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Saturday, February 18, 2012

Today's Deals

Of note is today's Free Android App, Robin Hood: Twisted Fairy Tales, which combines a game where you find the differences in two scenes with a make-your-own adventure book for kids.


Kind of Blue ($0.99), by Miles Corwin, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day. I bought this one last summer at three times the price.
Book Description
When a legendary ex-cop is murdered in L.A., the pressure's on to find the killer. Lt. Frank Duffy needs his best detective on the case, but his best detective, Ash Levine, quit a year ago.

A tenacious, obsessive detective, Ash resigned after Latisha Patton, the witness in a homicide case he was working, was murdered. Without his job, Ash is left unanchored - and consumed with guilt that he somehow caused Latisha's murder.

When he's asked to rejoin the force, Ash reluctantly agrees. Getting his badge back could give him the chance to find Latisha's killer.Ash dives in headfirst into the shadowlands of Southern California to investigate the ex-cop's murder. But even when he has a suspect in custody, something about this case doesn't sit right with Ash, and he continues working the increasingly dangerous investigation while quietly chasing leads in Latisha's murder.

Unable to let either case go until he has answers, Ash finds that his obsessive nature, which propels him into a world of private compromises and public corruption, is a flaw that might prove fatal.

Dream of Ding Village ($2.03 / £1.29 UK), by Yan Lianke, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $8.99).
Book Description
Here, China's most controversial novelist takes as his subject the contemporary AIDS blood-contamination scandal in Henan province, where villagers were coerced into selling vast quantities of blood and then infected with the AIDS virus as they were injected with plasma to prevent anemia. Whole villages were wiped out in this way, with no responsibility taken or reparation made.

The Dream of Ding Village focuses on one village, and the story of one family, torn apart when one son rises to the top of the Party pile as he exploits the situation, while another is infected and dies. Narrated by a dead boy and written in finely crafted, affecting prose, the novel presents a powerful absurdist allegory of the moral vacuum at the heart of Communist-capitalist China as it traces the life and death of an entire community.

'I come from the bottom of society. All my relatives live in Henan, one of the poorest areas of China. When I think of people's situation there, it is impossible not to feel angry and emotional. Anger and passion are the soul of my work.' Yan Lianke

The First Counsel ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Brad Meltzer, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle (although it has a different cover at Amazon, the publication dates are the same, even if obviously incorrect when it comes to the ebook editions). This was Meltzer's third novel and was a bestseller, just as the first two were, when it was released in 2000.
Book Description
The runaway bestseller that takes us down the rabbit hole of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

John F. Kennedy, Jr., was Lark.
Amy Carter was Dynamo.
Chelsea Clinton was Energy.
Meet Shadow.

Shadow is the Secret Service code name for First Daughter Nora Hartson. And when White House lawyer Michael Garrick begins dating the irresistible Nora, he's instantly spellbound, just like everyone else in her world. Then, late one night, the two witness something they were never meant to see. Now, in a world where everyone watches your every move, Michael is suddenly ensnared in someone's secret agenda. Trusting no one, not even Nora, he finds himself fighting for his innocence--and ultimately, his life.
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Friday, February 17, 2012

Free and Bargain Book Roundup

Those still shopping in the Sony ebookstore can get 35% of one (non-Agency) eBook thru 2/20, using coupon code 35OFFPD0217, as their President's Day gift to their customers. The email I received said "selected titles", but there were roughly 1/4 million in the list that was returned when I clicked.

Greatest Love on Earth ($1.79), by Mary Ellen Dennis
Book Description
Set in the exotic world of a 19th century circus, Dream Dancer sweeps readers into deathdefying feats, dangerous rivalries, and a love that has all the thrills and romance of the greatest show on earth.

Bold, beautiful star equestrian Calliope Kelley has two passions in life: her father's circus and daredevil animal tamer Brian O'Connor. When the circus is destroyed by fire and Brian disappears, Calliope changes her name and becomes engaged to another man. But then Brian returns and everything in Calliope's new life goes topsy-turvy...

Downing Street Years ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by B0049B22WK
Book Description
This first volume of Margaret Thatcher's memoirs encompasses the whole of her time as Prime Minister - the formation of her goals in the early 1980s, the Falklands, the General Election victories of 1983 and 1987 and, eventually, the circumstances of her fall from political power. She also gives frank accounts of her dealings with foreign statesmen and her own ministers.

Emma's Secret ($2.99 Kindle, iBooks), by Barbara Taylor Bradford
Book Description
The legendary Emma Harte, heroine of A Woman of Substance, returns in Emma's Secret, a novel that showcases the storytelling power of Barbara Taylor Bradford.

Paula O'Neill, beloved granddaughter of Emma Harte and the guardian of her vast business empire, believes that everything Emma left to the family is secure. However, beneath the surface, sibling rivalry and discontent flare. Linnet and Tessa, her daughters, are as different as two women can be. One of them wants desperately for the empire to be hers but has a devastating secret that may put her very life in danger.

Into this volatile mix walks Evan Hughes, a young American fashion designer who is looking for Emma Harte. But Emma has been dead for thirty years. And Evan bears an uncanny resemblance to Paula O'Neill. Troubled by Evan's presence, Paula turns to her grandmother's recently discovered wartime diaries to find the truth, and Emma comes vividly back to life¿.

