Free Book and 50% Sale at ARe/OmniLit

The first book in Leigh Ellwood's Dareville Series, Truth or Dare ($4.80 Kindle), is available for free today from All Romance eBooks, in the following (DRM'd and non-Kindle friendly) formats: Epub, Mobipocket, Rocket, Microsoft Reader, Adobe Acrobat, HTML. Please note the content warning from the ARe site (missing on the Amazon site, which has no cover on the Kindle edition, but a much racier cover on the out-of-print paperback).

Book Description
Dare you let the truth get in the way of love? Rock and roll legend Brady Garriston is in a slump, careerwise and in his love life. He is desperate for a comeback (and a "cum" back), and finds a possible solution in masquerading in small town Dareville, where he can clear the slate and start fresh. Brady finds his muse in the lovely and uninhibited school teacher Ellie Shaw, and soon the two are making more than just beautiful music together. But will Brady's deception bring on a sour note to their relationship? And what of the secret Ellie is keeping from Brady?

Warning: This book includes: scenes of graphic heterosexual and homosexual (M/M, light F/F) sex, three-way sex (MMF), and anal sex (M/F)

Click HERE for the free book.

Even if this book isn't your cup of tea, you might want to check out some of the other titles at AllRomanceeBooks.com and OmniLit.com, as they are having a big sale this weekend. You will receive 50% off on all titles purchased on through this weekend if you enter the code SBTBARe1 in your shopping cart and click on the “Calculate Discount” button. This offer expires at midnight 31 January 2010, 11:59 PM Mountain Standard Time.

Bestsellers for $5 - $7

Dear John ($4.39 Kindle and B&N), by Nicholas Sparks. Read the book the movie is based upon.

Book Description
An angry rebel, John dropped out of school and enlisted in the Army, not knowing what else to do with his life--until he meets the girl of his dreams, Savannah. Their mutual attraction quickly grows into the kind of love that leaves Savannah waiting for John to finish his tour of duty, and John wanting to settle down with the woman who captured his heart. But 9/11 changes everything. John feels it is his duty to re-enlist. And sadly, the long separation finds Savannah falling in love with someone else. "Dear John," the letter read...and with those two words, a heart was broken and two lives were changed forever. Returning home, John must come to grips with the fact that Savannah, now married, is still his true love--and face the hardest decision of his life.

The Last Song ($4.99 Kindle and B&N), also by Nicholas Sparks.

Book Description
Seventeen year old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alientated from her parents, especially her father...until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie's father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church.
The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story of love on many levels--first love, love between parents and children -- that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that love can break our hearts...and heal them.

The Lovely Bones ($4.99 Kindle and B&N), by Alice Sebold, is another book with a movie tie-in.

Book Description
Once in a generation a novel comes along that taps a vein of universal human experience, resonating with readers of all ages. The Lovely Bones is such a book - a phenomenal #1 bestseller celebrated at once for its narrative artistry, its luminous clarity of emotion, and its astoniishing power to lay claim to the hearts of millions of readers around the world.

"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."

---- So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on eath continue without her - her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling.

Let the Great World Spin ($6.75 Kindle and B&N), by Colum McCann, was free as a PDF download from Oprah last August. For those that missed it or just got their Kindle this past holiday season, this is a good time to consider picking it up.

Book Description
In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann’s stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people.

Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author’s most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s.

Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the middle of the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam, only to discover just how much divides them even in grief. A young artist finds herself at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth.

Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the “artistic crime of the century.” A sweeping and radical social novel, Let the Great World Spin captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. Hailed as a “fiercely original talent” (San Francisco Chronicle), award-winning novelist McCann has delivered a triumphantly American masterpiece that awakens in us a sense of what the novel can achieve, confront, and even heal.

Game of the Day - The Great Tree

Amazon's Game Download of the Day is a $1.29 download of The Great Tree. I've played a bit of the demo and it is definitely a gorgeous game, with exceptional graphics. The gameplay is pretty simple, but engaging (although one commenter calls it boring - those addicted to action games on the PS3/Xbox will probably not find this to be their type of game).

Game Description

• Save Your People From The Ixies.
• Fantastical Power-Ups Will Aid You In Your Quest.
• 10 Gorgeous And Engaging Environments.
• Amazing Creatures To Test Your Skills.

Fly into a magical world of mystery and adventure told through beautiful drawings and mesmerizing gameplay with Reflexive's enchanting game: The Great Tree! When the Pollen Collectors are bewitched, the faeries' survival rests upon the shoulders of their children. This quest will lead them directly into the dangers of the forest, where there are whispers of something sinister lurking in the shadows. The tree's life runs short. Set forth now to save the faeries in this grown-up tale of good and evil!

Free Books in Exchange for Reviews

Jason Matthews would like to get some reviews for his two spiritual fiction novels and is giving away copies to anyone that would agree to do a review. The offer was made on the Amazon forums and the link posted in the clear, so I am repeating it here. I'd assume the link will stop working when he feels enough people have downloaded the book or he gets the reviews he is looking for. It's all on the honor system, but if you enjoy his book, the links below will take you to the pages where you can post a review. Note that I haven't read either one so far, so can't comment on the content or quality.

