Suspense and Thrillers from Bestselling Authors

The discounts for independent authors may be ending in the Kindle store, but Amazon still has a few titles on sale from major, bestselling authors, including Janet Evanovich, Douglas Preston and even Stephen King.

Lean Mean Thirteen ($3.72) by Janet Evanovich. It's too bad that the first in the series isn't discounted, instead, as I dislike starting in the middle of a series. At one time you could get the first three for under $10, but Three Plums In One is now $15.40 (still it's under the price of all three as stand-alone volumes, which are $7.19 each).

In the thirteenth book in the series, the stakes are raised even higher as Stephanie Plum finds herself in her most dangerous, hilarious, hottest, chase yet. With her loveably offbeat family along for the ride (as well as a few new faces), there's no doubt that the Stephanie Plum novels put the "fun" in dysfunctional.

Plum Lovin'($3.93 )is part of the Stephanie Plum Between-the-Numbers Novels series.

Mysterious men have a way of showing up in Stephanie Plum’s apartment. When the shadowy Diesel appears, he has a task for Stephanie—and he’s not taking no for an answer.

Annie Hart is a “relationship expert” who is wanted for armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Stephanie needs to find her, fast. Diesel knows where she is. So they make a deal: He’ll help her get Annie if Stephanie plays matchmaker to several of Annie’s most difficult clients.

But someone wants to find Annie even more than Diesel and Stephanie. Someone with a nasty temper. And someone with “unmentionable” skills.

Does Diesel know more than he’s saying about Annie Hart? Does Diesel have secrets he’s keeping from Stephanie and the two men in her life—Ranger and Morelli? With Stephanie Plum in over her head, things are sure to get a little dicey and a little explosive, Jersey style!

The Codex ($4.99), by Douglas Preston, just squeaks under my unofficial $5 limit for bargains. Most of Preston's books (the Pendergast series) are co-authored with Lincoln Child, but he proves in this one that he can stand-alone. The book description is pretty generic, mentioning only family, greed and power, but this is a tale of an ancient Mayan Codex of medicinal plants, worth billions to the pharmaceutical industry (whether to use or to suppress), hidden in a jungle along with other priceless objects, complete with a villain to thwart the quest to find the treasure. Sounds a lot like an Indiana Jones plot, actually.

Stephen King's Riding the Bullet ($2.00) was originally released as an ebook and only later found it's way into print. It makes you wonder if the Kindle exclusive, UR ($2.99) will do the same thing, someday.

"I've never told anyone this story, and never thought I would -- not because I was afraid of being disbelieved, exactly, but because I was ashamed...and because it was mine."

Thus begins the tale of a hitchhiker who gets picked up by a driver from the other side of the great divide. A Stephen King ghost story in the grand tradition, Riding the Bullet is the ultimate warning about the dangers of hitchhiking.

Colorado Kid ($3.99) isn't one of King's highest rated novels, possibly because some reviewers have trouble with the heavy Maine accents and the novel's conversational style (it's told entirely as a conversation between two newspaper journalists). Still, if you are a pulp fiction fan or like an old-fashioned yarn, you might want to check it out.

On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There's no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues, and it's more than a year before the man is identified.

And that's just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still?

Kindle Book Prices Rising?

Over the last few weeks, Kindle book prices have been a bit odd - as independent authors discovered that they would get a lower price and the same earnings for a $1.00 book versus one at 99 cents (and could earn more by setting the price at $1.24, which was discounted to $.99), a large number of them started changing prices. Some authors were doing so several times a week (or even a day, as they didn't realize it could take a few hours for the pricing genie to set the discounts). Just over a week ago, it seemed that the automatic discounting was stuck and some found their prices frozen - they set their list price to $1.00 or $1.24, but the sale price stayed at the previous level - I saw these at anywhere from $3.19 to $9.99, which it turned out was the magic discount for any indie title that had a digital list price of $24.99 or less and where the 20% discount was over $9.99 (and some authors intentionally set their prices a few pennies higher, as they didn't want their books discounted to the 9.99 level).