The decades fall away. It is London in 1940: the Blitz. Emma, working hard under war-time conditions, is also holding her family together as bombs drop, sirens wail, and her sons go off to war. While she struggles with grief, her indomitability, willpower, and strength come to the fore. As the pages unfurl, Paula discovers the secret Emma took to the grave to protect others, a secret whose repercussions inevitably change lives and may shake a dynasty to its very foundations.

Emma's Secret is vintage Barbara Taylor Bradford. Emotion, drama, suspense, intrigue, and passion fill the pages in a spellbinding novel that only she could write.

The Truest Heart ($1.99), by Samantha James
Book Description
Did fate send her a villain with the blackest soul...or a lover with The Truest Heart

Her name is her only crime, yet Lady Gillian must take refuge in a humble cottage on the on the stormy Cornish coast, hiding from a king who seeks her death for her father's treason.Now destiny has sent Gillian a cure for her loneliness: a handsome shipwrecked stranger washed ashore on a perilous tide who requires a kind lady's gentle touch to heal his broken body and tormented spirit.

His own name -- Gareth -- is all that he remembers. Yet he knows he has found paradise in the company of an exquisite beauty whose caress is sweet rapture and whose smile warms his soul. But as his memories slowly return, so does the dark task entrusted to him by King John. If he fails, a young boy will surely perish. Yet how can he betray Gillian, whose passionate love has lit a blaze in Gareth's heart that no vengeful king's decree could ever extinguish?

Dark Moon Crossing ($2.99), the third in the Kendall O'Dell Mystery series by Sylvia Nobel.
Book Description
Based on actual newspaper articles, plunges reporter Kendall O'Dell into the center of the volatile and controversial issues surrounding ranchers and illegal immigrant crossings at the U.S./Mexican border. When she agrees to investigate the disappearance of a co-worker's relatives who mysteriously vanish after crossing into Arizona, and attempts to tie together frightening UFO sightings, mutilated cattle, and missing immigrants, Kendall's life hangs in the balance when she finally exposes the hideous secret.

The Qualities of Wood ($1.99 Kindle US; £0.99 UK), by Mary Vensel White
Book Description
A haunting and beautifully written debut novel by an exciting new talent.

When Betty Gardiner dies, leaving behind an unkempt country home, her grandson and his young wife take a break from city life to prepare the house for sale. Nowell Gardiner leaves first to begin work on his second mystery novel. By the time his wife Vivian joins him, a real mystery has begun: a local girl has been found dead in the woods behind the house. Even after the death is ruled an accident, Vivian can’t forget the girl, can’t ignore the strange behaviour of her neighbours, or her husband. As Vivian attempts to put the house in order, all around her things begin to fall apart.

‘The Qualities of Wood’ is a stunning novel from an exciting new writer. Perfect for readers of Anne Tyler and Anita Shreve.

Catwalk: Includes Three Novels: Catwalk, Strike a Pose, and Rip the Runway ($9.99), by Deborah Gregory, works out to $3.33/title in this YA bundle.
Book Description
IN Catwalk, DEBORAH GREGORY creates a new YA series that takes her famously upbeat urban voice and combines it with the appeal of Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model. Catwalk follows Pashmina, Felinez, Angora, and Aphro, four best friends at Manhattan’s Fashion International High School who are about to enter the contest of their lives. Each year, students split up into Fashion Houses and compete to design, produce, and show fully original fashion lines. The winner gets a scholarship, a professional show, and a real shot at a career in fashion. Bouncy, smart, and nearly irresistible, Catwalk is a fierce introduction to a fashion world where fabulosity trumps waist size, and there truly is room for everyone.

Cold Kiss ($1.99), by Amy Garvey
Book Description
It was a beautiful, warm summer day, the day Danny died.

Suddenly Wren was alone and shattered. In a heartbroken fury, armed with dark incantations and a secret power, Wren decides that what she wants—what she must do—is to bring Danny back.

But the Danny who returns is just a shell of the boy Wren fell in love with. His touch is icy; his skin, smooth and stiff as marble; his chest, cruelly silent when Wren rests her head against it.

Wren must keep Danny a secret, hiding him away, visiting him at night, while her life slowly unravels around her. Then Gabriel DeMarnes transfers to her school, and Wren realizes that somehow, inexplicably, he can sense the powers that lie within her—and that he knows what she has done. And now Gabriel wants to help make things right.

But Wren alone has to undo what she has wrought—even if it means breaking her heart all over again.

Knit Together: Discover God's Pattern for Your Life ($2.99), by Debbie Macomber, is a bit of a change of pace for her, as she ventures into non-fiction.
Book Description
Debbie Macomber calls KNIT TOGETHER the project of her heart. Whenever she speaks, her theme is simple: don't be afraid to dream. God created us for a reason, and when we come to recognize our deepest longing, we can discover His plan for our lives. Full of encouragement and divine empowerment for women, the book centers around the Bible's assurance that God knits each one of us together in our mother's womb. Debbie deftly weaves her own story throughout the book, using the knitting theme of her most recent bestsellers to create metaphors that explore God's handiwork in creating us for a purpose.

