There are a number of (mostly) independent authors who either have their books marked down for the holidays or have new books that have just been released. Some of the sale prices may continue thru the end of the year, while others are tied to the number of books sold. As always, be sure to sample before buying, as formatting and editing quality can vary widely with self-published works and I definitely haven't had the time to sample them all (le alone read them).
Sins of the Past (
$1.00 Kindle), by Sierra Rose, is free on Smashwords, using coupon code
MV88Z.
Book DescriptionTiger Force, a team of U.S. sanctioned secret warriors, tasked with protecting the world from those who would destroy it!
When a piece of the past comes back to haunt a member of Tiger Force and he chooses to deal with it on his own rather than risk the lives of his partners things go brutally awry in ways that none of them could have foreseen.
Rafael Valdez believed that most of his family to be dead so when a long-lost older brother appears with more knowledge on his current activities with the President's international team of warriors he chooses to handle the situation alone by quitting the team and going back to Cuba. At least that was his plan.
When one of his teammates' chooses to follow, the danger to both of them increases dramatically as it's revealed who the elder Valdez is working with and Rafael's loyalty is put to the test when he must choose family over friendship. His brother over the woman he loves.
Tiger Force and their allies struggle past red tape and political wrangling to get into the high mountains of Cuba to save their friends or avenge them at the very least as Sins of the Past return.
Haven (
free Smashwords), by Justin Kemppainen
Book DescriptionThe Citizens of Haven have finally realized their dream; separation. They have ascended. A new layer has been placed upon the city, sealing anyone they deem unfit down below. In the dark slums beneath the city, something has been set in motion that will usher in a change. Something that will rattle the city of Haven to its core and forever alter the lives of everyone within.
The Storms of Eternity (
$0.99 Kindle), by Robert Williams, is "You Set the Price" on Smashwords thru the end of the year. Even if you downloaded it earlier, you may want to "buy" it now (just use $0.00 as the price), so that it stays in your library. That way, if the book is pulled or goes up in price (as it will in January), you can download it again anytime you wish.
Book DescriptionMike, Reese, Josh and Jen are sailing down the Alaskan coast when they are struck by a violent storm, which casts them into a nightmare landscape where clouds cover the Earth with darkness and two factions battle for dominance. The friends must fight for their lives and freedom as they are drawn towards the being that has brought them into this apocalyptic future for its own enigmatic plans.
When Babies Dream (
$0.99 Kindle), by James Dunn, is free on Smashwords with coupon code
EP49S or
QY58A.Book DescriptionRescued from neglect, an eighteen month old biracial girl named Ciara is sent to live with Jim, a young and single white foster father who is afraid to take her at first. Over the next eight months, Ciara and Jim become the most unlikely of families until time carries both away.
When Ciara dreams, a tornado comes for her. The tornado is strong enough to carry away but inside things are calm, just a little windy. Safe inside her tornado, Ciara finds windows of all kinds, some with fancy curtains, some even shaped like triangles floating all around her like moons. When she looks out the windows, Ciara sees her favorite memories of her life with Jim playing like scenes from a movie.
Forced to see Jim only in dreams, she relives the time when her life was safe and she got to be a kid. From the moment she was taken away from her mom to the moment when Jim was carried away, too is what Ciara sees, When Babies Dream.
A short story, easy to enjoy in a single viewing, and perfect for when you are between novels or have a limited time to read.
Wet Desert (
$0.99 Kindle), by Gary Hansen, has actually been at this price for a while. I bought it after reading just a few pages of the sample and read it thru in just a couple of days (and late nights).
Definitely recommended!Book DescriptionGrant Stevens, a mid-level manager for the Bureau of Reclamation, only wanted to build dams. He never imagined he would be swept into a desperate race against an environmental terrorist bent on restoring the Colorado River by blowing up the dams. Left temporarily in charge of the Bureau, Grant must react when the first dam is attacked. He faces the unthinkable task of mitigating the massive flood roaring down the Colorado. The flood will eventually threaten the mighty Hoover Dam, and if Hoover fails, the other dams downstream will fall like dominos. Working with the FBI, Grant uses his engineering skills, river knowledge, and plenty of gut instinct in an attempt to outmaneuver the terrorist. The chase will lead all the way downstream to the Gulf of California in a cat and mouse game where the stakes are high and the potential for destruction is enormous.
