UK Kindle Daily Deal 5/7

From MTV to Mecca (£0.99 UK), by Kristiane Backer [Arcadia Books], is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $7.19).

Book Description
In the early 1990s Kristiane Backer was one of the very first presenters on MTV (Europe). For some years she lived and breathed the international music scene quickly gaining a cult following amongst viewers and becoming a darling of the European press. As she reached the pinnacle of her success she realised that, despite having all she could have wished for, she was never truly satisfied. Something very important was missing. A fateful meeting with Pakistani cricket hero Imran Khan changed her life. He invited her to his country where she encountered a completely different world to the one she knew, the religion and culture of Islam. In place of pop and rock stars she was meeting men and women whose lives where dominated by the love of God, men and women who cared very little for the brief glories of this world. She began to read the Quran and to study books about the Faith. A few years later (in 1995), after travelling more widely in the Islamic world and knowing that she had discovered her spiritual path, she embraced Islam in a London mosque. And then her real adventures began. In this private memoir Kristiane Backer tells the story of her conversion and explains how faith, despite the many challenges she faced as she turned her life upside down, at last gave her inner peace and the meaning she had sought.

Diesel Daily Deal - Invitation to Scandal (E)

Invitation to Scandal ($11.99 $8.69 Kindle), by Bronwen Evans [Kensington Books], is today's Deal of the "Day" at Diesel E-Books, where it's discounted to $2.40 (7 copies left).

Book Description

Catch Me If You Can

Plagued by scandalous rumors, Rheda Kerrich will stop at nothing to restore her reputation and make an honest living for herself--and she's determined to do it without a husband. But times are hard, and smuggling is a risky though profitable trade. So when a dashing agent for the English government catches her in the act, she desperately resists his charms and conceals her illicit profession. Until she realizes he may be the key to her ultimate freedom--and unbridled passion. . .

Rufus Knight, Viscount Strathmore, has never had trouble beguiling the ladies of Kent. When his search for "Dark Shadow," a cunningly elusive smuggler, leads him to alluring and headstrong Rhe, her objections to his amorous advances merely incite a tantalizing game of cat and mouse. Soon, they'll find the very secrets driving them apart could ensnare them in a love they can't escape. . .

Get the book from Diesel; be sure to check the sales price, as the Deal of the Day often sells out.

Kindle Daily Deals 5/6

I hope everyone had a good weekend/Cinco de Mayo. We went to see Iron Man 3 over the weekend and I just noticed that Amazon has Iron Man 3: Heroes Fall. on sale today for $5. From what I can tell, this is "inspired by" music, selected by the director, not the actual soundtrack, which is mostly instrumentals (and for which I'd recommend getting the CD, as it's the same price as the MP3 album, which you also get with the CD purchase).

Today's Gold Box at Amazon is with "3M Streaming Projector Powered by Roku". Not only can you watch a six-foot wide "screen" on any wall inside, you can take it outside and run off battery there. In addition to the included Roku streaming stick, which gives you Roku access anywhere there is a WiFi signal, the projector also works with any device with an HDMI port, which means you can use it plus a Kindle Fire to watch movies pretty much anywhere.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Oracle Glass ($1.99), by Judith Merkle Riley [Sourcebooks Landmark]; it's also today's Nook Daily Find, which finally dropped in price in the B&N store, as well. Since I've already written up the book in the earlier post, I'll skip doing so again here.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Emma Dilemma ($1.99), by Patricia Hermes [Two Lions].

Book Description
One light. Many candles. One challah. Many slices. A family gets ready to celebrate the Sabbath. It welcomes guests, enjoys a nice meal, and savors a few quiet moments together. Shabbat Shalom! Appealing watercolors add just the right touch to the festivities.

Age Range: 9 and up

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is Girl in Hyacinth Blue ($1.99), by Susan Vreeland [RosettaBooks], with the companion audiobook for $3.99.

Book Description
A Dutch painting of a young girl survives three and a half centuries through loss, flood, anonymity, theft, secrecy, even the Holocaust. This is the story of its owners whose lives are influenced by its beauty and mystery. Despite their unsatisfied longings, their own and others' flaws, the girl in hyacinth blue has the power to engender love in all its human variety.

This luminous story begins in the present day, when a professor invites a colleague to his home to see a painting that he has kept secret for decades. The professor swears it is a Vermeer--but why has he hidden this important work for so long? The reasons unfold in a series of events that trace the ownership of the painting back to World War II and Amsterdam, and still further back to the moment of the work's inspiration. As the painting moves through each owner's hands, what was long hidden quietly surfaces, illuminating poignant moments in multiple lives. Susan Vreeland's characters remind us, through their love of this mysterious painting, how beauty transforms and why we reach for it, what lasts and what in our lives is singular and unforgettable.

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is Unearthly ($1.99), the first title in the trilogy by Cynthia Hand [HarperCollins]; the trilogy was completed earlier this year, with the release of Boundless in January.

Book Description
In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees . . . .

Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what that is, though, isn't easy.

Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place—and out of place at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side.

As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make—between honesty and deceit, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?

Unearthly is a moving tale of love and fate, and the struggle between following the rules and following your heart.

Nook Daily Find 5/6

The Oracle Glass ($10.09 Kindle, $10.94 B&N), by Judith Merkle Riley [Sourcebooks Landmark], is the Nook Daily Find. It looks like B&N is late dropping the price again, as it appears to be full price and is higher than on Kindle, where the companion audiobook is $3.99. I suspect this will drop to the $1.99 to $2.99 range sometime this morning.

Book Description
For a handful of gold, Madame de Morville will read your future in a glass of swirling water. You'll believe her, because you know she's more than 150 years old and a witch, and she has all of Paris in the palm of her hand. But Madame de Morville hides more behind her black robes than you know. Her real age, the mother and uncle who left her for dead, the inner workings of the most secret society of Parisian witches: none of these truths would help her outwit the rich who so desperately want the promise of the future. After all, it's her own future she must control, no matter how much it is painted with uncertainty and clouded by vengeance.

A bold, exquisitely imagined novel of masquerade and murder, witchcraft, wonder, and romance in the magnificent court of Louis XIV. Skinny, precocious Genevieve possesses the remarkable power to read the swirling waters of an oracle glass. Tutored by the ingenious occultist La Voisin, she reinvents herslf as a mysterious 150-year-old fortune-teller, and revels in the prizes that few women of her time can attain.

UK Kindle Daily Deal 5/6

Ratking (£0.99 UK), by Michael Dibdin, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $11.99).

Book Description
In this masterpiece of psychological suspense, Italian Police Commissioner Aurelio Zen is dispatched to investigate the kidnapping of Ruggiero Miletti, a powerful Perugian industrialist. But nobody much wants Zen to succeed: not the local authorities, who view him as an interloper, and certainly not Miletti's children, who seem content to let the head of the family languish in the hands of his abductors -- if he's still alive.

Was Miletti truly the victim of professionals? Or might his kidnapper be someone closer to home: his preening son Daniele, with his million-lire wardrobe and his profitable drug business? His daughter, Cinzia, whose vapid beauty conceals a devastating secret? The perverse Silvio, or the eldest son Pietro, the unscrupulous fixer who manipulates the plots of others for his own ends? As Zen tries to unravel this rat's nest of family intrigue and official complicity, Michael Dibdin gives us one of his most accomplished thrillers, a chilling masterpiece of police procedure and psychological suspense.