The Gravedigger's Daughter (P.S.) ($2.99), by Joyce Carol Oates
Book Description
Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1936, the Schwarts immigrate to a small town in upstate New York. Here the father—a former high school teacher—is demeaned by the only job he can get: gravedigger and cemetery caretaker. When local prejudice and the family's own emotional frailty give rise to an unthinkable tragedy, the gravedigger's daughter, Rebecca heads out into America. Embarking upon an extraordinary odyssey of erotic risk and ingenious self-invention, she seeks renewal, redemption, and peace—on the road to a bittersweet and distinctly “American” triumph.

Turning the Tide: How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic ($2.62), by Ed Offley
Book Description
The United States experienced its most harrowing military disaster of World War II not in 1941 at Pearl Harbor but in the period from 1942 to 1943, in Atlantic coastal waters from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. Sinking merchant ships with impunity, German U-boats threatened the lifeline between the United States and Britain, very nearly denying the Allies their springboard onto the European Continent--a loss that would have effectively cost the Allies the war.

In Turning the Tide, author Ed Offley tells the gripping story of how, during a twelve-week period in the spring of 1943, a handful of battle-hardened American, British, and Canadian sailors turned the tide in the Atlantic. Using extensive archival research and interviews with key survivors, Offley places the reader at the heart of the most decisive maritime battle of World War II.

My Booky Wook: A Memoir of Sex, Drugs, and Stand-Up ($0.99), by Russell Brand
Book Description
Russell Brand learned early on to make a joke of fear and failure. From a troubled childhood in industrial Essex, England, to his descent into addictions to alcohol, drugs, and sex in the seamy underbelly of London, Brand has seen his share of both and miraculously lived to tell the tale. In My Booky Wook he leads readers on a rollicking journey through his disastrous school career, his infamous antics on MTV, and his multifarious sexual adventures. But this irreverent memoir is a story not simply of struggle but also of redemption, a testament to the difficulty of discovering what you want from life and the remarkable power of a bloody-minded determination to get it. My Booky Wook is a giddy trip through the brilliant mind of one of Britain's most valuable exports.

Today's backlist/small press/indie, totally free, books for everyone on Kindle. These are are not likely to be free for long, so double check prices before one-clicking (genres are my best guess), as most of them go back up after a day or two (sometimes less), at which point most of them become eligible for the Kindle Lending Library.
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Get $15 off swimwear (KSO)

This offer is only for those with a Kindle with Special Offers:

Get $15 off a $50 swimwear purchase at Amazon.com

Click on offer, then click on the link on the offer page to receive an email with the promo code. Sign-up for this offer expires on February 19.

You'll get an email (right away), a link to the Special Offer page and a promotion code to enter at checkout. Once you have the promotional code, you have until March 19, 2012 to complete your purchase. Like previous offers, this one requires you to use the full checkout process in order to enter your promotional code. Also, like all Amazon sales that use promotional codes, if you have a gift card balance, you must use it for the payment (if there is not a sufficient balance, then you can pick which credit card or other payment to use).

Limit one offer per customer and per device.

Shop early, of course, as their selection often dwindles as the offer goes on, but this early in the year, they shouldn't sell out of too much. This is a bonus offer, that isn't on the "normal" schedule (every 4th day), so you may not have though to check your Kindle today to find it.
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Today's Deals

New Kobo coupon codes, 20% off, exp. Feb 20: feb17us20, feb17row20, feb17au20, feb17uk20 and feb17ca20

Last night's UK only free title is now free in the US Kindle store:

Resurrection ($0.99), by Arwen Elys Dayton, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day.
Book Description
The Kinley built a ship capable of traveling faster than light. It carried a group of scientists to a small, distant planet?a primitive place called Earth. It's mission was peaceful observation. But when the ship was destroyed, the Kinley crew found themselves stranded in ancient Egypt, participants in the pageant of life in the time of the Pharaohs. They buried remnants of their technology deep beneath the desert and sent a last desperate message home?

Five thousand years later, the Kinley homeworld hovers on the brink of extinction. An enemy that nearly obliterated their race has risen again?now with the ability to destroy them for good. A lone Kinley soldier named Pruit is sent on a desperate mission: to follow the ancient beacon back to Earth and recover the secrets to faster than light travel.

It is their last hope. Technology that once allowed them to cross vast reaches of space might allow them to outrun their enemies and find a safe world to call their own. But Pruit?s mission will be harder than she can imagine. Her quest will draw her enemies after her and will awaken ancient foes on Earth. As she gets closer to what she seeks, she will find each adversary willing to risk everything to stop her. Each hoping to steal the knowledge for themselves. The rivals will meet in modern-day Egypt and their struggle will alter the fate of worlds.

Siren ($1.56 / £0.99 UK),a YA novel by Tricia Rayburn, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $7.19).
Book Description
Seventeen-year-old Vanessa Sands is afraid of everything--the dark, heights, the ocean--but her fearless older sister, Justine, has always been there to coach her through every challenge. That is until Justine goes cliff diving one night near the family's vacation house in Winter Harbor, Maine, and her lifeless body washes up on shore the next day.

Vanessa's parents want to work through the tragedy by returning to their everyday lives back in Boston, but Vanessa can't help feeling that her sister's death was more than an accident. After discovering that Justine never applied to colleges, and that she was secretly in a relationship with longtime family friend Caleb Carmichael, Vanessa returns to Winter Harbor to seek some answers.