Whitney Award Finalist.
Mercury Falls (
$0.99 Kindle and
Smashwords), by Robert Kroese. I haven't read this one, but have seen several favorable reviews.
Book DescriptionYears of covering the antics of End Times cults for The Banner, a religious news magazine, have left Christine Temetri not only jaded but seriously questioning her career choice.
That is, until she meets Mercury, an anti-establishment angel who’s frittering his time away whipping up batches of Rice Krispy Treats and perfecting his ping-pong backhand instead of doing his job: helping to orchestrate Armageddon. With the end near and angels and demons debating the finer political points of the Apocalypse, Christine and Mercury accidentally foil an attempt to assassinate one Karl Grissom, a thirty-seven-year-old film school dropout about to make his big break as the Antichrist.
Now, to save the world, she must negotiate the byzantine bureaucracies of Heaven and Hell and convince the apathetic Mercury to take a stand, all the while putting up with the obnoxious mouth-breathing Antichrist.
Regression (
$0.99 Kindle and
Smashwords), by Kathy Bell
Book DescriptionFourteen-year-old Adya Jordan swears that before her head injury she was a forty-year-old mother of six. Is she going crazy, or did she really live through an entirely different life? 1985 is nothing like she remembers, although her first day of high school certainly is!
A typical girl with atypical genes, Adya tries to recapture her old life, hiding her growing conviction that she has done this before. The man she loves doesn't even know she exists yet, but she is haunted by memories of their life together.
Accidentally discovering the secretive Three Eleven Corporation might know more about her situation than she does, she is certain the twenty-eight men heading up the company are responsible for the changes in her world. Adya finds her way into their ranks, journeying to the tropical island headquarters to begin her twenty-week orientation.
Every third chapter, diary entries of scientist Nicholas Weaver are written from the future, the last survivor of the human race. He never quite tells readers all the details but the journal entries allude to a global disaster where one of Adya's children offers the last hope of survival. A maudlin but affable type, he is responsible for sending Adya back in time, doing it for the love of a woman. Over and over again for more than ten lifetimes - now that's love.
The Three Eleven Company controls the development and distribution of Twenty-first Century technology brought with them from the future. Charged with the task of preparing the world for the impending disaster, each member of the team uses his scientific background to create a solution for a problem the planet does not know it is facing. But Adya begins to question their program.
Banished to the frozen Canadian Shield for challenging the status quo, she finds the men in the underground city of Sanctum are interested in more than just her genes as they search for the answer to her presence in the timeline.
In the end, Adya encounters a choice no mother should ever face: save her children...or everyone else.
The Red Cross of Gold VII: The Wisdom of Solomon (
$0.99), by Brendan Carroll
Book DescriptionThe Chevaliere Meredith Sinclair must use her powers as the Knight of the Wisdom of Solomon to locate her missing daughter while coping with the rivalry between the Knight of Death and the Knight of the Golden Eagle for her attentions . At the same time, the Mad Arab, al Hafiz al Sajek, becomes more entangled in the affairs of the Order of the Red Cross of Gold as he plots to use Meredith's gifted daughter to further his own ends. As the prophecies continue to unfold, John Paul contemplates the eventual loss of his wife since he became a member of the Order as the Knight of the Orient after Sir Philip Cambrique died in an unfortunate accident.
The River (
$0.99), by Maria Rachel Hooley
Book DescriptionWhen Diana Newport nearly drowns, she finds herself on the razor's edge between life and death, where she is reunited with her dead sister. When she comes back from the brink, however, into the land of the living, she knows at at once something is wrong. Someone else has returned as well, a disgruntled Vietnam vet ferrying with him the soul of a serial killer executed for his crimes against humanity. Now, in a desperate race against time that will try her faith to the utmost, Diana must stop him before he exacts his revenge.
