to beautify his town will reinforce the benefits of practicing the three R’s— reduce, reuse, and recycle!

Age Range: 6 - 8 years

Recycle Every Day!, by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace.

Minna, a creative bunny, wants to win the Community Recycling Calendar Contest. She knows a lot about recycling but just can’t come up with the perfect idea for her poster. Minna’s family helps her find inspiration as they share their own recycling efforts. The book’s bright, bold cut-paper illustrations are enhanced by Wallace’s use of recycled materials such as bubble wrap, envelopes, and wallpaper. With games, activities, and recycling suggestions, this book is destined to be read again and again.

Age Level: 6 and up | Grade Level: 1 and up