But when Vanessa learns that Caleb has been missing since Justine's death, she and Caleb's older brother, Simon, join forces to try to find him, and in the process, their childhood friendship blossoms into something more.
Soon it's not just Vanessa who is afraid. All of Winter Harbor is abuzz with anxiety when another body washes ashore, and panic sets in when the small town becomes home to a string of fatal, water-related accidents . . . in which all the victims are found grinning from ear to ear.

As Vanessa and Simon probe further into the connections between Justine's death and the sudden rash of creepy drownings, Vanessa uncovers a secret that threatens her new romance, and that will change her life forever.

7 Money Rules for Life: How to Take Control of Your Financial Future ($3.59 Kindle, $3.99 B&N), by Mary Hunt, is the Nook Daily Find and is, once again, better than price matched on Kindle.
Book Description
Americans young and old are flunking their finances. A shocking 77 percent live paycheck to paycheck with no savings. And 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, while 49 percent could cover less than one month's expenses if they lost their income. In the face of this bleak financial picture, bestselling author and finance expert Mary Hunt offers 7 Money Rules for Life®. This no-nonsense and encouraging book gives readers the keys to get their money under control and get prepared financially for the rest of their lives. In her warm and engaging style, Hunt takes everything that she's learned over the past twenty years and boils it all down. Presented in a conversational style and readable in a weekend, this book offers applications for each of the seven rules as well as practical advice for how to recover from past financial mistakes. These simple, unchanging, basic rules work in every financial situation, for every income level, and for every stage of life.

Money mastery isn't really that hard. 7 Money Rules for Life® can help readers change their futures from uncertain to rock-solid with principles they can apply right away.
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Free Book - Provincetown Follies, Bangkok Blues (K/N)

Update: 2/20/12 Now free from Barnes & Noble.
Update: 2/17/12 Now free in the US Kindle store.

Provincetown Follies, Bangkok Blues (US/UK), by Randall Peffer, is a repeat freebie for UK customers in the Kindle store. I'd say it is likely to be free for US customers by morning (and likely at Barnes & Noble, as well).
Book Description
Luang kho ngu hao. Now I put my hand in the cobra's throat.

Tuki Aparecio did not kill her lover. She did not burn down the Painted Lady--at least, not with fire. Tuki lit up the stage nightly, with her hair in braids and her glorious costumes; glittering, smoldering, singing her heart out for an audience who loved her. She brought the house down with her performances. But she's innocent of murder, innocent of arson.

How can Michael DeCastro possibly hope to defend this beautiful drag queen, who brings with her a whole pack of nasty little secrets, straight from Bangkok's notorious tenderloin district? She speaks in aphorisms, the wisdom of the Buddha combined with the lyrics of Whitney Houston. She is fascinating. And Michael can't let her go to jail.
Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
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Thursday, February 16, 2012

Free Book - When the Devil Whistles (K/N/E)

When the Devil Whistles, by Rick Acker, is a repeat freebie on Kindle and from Barnes & Noble and ChristianBook, courtesy of Christian publisher Abingdon Press.
Book Description
Allie Whitman is a professional whistleblower with a knack for sniffing out fraud in government contracts. Conner Norman is a gifted litigator and together they form Devil to Pay, Inc., a shell corporation that files lawsuits based on Allie s investigations. They soon find themselves fighting potentially fatal battles in and out of the courtroom, going great lengths to protect secrets that could ruin them both.
Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Get the free ebook from ChristianBook.
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Free Book - The Big 5-OH! (K/N/E)

The Big 5-OH!, by Sandra D. Bricker, is a repeat freebie on Kindle and from Barnes & Noble and ChristianBook, courtesy of Christian publisher Abingdon Press.
Book Description
Olivia Wallace has a birthday curse . . . or so she thinks. It was a broken heart on her 16th, a car accident on her 21st, pneumonia on her 30th, and a fall down a flight of stairs on her 35th. There were Ohio blizzards on her 38th, 39th, and 40th; and six days before her 45th, she lost the love of her life to a heart attack. Numbing grief stole that birthday and a couple more to follow and, on the morning of her 48th birthday, she received the call she’d dreaded ever since losing her mom so many years ago…she was diagnosed with stage-3 ovarian cancer. The doctors didn’t hold out a lot of hope, but Liv survived and maintained her faith. Months of surgeries and chemotherapy and radiation treatments followed.

But now, as her 50th birthday creeps up the icy Ohio path toward her, her hair has grown back, her energy level is up, and she is officially cancer free. It makes her nervous. After everything she’s gone through, Liv hates the idea of driving on icy roads and returning to work as an O.R. nurse in a local Cincinnati hospital.

