Free Book - The Purification Ceremony

The Purification Ceremony, by Mark T Sullivan, is out of print, but has been made available by the author at Smashwords. Normally $6.99, you can pick it up for free if you'll share your (account) email address with the author. This 1996 book was an Edgar Awards finalist, won the W.H. Smith Award for best “new talent” author, and was named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times. A bestselling thriller, it has been translated into fourteen languages.

Book Description

At a young age in the Maine woods, Diana Jackman learned to move freely in the wilderness, to sense a world invisible to most. A natural tracker from

a long line of shamans, healers, and hunters--an estranged wife and mother--she has returned to the woods to find again a place of magic...and death.

Eight hunters have gathered on an isolated estate in Bristish Columbia to track record book whitetail dear. But someone else is watching the hunting party--an insane and violent force of nature, hiding in the blinding whiteness of the Canadian winter. And now the hunters themselves have become the game.

For the first time in her life, Diana Jackman will know what it is to be prey.

To survive she will have to rely on her father's teachings, and set out alone to hunt the hunter.

This is the first of six books he'll be giving away, all for the cost of your email address. He explanation, from his website:

If you read one of my stories of suspense and intrigue and do not enjoy it, you have not spent a dime, and I hope you’ll try another. They’re all different.

And if you read another one and like it, awesome. You are still under no obligation to pay me anything, nor do I expect it.

But if you do like my books, and if you feel so inclined, you may return to my download page at www.SmashWords.com --my very cool partner in this experiment in new media publishing -- and send me a donation equal to what you think the experience of reading the novel was worth. Half of every donation will in turn be donated to non-profits that promote reading and writing.

Now you might give a plug nickel for my writing or my plotlines and that’s cool. As my grandmother used to say, “One man’s honey is another woman’s vinegar. “ But if you do like my stories and want to help promote literacy, I suggest a donation somewhere on a sliding scale of between $5 and $10.
...
You’re asking: What is there to stop me from downloading one of Sullivan’s books, liking it, but then not sending him a donation?

Nothing. And you know what? That’s cool too. I’m just happy you enjoyed my storytelling, and I hope you come back to read another free book next month.

More Holiday Music

First, a new release today from Amazon:

Boogaloo Santa Claus by J.D. McDonald

Then, two singles courtesy of Oprah:

From Andrea Bocelli's My Christmas album, a duet with Mary J. Blige: "What Child Is This"

From Sugarland's album Gold And Green, "Silent Night"

Click HERE for the Oprah downloads (valid from November 30 at 10 a.m. CT to December 1 at 11 p.m. CT)

As of 2PM EST, you can also get a $5.99 price on Christmas From The Heart, by David Archuleta, in the CyberMonday Music Deals Lightning Deals.

Plum Spooky (Hardcover) - $4.19

Plum Spooky ($18.45; $9.99 Kindle), by Janet Evanovich, the first full-length Stephanie Plum Between-the-Numbers Novel, is currently marked down to $4.19 as part of Amazons's CyberMonday Deals in Books. Click on the link, then look in the lightning deals to get the special price.

Book Description
Turn on all the lights and check under your bed. Things are about to get spooky in Trenton, New Jersey. According to legend, the Jersey Devil prowls the Pine Barrens and soars above the treetops in the dark of night. As eerie as this might seem, there are things in the Barrens that are even more frightening and dangerous. And there are monkeys. Lots of monkeys. Wulf Grimoire is a world wanderer and an opportunist who can kill without remorse and disappear like smoke. He’s chosen Martin Munch, boy genius, as his new business partner, and he’s chosen the Barrens as his new playground. Munch received his doctorate degree in quantum physics when he was twenty-two. He’s now twenty-four, and while his brain is large, his body hasn’t made it out of the boys’ department at Macy’s. Anyone who says good things come in small packages hasn’t met Munch. Wulf Grimoire is looking for world domination. Martin Munch would be happy if he could just get a woman naked and tied to a tree. Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has Munch on her most-wanted list for failure to appear in court. Plum is the all-American girl stuck in an uncomfortable job, succeeding on luck and tenacity. Usually she gets her man. This time she gets a monkey. She also gets a big guy named Diesel. Diesel pops in and out of Plum’s life like birthday cake – delicious to look at and taste, not especially healthy as a steady diet, gone by the end of the week if not sooner. He’s an über bounty hunter with special skills when it comes to tracking men and pleasing women. He’s after Grimoire, and now he’s also after Munch. And if truth were told, he wouldn’t mind setting Stephanie Plum in his crosshairs. Diesel and Plum hunt down Munch and Grimoire, following them into the Barrens, surviving cranberry bogs, the Jersey Devil, a hair-raising experience, sand in their underwear, and, of course . . . monkeys.

Free Christmas Music Samplers and $2.99 Sinatra

Get into the holiday spirit with Sampler Claus, a collection of timeless Christmas classics by Frank Sinatra, Mahalia Jackson, Mario Lanza, and more, courtesy of Amazon and Columbia/Legacy Records or get X5's Free Classical Christmas Sampler (or a second version of the same album, HERE).