Since the first of July, a number of these authors have found that their books increased in price in the Kindle store - the automatic 20% discount that they had before was removed (one poor author had his set to $200.00 (The Grove), rather than his list price of $1.24 -- although I feel more sympathy for the 23 people who one-clicked his book from the end of the sample and were charged $200.00; hopefully they noticed and get their refunds). No one knows if the discounts will return and a few authors still have discounts set (these appear to be the better selling titles amongst the indie authors).

Happy Fourth of July - Free Music!

Amazon has a special offer for today's holiday - a free download of any (one) version of The Star Spangled Banner and a free album, Documentary Recordings Presents- Patriotic Music - Amazon Sampler. In addition, today's $1.99 album is the Steve Miller Band's Living In The U.S.A..

If you haven't purchased any music from Amazon before, you'll probably want their MP3 loader software (free and buying anything walks you thru it) and to be aware that MP3's are a download once item. I always leave the confirmation page on screen until I see that the file downloaded correctly and is loaded into iTunes (these are DRM-free MP3's, so will work in iTunes or any MP3 player, including the Kindle - use the MP3 loader to open the download directory, the drag the files into the MUSIC folder on your Kindle). There is a link on the confirmation page to restart your download (as well as to view your order to make sure you weren't overcharged) and once you leave that page, you'll have to call customer service if you need to re-download an item. One interesting bit of info on the Kindle family - the speakers have greatly improved with each version, from a single speaker of the Kindle to dual speakers on the Kindle2 to a blasting volume achievable on the KindleDX (we tried out the same book on a K2 and the DX, going at the same time and the DX was so loud you could not tell the K2 was even reading aloud).

Have a safe 4th of July! I'm off to start a BBQ, swim and maybe see a few fireworks.

Three Free Audiobooks from RandomHouse

If you sign up for their newsletter, RandomHouse will give you three free audiobooks. Give them your email address, confirm your subscription and you'll get a link to download all three in MP3 format that will work on the Kindle or any other MP3 player. You can use a throw-away address, just so long as it's one you can check (although I suspect they will honor a request to stop the newsletter). What you get:


Merrano of the Dry Country ($10.49 Audible) by Louis L'amour
Dinosaurs Before Dark (Magic Tree House, No. 1) ($3.99 Paperback) by Mary Pope Osborne
Percy Jackson and the Sword of Hades by Rick Riordan (UK Only paperback release)

Click HERE to sign up for the free downloads.

Buy One, Get One Free

From July 1st to July 31st, when you buy The Secret Speech ($9.99), by Tom Rob Smith, you'll automatically get the first book in the Leo Demidov series, Child 44, for free. Both will download to you Kindle at the same time and you'll see both in your Kindle Library (just don't one-click on Child 44, by mistake).

Book Description

Soviet Union, 1956. Stalin is dead, and a violent regime is beginning to fracture-leaving behind a society where the police are the criminals, and the criminals are innocent. A secret speech composed by Stalin's successor Khrushchev is distributed to the entire nation. Its message: Stalin was a tyrant. Its promise: The Soviet Union will change.

Facing his own personal turmoil, former state security officer Leo Demidov is also struggling to change. The two young girls he and his wife Raisa adopted have yet to forgive him for his part in the death of their parents. They are not alone. Now that the truth is out, Leo, Raisa, and their family are in grave danger from someone consumed by the dark legacy of Leo's past career. Someone transformed beyond recognition into the perfect model of vengeance.
From the streets of Moscow in the throes of political upheaval, to the Siberian gulags, and to the center of the Hungarian uprising in Budapest, THE SECRET SPEECH is a breathtaking, epic novel that confirms Tom Rob Smith as one of the most exciting new authors writing today.

For those with a Sony Reader, you can get the same deal (but at a higher price) HERE.