Her best friend Hallie knows just the thing to break Liv out of the winter doldrums, while providing a safe haven of warmth, sunshine, and a time to regroup: a holiday in the Florida sunshine!
Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Get the free ebook from ChristianBook.
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Free Book - The Faith of Ashish (K/N/E)

The Faith of Ashish (US/UK), the first in the Blessings in India series by Kay Marshall Strom, is a repeat freebie on Kindle and from Barnes & Noble and ChristianBook, courtesy of Christian publisher Abingdon Press.
Book Description
Never Doubt That the Unending Love of a Father—or the Pure Faith of a Child—Can Change Lives

“His name is Ashish. His name is blessing. The boy is my blessing.” Virat and Latha named their son Ashish, for he is the light and glory of their world. Yet a simple drink of water changes all their lives forever. For Virat, Latha, and Ashish are Untouchables, members of a caste who must never contaminate the world of the other, higher, castes. When Ashish mistakenly drinks from the wrong cup, he’s badly beaten. Knowing that his son needs a doctor—which takes money—Virat ventures into the dangerous realm of the high caste. He begs Mammen Samuel Varghese, the wealthy landowner and Christian, for money. He receives the loan—along with a life of slavery for himself and his family. But Mammen Samuel does not understand the strength of a father’s love, the power of a young British nurse who could not forget a boy named Blessing—or the faith of a child.
Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Get the free ebook from ChristianBook.
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Free Book (Kindle/EPUB/nook) - The NIV Gospel of John

The NIV Gospel of John: With Devotional Notes, by Zondervan, is a repeat freebie on Kindle and from Barnes & Noble and ChristianBook.
Book Description
John's Gospel sheds a unique light not only on the ministry of Jesus Christ, but also on the nature of his relationship with God the Father. This Scripture portion also includes a special section named 'Subjects on the Theme of Salvation', that gives insight into 15 subjects of salvation.
Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Get the free ebook from ChristianBook.
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Free Book - Delivered with Love (K/N/E)

Delivered with Love (US/UK), by Sherry Kyle, is a repeat freebie in the Kindle store and from Barnes & Noble and ChristianBook, courtesy of Christian publisher Abingdon Press.
Book Description
An old love letter found in the glove compartment of a young woman's inherited 1972 Volkswagen propels her to leave her life in Los Angeles and go to the small town of Capitola, California. There her dream of finding the writer of the letter leads her on an unexpected journey that changes her life forever.

Claire James, age twenty-three, is ready to make it on her own. When she's fired from her job as a waitress and subsequently kicked out of her sister's home, she sees it as an opportunity to start over. But even before moving, a thirty-five-year-old love letter written to her mother keeps Claire stuck in the past. Michael Thompson, a middle-aged real estate agent, wants to keep the past where it belongs--at least until his grown daughter is married. But, then a young woman comes to town . . .
Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Get the free ebook from ChristianBook.
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Free and Bargain Book Roundup

The bargain books are all traditionally published, while the free books are backlist being "reprinted" by the author or are new indie-published (by mostly those who have had something traditionally published in the past).

Ghost Country ($0.99) is Patrick Lee's sequel to Breach, which was previously offered at a discount in a bonus edition (now missing in the Kindle store, so check your archives). If you have that one, you should definitely get this one (ok, you should probably get this one anyway), so you can get caught up before starting Deep Sky, which was released this past December.
Book Description
For decades, inexplicable technology has passed into our world through the top secret anomaly called the Breach.

The latest device can punch a hole into the future . . .

What Paige Campbell saw when she opened a door into seventy years from now scared the hell out of her. She and her Tangent colleagues brought their terrible discovery to the President—and were met with a hail of automatic gunfire after leaving the White House. Only Paige survived.

Fearing a terrifying personal destiny revealed to him from the other side of the Breach, Travis Chase abandoned Tangent . . . and Paige Campbell. Now he must rescue her—because Paige knows tomorrow’s world is desolate and dead, a ghost country scattered with the bones of billions. And Doomsday will dawn in just four short months . . . unless they can find the answers buried in the ruins to come.

But once they cross the nightmare border into Ghost Country, they might never find their way back . . .

The Sweethearts' Knitting Club ($0.99), by Lori Wilde
Book Description
"Throw a penny in the fountain of the Twilight town square, and you'll be married to your first love . . . "

For ten years, pretty Flynn MacGregor has been turning down the same solid, upright man's marriage proposal. Her friends at the Sweethearts' Knitting Club tell her they're a match made in heaven, but Flynn knows there's only one dangerous reason why she keeps saying no: high school sweetheart Jesse Calloway. She was just sixteen when Jesse was forced out of town under a cloud of suspicion . . . but he's never left her heart.

Now Jesse is back, and every time she turns the corner he's there—gazing at her with his smoldering eyes and tempting her with his kisses. Jesse has never played by the rules, and he's made it clear that he's not going to now. And Flynn, who's always done just what her family, friends, and fellow knitters have told her to do, must finally break free and claim the love that binds Jesse to her heart.

A Duty to the Dead ($1.99) is the first title in the Bess Crawford Mystery series by Charles Todd
Book Description
England, 1916. Independent-minded Bess Crawford's upbringing is far different from that of the usual upper-middle-class British gentlewoman. Growing up in India, she learned the importance of responsibility, honor, and duty from her offi­cer father. At the outbreak of World War I, she followed in his footsteps and volunteered for the nursing corps, serving from the battlefields of France to the doomed hospital ship Britannic.

On one voyage, Bess grows fond of the young, gravely wounded Lieutenant Arthur Graham. Something rests heavily on his conscience, and to give him a little peace as he dies, she promises to deliver a message to his brother. It is some months before she can carry out this duty, and when she's next in England, she herself is recovering from a wound.