You may also want to check out A Jolly Christmas From Frank Sinatra ($2.99), which is today's MP3 Album of the Day, or The 99 Most Essential Christmas Masterpieces ($5.00) for nearly six hours of traditional orchestral Christmas music.

You can also find about 30 singles at the top of these two searches: Holiday Music and Christmas Music.

Amazon Sales on Print Books

In addition to their usual 4 for 3 Book Promotion, Amazon has a few other book deals going on for Black Friday/CyberMonday. I know they aren't ebooks, but I thought I'd highlight a few for those buying books as gifts or looking for children's books, as the illustrations often don't translate well to e-ink (at least, not yet).

First there is the Dr. Seuss: Three Books for the Price of Two sale. There are seven pages of books, all at essentially full price (at a quick glance, I saw prices ranging from $3.99 to just over $10, with $8.99 for many). Put three into your cart and check out and the least expensive of the three will be free (you won't see the promotion until the last page, when you confirm the order - look to the upper right where the total is and you should see a "promotion" applied as a discount). You can generally take advantage of this type of sale more than once by simply submitting multiple orders, but watch your total if you want free SuperSaver shipping, as you have to get above $25 each time (before the promotional discount). Amazon has also set up a special Gift Books for Kids and Teens page that can help with picking out gifts, as it has categories by age and suggestions to read after finishing Twilight, for example.

A second sale is their Three for Two: Paperback Favorites promotion. This one currently has 553 books included and the prices seem to be discounted even before the third one free is added in. If you check out the listings, the Kindle version (if it exists) is often sale priced as well, such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, for $6.00 in Paperback and on Kindle and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society , by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows, for $5.50 in Paperback and on Kindle. You can browse thru the entire list as a whole, or by categories: Bestsellers, Contemporary Classics, Cookbooks, Mysteries: First in the Series, History & Popular Science.

There is also a CyberMonday Deals in Books page already active (although there are no Lightning Deals active - I'd bet they start tomorrow at 3AM EST). Here I found some real bargains, such as Running with Scissors: A Memoir for $2.55 (Paperback; $7.99 Kindle) and some relative bargains, such as Rose's Heavenly Cakes for $19.07 (Hardcover - if you overindulge with this one, check out The South Beach Diet: Good Fats, Good Carbs Guide $5.11 Kindle) and Dilbert 2.0: 20 Years of Dilbert ($26.67 Hardcover, marked down from $80.00), which has 576 pages of the best of Dilbert from the last 20 years, as well as a DVD with every Dilbert comic strip to April 2008.

Here are some of the other deals I spotted there:

• Last Known Address, by Theresa Schwegel - $4.99 Hardcover; $3.99 Kindle
• Dune Road, by Jane Green - $9.27 Hardcover; $7.42 Kindle
• Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace 1957-1958 (Vol. 4), by Hank Ketcham - $4.28 Hardcover
• Exit Ghost, by Philip Roth - $4.03 Hardcover; $3.22 Kindle
• The Eleventh Man, by Ivan Doig- $3.98 Hardcover; $3.18 Kindle
• College Girl, by Patricia Weitz - $4.04 Hardcover; $3.23 Kindle
• Liberty: A Lake Wobegon Novel, by Garrison Keillor- $5.83 Hardcover; $5.83 Kindle
• Songs for the Missing, by Stewart O'Nan- $2.53 Hardcover; $2.02 Kindle
• Golden Country, by Jennifer Gilmore - $3.23 Paperback; $2.58 Kindle
• Untamed, by Steve Bloom (Photographer) - $7.87 Paperback
• Jan Karon's Mitford Cookbook and Kitchen Reader, by Jan Karon- $9.26 Hardcover
• Cowboy & Wills: A Love Story, by Monica Holloway- $9.84 Hardcover; $9.84 Kindle
• What Would Susie Say?: Bullsh*t Wisdom About Love, Life and Comedy, by Susie Essman - $6.75 Hardcover; $6.75 Kindle
• The Intellectual Devotional Modern Culture: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Converse Confidently with the Culturati, by David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim - $8.75 Hardcover; $8.75 Kindle

and some Children's Books:

• Ghosthunters And The Incredibly Revolting Ghost, by Cornelia Funke - $2.74 Hardcover
• The Shadowmancer Returns: The Curse of Salamander Street, by G. P. Taylor - $2.12 Hardcover; $9.99 Kindle
• Dinomummy , by Phillip Manning - $2.95 Hardcover
• The Enchanted World of Winnie the Pooh, by A. A. Milne; Ernest H. Shepard (Illustrator) - $4.90 Hardcover
• The Tale of Despereaux Special Edition: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread, by Kate DiCamillo; Timothy Basil Ering (Illustrator)- $6.15 Hardcover; $6.15 Kindle
• Hannah Montana: Backstage Pass, by M. C. King - $4.02 Hardcover

Last, they have set up a few eclectic collections by price: Bargains under $5, Bargains under $10 and Bargains under $20.