The Little Universe ($4.95 Kindle)

Book Description
Rose Adams, spiritual scientist, bets her atheist husband she will convince him that some form of God must exist. The only problem; now she’s dead.

Webster, astronomer and inventor, carries out Rose’s final project, the Universe Generator. If it works, it will house a self-contained miniature universe, a simulation of the Big Bang on a much smaller scale.

With the help of his handyman, Jon, and the project’s central computer, Jim, they succeed in fulfilling Rose’s dream. The little universe looks and acts exactly as their own, only tiny in comparison.

Whitney Adams, college aged daughter, and Frank Maxwell, project financier, join in with the search for what lies inside. With powerful cameras and the ability to accelerate the time flow within it, they explore for planets and for life. Before long they find life in abundance. It's primitive at first, but after accelerating it through eons of evolution they find places beyond their wildest dreams; worlds of advanced alien societies.

The project becomes an overnight goldmine. Frank exploits the newfound aliens, while Whitney becomes intrigued with one planet’s people. As they meditate ritually, she watches and sits in the labroom and meditates with them. In time, Whitney becomes a medium for their wisdom. They seem to have access to the Akashic records, the collection of all things known. They have the answer to any possible question, including where to find the soul of Rose.

The underlying theme of The Little Universe is the connection of all life with something beyond, something undefinable, and something miraculous. Join Webster and the crew and find out if Rose was able to win her bet, if she was able to convince her husband that some form of God must exist.

Jim's Life ($4.95 Kindle)

Book Description
A teenage boy on trial can see and heal the human light fields, drawing comparisons to Christ while the world argues over his case. Sequel to The Little Universe, Jim gets his wish for the full human experience.

Australia 2150 AD

Jim experiences a soul transfer with the body of a 15 year old boy who died in an accident while running from a crime. Jim is revived in the hospital with amnesia and brain damage that affects his pineal gland and vision processing. Too much DMT (Dimethyltriptamine) is produced, a naturally occuring neurochemical that causes dreams and spiritual hallucinations. His vision is permanently altered so that he can see the chakras and auras of people as well as his own luminosities.

In time he learns to work with these light fields and becomes a miracle healer, drawing comparisons to Christ. All the while he's on trial for a crime he didn't commit. As his case becomes a source of global interest, two things become clear; a brutal rape occured and he can now heal others by touch.

As the environment reaches a frenzy, everyone wants a part of Jim. Nurses want to sleep with him, endorsements come from every angle, skeptics come to debunk him, patients need his healing touch, and still others want to train him to use his gifts and become the teacher that he was destined to be.

An epic story of religion and spirituality, the courts of justice and the power of love. Subjects include past life recall, psychic connections, world religions, healing by touch, Merkaba and astral travel, Flower of Life, sacred geometry and more.

Click HERE for the free downloads. There are versions that can be read on all the major readers out there - Kindle, EPUB and PDF.

Pre-Order New Releases under $9

John Lescroart's The Hunt Club ($3.61) isn't a quite a new release, since hardcover was published in early 2006, but it's a new to Kindle release still in the pre-order stage until June 1, 2010. The digital list price is $9.99, but the Kindle price is currently lowered to the same as the older hardcovers they are clearancing out (which means the price will probably go back up as soon as that inventory surplus is cleared).

Book Description
At first, The Hunt Club had a membership of one: private investigator Wyatt Hunt. Since then, others have joined with a common interest in obtaining justice. One member, inspector Devin Juhle, has just caught a major case: the shooting of a sixty-three-year old federal judge and his twentysomething mistress...

While Juhle works, Hunt plays, hooking up with TV star and legal analyst Andrea Parisi. But before Hunt knows it, Juhle's case will be of great interest to the members of The Hunt Club. Especially to Hunt himself-as Andrea's card is found in the wallet of one of the victims.

False Convictions ($8.31), by Tim Green. The price of this book will revert to $9.99 after the pre-order period ends on 5/10.

Book Description
In bestselling author Tim Green's latest thriller, Casey Jordan returns-seeking justice in a small town riddled with....

FALSE CONVICTIONS

Casey is counting on an open-and-shut case, a sure success for her first effort with the Freedom Project, the renowned charity group dedicated to helping exonerate wrongfully convicted prisoners. Not only is the Freedom Project giving Casey the chance to help innocent people, but its founder, Robert Graham, is offering Casey a one-million-dollar annual pledge to her legal clinic for taking on just two jobs a year.

Her first assignment is to revive the case of Dwayne Hubbard, an indigent black man serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of a college student seventeen years ago. Using DNA evidence, Casey expects to easily prove Hubbard's innocence. Yet when she arrives in rural Auburn, New York, she meets immediate and aggressive resistance.

Tormented by death threats and assassination attempts, Casey investigates a prosecution apparently rife with lies. From the judge, the lawyers, the jury, to the police, she traces a web of corruption surrounding the destruction of one young man. But in all the chaos, Casey's hardest challenge may be just staying alive.