When Bess arrives at the Graham house in Kent, Jonathan Graham listens to his brother's last wishes with surprising indifference. Neither his mother nor his brother Timothy seems to think it has any significance. Unsettled by this, Bess is about to take her leave when sudden tragedy envelops her. She quickly discovers that fulfilling this duty to the dead has thrust her into a maelstrom of intrigue and murder that will endanger her own life and test her courage as not even war has.

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: Practical Guide for Improving Communication ($2.99), by John Gray; if you've already read this one (or want something with a bit more humor than researched advice), you might instead try (the self-published) Women May Be from Venus, But Men are Really from Uranus.
Book Description
Once upon a time Martians and Venusians met, fell in love, and had happy relationships together because they respected and accepted their differences. Then they came to Earth and amnesia set in: they forgot they were from different planets.

Based on years of successful counseling of couples and individuals, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus has helped millions of couples transform their relationships. Now viewed as a modern classic, this phenomenal book has helped men and women realize how different they really are and how to communicate their needs in such a way that conflict doesn't arise and intimacy is given every chance to grow.

Guys Read: Funny Business ($1.99), by Jon Scieszka, is for the middle grade readers in your housecombines a number of single titles into one volume (about 292 pages), with the individual stories going for 99 cents each.
Book Description
It’s here: Volume One of the official Guys Read Library. Jon Scieszka’s Guys Read initiative was founded on a simple premise: that young guys enjoy reading most when they have reading they can enjoy. And out of this comes a series that aims to give them just that. Ten books, arranged by theme, featuring the best of the best where writing for kids is concerned. Each book is a collection of original short stories, but these aren’t your typical anthologies—each book is edgy, inventive, visual, and one-of-a-kind, featuring a different theme for guys to get excited about.

Funny Business is based around the theme of—what else?—humor, and if you’re familiar with Jon and Guys Read, you already know what you’re in store for: ten hilarious stories from some of the funniest writers around. Before you’re through, you’ll meet a teenage mummy; a kid desperate to take a dip in the world’s largest pool of chocolate milk; a homicidal turkey; parents who hand over their son’s room to a biker; the only kid in his middle school who hasn’t turned into a vampire, wizard, or superhero; and more. And the contributor list includes bestselling author, award winners, and fresh new talent alike: Mac Barnett, Eoin Colfer, Christopher Paul Curtis, Kate DiCamillo (writing with Jon Scieszka), Paul Feig, Jack Gantos, Jeff Kinney, David Lubar, Adam Rex, and David Yoo.

Guys Read is all about turning young readers into lifelong ones—and with this book, and each subsequent installment in the series, we aim to leave no guy unturned.

Kill Zone ($3.99) is the first title in the War Games series by Vicki Hinze.
Book Description
Dr. Morgan Cabot—the intuitive psychologist head of a new Secret Assignment Security Specialist corps—moves her unit front and center to combat the latest attack by terrorist and black market intelligence broker Thomas Kunz in this latest captivating thriller. Kunz's target is United States Air Force Captain Jackson Stern, or so Morgan thinks. Could it also be Bruce Stern, Jackson’s brother who was recently arrested for murdering his wife Laura? Double-crossing, misinformation, and astonishing plot twists pile up as Morgan tries to determine if Jackson is on the level or working for Thomas, whether Bruce is a murderer or a victim, and exactly what Laura has to do with all of this.

Neverwhere ($2.99), by Neil Gaiman, is well worth picking up at this price, if you don't have it, already.
Book Description
Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job and a pretty but demanding fiancee. Then one night he stumbles across a girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He stops to help her--and the life he knows vanishes like smoke.

Several hours later, the girl is gone too. And by the following morning Richard Mayhew has been erased from his world. His bank cards no longer work, taxi drivers won't stop for him, his hundred rents his apartment out to strangers. He has become invisible, and inexplicably consigned to a London of shadows and darkness a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth of sewer canals and abandoned subway stations. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere.

For this is the home of Door, the mysterious girl whom Richard rescued in the London Above. A personage of great power and nobility in this murky, candlelit realm, she is on a mission to discover the cause of her family's slaughter, and in doing so preserve this strange underworld kingdom from the malevolence that means to destroy it. And with nowhere else to turn, Richard Mayhew must now join the Lady Door's entourage in their determined--and possibly fatal--quest.

For the dread journey ever-downward--through bizarre anachronisms and dangerous incongruities, and into dusty corners of stalled time--is Richard's final hope, his last road back to a "real" world that is growing disturbingly less real by the minute.

If Tim Burton reimagined The Phantom of the Opera, if Jack Finney let his dark side take over, if you rolled the best work of Clive Barker, Peter Straub and Caleb Carr into one, you still would have something that fell far short of Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE. It is a masterful debut novel of darkly hypnotic power, and one of the most absorbing reads to come along in years.