Days' End (
$0.99), by Scott L. Collins
Book DescriptionNysa is an up and coming DNA retrieval expert well known in the scientific community for her advances in the technology used in the field. After being recruited to work on a secret project by an extraordinarily wealthy and mysterious benefactor, Nysa is moved to a hidden lab outside Denver, Colorado. Isolated from the world and forbidden from contact with anyone outside the facility, she is unaware of the strange occurrences that begin to plague the planet. Her fiance Alastair becomes concerned about her welfare and, with the help of his father, begins a frantic search for her. They soon come to realize that their quest is producing more questions than answers, and some very unsettling questions at that.
Only one person, the silent man financing the operation, knows the true nature of the experiment. Although unaware of his true identity, Alastair comes to realize his foe will stop at nothing to see the experiment through to its completion.
Time Storm 2012: Atlantis and the Mayan Prophecy (
$0.99), by Juliann Farnsworth
Book DescriptionTime Storm 2012 is a science fiction mystery full of action, adventure and romance.
While doing research on the unusual occurrences in the Bermuda Triangle, Dr. Mark Turner, a scientist with a double Ph.D. in Oceanographic Seismology and Physics, will uncover something for which the government is willing to kill. Getting more than he bargained for, his discoveries will not only unlock the mysteries of the Devil's Triangle and the Mayan doomsday predictions about the year 2012, but also what happened to the lost city of Atlantis. Will he make the ultimate sacrifice to save the world if it is even possible? His search for the truth will also lead him to love but is she an ally or is she an enemy?
Much of the story line has been taken from real science and terrifyingly real scientific research and discoveries. It will keep you guessing on every page. Are we standing on the precipice of a disaster of our own making? The countdown to 2012 has begun.
Identity Crisis (
$0.99), by Debbi Mack
Book Description
A simple domestic abuse case turns deadly when the alleged abuser is killed and Stephanie Ann “Sam” McRae’s client disappears. When a friend asks Sam to find Melanie Hayes, the Maryland attorney is drawn into a complex case of murder and identity theft that has her running from the Mob, breaking into a strip club and forming a shaky alliance with an offbeat private investigator to discover the truth about Melanie and her ex-boyfriend.
With her career and life on the line, Sam’s search takes her from the blue-collar Baltimore suburbs to the mansions of Gibson Island. Along the way, she learns that false identities can hide dark secrets, and those secrets can destroy lives.
Twilight in the Spaces Between (
$0.99), by David R Williams
Book DescriptionTwilight in the Spaces Between is about a disgraced policewoman who travels to the ancestral home of the serial killer who caused her downfall to take her revenge. He has escaped from prison. She knows he will want to “come home” before he is captured. Believing her to be his fiancée she is welcome with open arms by his family. There she is drawn into a strange neo-gothic world haunted by murder, abuse, ghosts and dark memories. 
The Horns of September (
$1.00) and
The White Lady Murders (
$1.00), by Wendy Potocki
Book DescriptionThe White Lady Murders
In a Malibu beach house, David Lynx struggles with writing with his latest tour de force – a book on magic. It’s a subject he knows nothing about. In a desperate attempt to understand, he decides to perform an ancient ritual not realizing that he will unwittingly open a door for a forty-year-old unsolved murder spree to start all over again.
While The White Lady Murders is immersed in the supernatural, fans desiring a solid murder mystery will not be disappointed. At its core, The White Lady Murders offers an action-packed detective story replete with a hard-boiled, hard-nosed police officer named Robert Moran leading the charge. Moran is a veteran police officer who vividly remembers the original murders that occurred during The Summer of Blood. The string of vicious crimes terrorized the city and held its residents captive in the killer's steely grip. No one felt safe and now Moran desperately races to solve the mystery of who or what is behind the new wave of brutal killings to prevent The White Lady Murders from beginning again.
The White Lady Murders is the book that will keep you guessing up until the very end!
The Horns of September
Date: September 1961
Place: Longview, South Carolina
Nickname: Shucktown
Unofficial Motto: Someone is always shuckin’ something in Shucktown
Dilemma: All is not right in Shucktown. Just ask Chuck Beckett. He’s young, in love and readying his group to audition for Motown Records. He’s sure his will be the first interracial group signed by the emerging recording giant. He should be on top of the world, but he’s not. For despite living out his dreams, Chuck feels as if he’s headed for certain disaster. Repressed memories have begun to surface in the form of dark, paralyzing depressions. These debilitating episodes convince him of one thing – that he is soon about to die. Chuck tries his best to shake it off as so much teenage angst. He finds it increasingly difficult to do so after the good friend who warns him about “the devils in Shucktown,” winds up murdered. Her death is the catalyst that leads Chuck Beckett to step out of his comfort zone to confront cabals, demons, monsters knitted out of darkness and all the horrors that arise from the curse known as The Horns of September.