If you missed Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell ($2.99), by Susanna Clarke, when it was the Kindle DotD last November, this is your chance to nab it at a good price. From the cover, it appears that this edition should include a foreword by Neil Gaiman.
Book Description
The international bestseller, reissued with a striking new illustrated cover. Part of The Bloomsbury Phantastic series - three books tracing the tradition of fantasy from Edgar Allan Poe to Neil Gaiman and Susanna Clarke. Susanna Clarke’s novel is an epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two magicians who emerge to change its history. In the year 1806, in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, most people believe magic to have long since disappeared from England -- until the reclusive Mr Norrell reveals his powers and becomes a celebrity overnight. Another practising magician emerges: the young and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell’s pupil and the two join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic and soon he risks sacrificing not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything else he holds dear.

Down River ($2.99), by John Hart
Book Description
Down River is the winner of the 2008 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

Everything that shaped him happened near that river….

Now its banks are filled with lies and greed, shame, and murder….

John Hart’s debut, The King of Lies, was compelling and lyrical, with Janet Maslin of The New York Times declaring, “There hasn’t been a thriller as showily literate since Scott Turow came along.” Now, in Down River, Hart makes a scorching return to Rowan County, where he drives his characters to the edge, explores the dark side of human nature, and questions the fundamental power of forgiveness.

Adam hase has a violent streak, and not without reason. As a boy, he saw things that no child should see, suffered wounds that cut to the core and scarred thin. The trauma left him passionate and misunderstood---a fighter. After being narrowly acquitted of a murder charge, Adam is hounded out of the only home he’s ever known, exiled for a sin he did not commit. For five long years he disappears, fades into the faceless gray of New York City. Now he’s back and nobody knows why, not his family or the cops, not the enemies he left behind.

But Adam has his reasons.

Within hours of his return, he is beaten and accosted, confronted by his family and the women he still holds dear. No one knows what to make of Adam’s return, but when bodies start turning up, the small town rises against him and Adam again finds himself embroiled in the fight of his life, not just to prove his own innocence, but to reclaim the only life he’s ever wanted.

Bestselling author John Hart holds nothing back as he strips his characters bare. Secrets explode, emotions tear, and more than one person crosses the brink into deadly behavior as he examines the lengths to which people will go for money, family, and revenge.

A powerful, heart-pounding thriller, Down River will haunt your thoughts long after the last page is turned.

Into the Night ($2.99), by Janelle Denison
Book Description
A former Marine and Las Vegas Vice cop, Nathan Fox has seen it all and then some. Heading up security for The Onyx Casino is tame compared to his past, but it’s not his only job. Working for The Reliance Group is his real passion project. His current case: A missing woman. His mission: To find her. But soon Nathan must deal with a stubborn—and stunning—journalist who’s nosed her way into the investigation…and into Nathan’s fantasies.

To reporter Nicole Hutton, exposing a ruthless, twisted criminal who abuses vulnerable teens isn't just a job. In fact, this story has become very personal, especially now that she's gotten tangled up with sexy Nathan Fox. But before she can break the story, and help rescue a missing girl, she and Nathan must brave the labyrinth of Vegas's dark underbelly…where the heat simmering between them is about to burst into flames…

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England ($1.99), by Brock Clarke, claims to be a bestseller. If you are an author in New England, that should give you pause for concern... at least, until you see that it is a fiction title, after all (whew!).
Book Description
A lot of remarkable things have happened in the life of Sam Pulsifer, the hapless hero of this incendiary novel, beginning with the ten years he spent in prison for accidentally burning down Emily Dickinson's house and unwittingly killing two people. emerging at age twenty-eight, he creates a new life and identity as a husband and father. But when the homes of other famous New England writers suddenly go up in smoke, he must prove his innocence by uncovering the identity of this literary-minded arsonist.

In the league of such contemporary classics as A Confederacy of Dunces and The World According to Garp, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England is an utterly original story about truth and honesty, life and the imagination.

Today's backlist/small press/indie, totally free, books for everyone on Kindle. These are are not likely to be free for long, so double check prices before one-clicking (genres are my best guess), as most of them go back up after a day or two (sometimes less), at which point most of them become eligible for the Kindle Lending Library.
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Free book - Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales (K)

Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales, by Garry Kilworth, is free on Kindle, courtesy of UK publisher PS Publishing, LTD.
Book Description
Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales is a collection of stories that span some 20 years. They cover a variety of themes and are more different, in style as well as content, than they are similar. As the author himself says, "Some writers follow a path of sameness in order to satisfy their readers' desire for familiarity. To me that's like going to same country for your holiday every year. It's not me. I like going somewhere different every time."

The tales range from Chinese fantasy ('Death of the Mocking Man') to science fiction ('Moby Jack'), to fantasy ('The Sculptor') to horror ('The Megowl') to ghost stories ('Hunter's Hall') -- but for the most part they're just plain odd and refuse to slot into any set category.

So, if you like weird stories, dark comedy and tales where characters get into impossible situations and only occasionally extract themselves, then you'll probably enjoy this volume
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Today's Deals

Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories ($1.99), by Michael Sims, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day.
Book Description
Before Twilight and True Blood, even before Buffy and Anne Rice and Bela Lugosi, vampires haunted the nineteenth century, when brilliant writers everywhere indulged their bloodthirsty imaginations, culminating in Bram Stoker's legendary 1897 novel, Dracula.
Michael Sims brings together the very best vampire stories of the Victorian era-from England, America, France, Germany, Transylvania, and even Japan-into a unique collection that highlights their cultural variety. Beginning with the supposedly true accounts that captivated Byron and Shelley, the stories range from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Oval Portrait" and Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla" to Guy de Maupassant's "The Horla" and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Good Lady Ducayne." Sims also includes a nineteenth-century travel tour of Transylvanian superstitions, and rounds out the collection with Stoker's own "Dracula's Guest"-a chapter omitted from his landmark novel.
Vampires captivated the Victorians, as Sims reveals in his insightful introduction: In 1867, Karl Marx described capitalism as "dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor"; while in 1888 a London newspaper invoked vampires in trying to explain Jack the Ripper's predations. At a time when vampires have been re-created in a modern context, Dracula's Guest will remind readers young, old, and in between of why the undead won't let go of our imagination.

The Child Inside ($1.56 / £0.99 UK), by Suzanne Bugler, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition).
Book Description
When Rachel’s unborn baby dies, she and her husband Andrew focus upon their precious only son. Their dormant, silently-felt grief is slowly destroying their marriage and as Jono grows up and pulls away from them, Rachel finds herself to be resentful, lonely and without purpose. A chance encounter brings her into contact with an old woman whom she believes to be the mother of a friend who died as a teenager. But the woman denies that she ever even had a daughter, and wants nothing to do with Rachel. This friend - Vanessa - was adored, vibrant and exciting. Rachel is convinced the woman is Vanessa’s mother, but how can she be sure? How could anyone deny the existence if their own child? There are frightening parallels with Rachel’s own loss, and she cannot let it go. In desperation, Rachel tracks down Vanessa’s brother, Simon, and slowly the two of them get drawn into a dangerous and destructive relationship…

The Pact ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Jodi Picoult, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.
Book Description
From Jodi Picoult, one of the most powerful writers in contemporary fiction, comes a riveting, timely, heartbreaking, and terrifying novel of families in anguish -- and friendships ripped apart by inconceivable violence. Until the phone calls came at 3:00 A.M. on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily has been shot to death by her beloved and devoted Chris as part of an apparent suicide pact -- leaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew.
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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Free Book Roundup

Today's backlist/small press/indie free books on Kindle, which are not likely to be free for long, so double check prices before one-clicking (genres are my best guess):
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A Trio of Free Ebook Shorts from Bethany House (K)

Christian publisher Bethany House has three ebook shorts free in the Kindle store today.
Unlocking the Mysteries of Satan, by Dennis McCallum
Pastor and teacher Dennis McCallum clarifies what the Bible teaches about Satan, evil spirits, demonic control, and spiritual warfare--including the devil's capabilities and limitations, and practical steps to counter evil forces. This is a selection from Satan and His Kingdom.

Small Church, Big Impact, by Brandon J. O'Brien
By gathering stories about effective churches from small-church pastors, Brandon O'Brien demonstrates that a church's success is not contingent on its size. This is a selection from Brandon O'Brien's book, The Strategically Small Church.

Escape from the World Trade Center, by Leslie Haskin (repeat)
A 9/11 Survivor’s True Story

This is the riveting account of Leslie Haskin’s escape from the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The former insurance executive shares what she saw and endured as she struggled down 36 floors in a doomed and dying building and away from a life focused on perks, prestige, and power.
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Free Book - The Piazza (K/N)

Update: 2/19/12 Now free from Barnes & Noble.

The Harper Perennial Classic edition of The Piazza, by Herman Melville, is free in the Kindle store.
Book Description
Don Benito faltered; then, like some somnambulist suddenly interfered with, vacantly stared at his visitor, and ended by looking down on the deck. He maintained this posture so long, that Captain Delano, almost equally disconcerted, and involuntarily almost as rude, turned suddenly from him, walking forward to accost one of the Spanish seamen for the desired information. But he had hardly gone five paces, when with a sort of eagerness Don Benito invited him back, regretting his momentary absence of mind, and professing readiness to gratify him.
Get the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
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Free Short Story - The Dark Lifer's Revenge (K)

The Dark Lifer's Revenge, a teen/young adult short story by Linda Joy Singleton, is free in the Kindle store.
Book Description
Sabine Rose from The Seer series teams up with Amber Borden from the Dead Girl series in this exciting short story by Linda Joy Singleton.

After getting kicked out of school and sent to live with her grandmother, Sabine Rose tried to ignore her troublemaking psychic abilities. All she wanted was to be a normal teen. But the spirit world has other plans for her.

Amber Borden is a high school student and aspiring talent agent with an unexpected side-job: she’s a Temp Lifer. By temporarily stepping into the bodies of people who are suffering, Amber navigates their daily lives and tries to fix their problems. Luckily her loyal boyfriend, Eli, has been very supportive—even during that freaky time when Amber inhabited his sister’s body.

When Sabine’s boyfriend, Dominic, loses his own body to a revenge-obsessed Dark Lifer—one of the disturbed souls who “borrow” living people’s bodies to do their dirty work—Sabine goes to Amber for help. Working together to find and free Dominic, the girls begin to unravel the Dark Lifer’s twisted plan of vengeance. But it throws them directly into the path of the troubled soul’s murderous rage . . .

Bonus: Tantalizing excerpts from Singleton’s hit books Don’t Die, Dragonfly and Dead Girl Walking, and a sneak peek at her latest page-turner, Buried.
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