Storytellers (
$0.99), by Martin C Sharlow, is a young adult title and the author's first novel.
Book DescriptionA deadly living darkness sweeps across the city states of Myrrh, a land where a mighty council of Sages conjure magical creations through the use of stories.
Join Alena and Gailen, two apprentice Sages bereft of guidance, and a strange young man named Targ, discovered at the close of a legendary cloudless storm, as they struggle to survive in a world foreign to evil..
As old laws are shattered, and the impossible becomes possible, those who survive must learn to unlock the possibilities hidden within themselves.
The Doom Guardian (
$3.99), by Julie Ann Dawson
Book Description
For centuries, the Spirit Wall has protected the world from the terrible powers of the undead god Vagruth. But now the Spirit Wall has begun to crumble, and with it the only thing preventing the world from becoming overrun by undead hordes.
Nadia Gareth knows all too well the evils that lurk in the hearts of the Vagruth's minions, the Necromancers. Nadia walks the land as a dhampir, a cursed thing trapped between the worlds of the living and the dead as a result of the Necromancers' vile experiments. Yet her curse also gives her the strength she needs to combat the forces that seek to turn everything around her into an undead waste. But this is one fight that may be too much for her to handle alone.
Darseidon Stonecleaver survived the War of Reckoning, and now journeys to the Mouth of Chaos to retrieve the Chaos Diamond, the one thing powerful enough to save the Spirit Wall from destruction. As he enters his Twilight, the aging dwarf knows it isn't a matter of if he will die, but when. He can only hope to complete his last mission before it is too late.
Nigel Stormthorn just wants to escape town with his stolen gems, but finds himself caught up in events that may determine the fate of the world. As his survival instincts wage war against his meddlesome empathy, he discovers that perhaps his gems are of less value than the secret that resides within him.
Cyberdrome (
$0.99), by Joseph & David Rhea
Book DescriptionHuman minds are trapped inside a digital universe.
One man has a daring plan to rescue them.
One problem: Who will rescue him?
A familiar shape emerges from the darkness - a large, metallic gray sphere held up by eight piston-driven legs sprouting from its top. While he should be terrified, Alek is strangely fascinated by the Spider as it draws closer - it's more than a robot, it's a living machine. And like most living things, it's not alone...
Alek Grey is a programmer who specializes in preventing break-ins to secure computer systems. When a company owned by his estranged father calls him in after their system is compromised, he is shocked to learn that his father is one of over forty people trapped in a revolutionary new form of neural interface. When an attempted rescue mission goes horribly wrong, Alek realizes that there is only one way to save the people he loves.
And that might mean risking the fate of humanity itself.
Look Away Silence (
$0.99), by Edward C. Patterson
Book DescriptionMartin Powers wanted an ironing board for Christmas. Instead, he got . . . Matthew Kieler, a non-returnable gift, but a gift that kept on giving. Chance encounters are sometimes the ones that most change our lives. He sold Matt a tie, but got more in the bargain - more than most people would want and more than anyone deserved. Although these lovers may not have had the pink American dream, they had it better than most, even as they faced a crisis that would change us all.
Look Away Silence is a romance set in the time of AIDS, when ignorance could spell trouble and often did. It encompasses the author’s experiences in volunteer community service and personal friendships during a tragic period in American history. The novel is dedicated to the Hyacinth AIDS Foundation, the NAMES Project and to the author’s own fallen angels. "Mothers, do not shun your children, because you never know how long you have to revel in them."
In the post on Christmas Eve was an unexpected package from Harlequin - five paperback copies of The Cowboy's Christmas Miracle ($3.60 Kindle), by Raeanne Thayne. Included was a Christmas card and a letter encouraging me to give away the extra copies. 
). I checked my email and I have a $5 promotional credit because I bought some type of electronics in the lead-up to Christmas, so that means for $2.99, I can buy two albums.
