Borders bookstore extended their
Kobo WiFi Reader
sale thru the weekend. You can still get one for $99 at Borders.com or your local Borders store (print
this coupon to take with you). The WiFi is used pretty much only for connecting to the Borders (or Kobo) store, but it is faster and has a nicer screen than the original Kobo (comparable to the Kindle2). Besides library books, one reason you might want to pick it up is for the added selection of free books you can access, as well as the ability to use coupons at places like
Kobobooks.com
. Currently, for example, you can still get Diana Gabaldon's
Outlander
or Virginia Brown's
Dixie Divas
free at Borders ($7.01 and $8.59 at Amazon) or use a coupon at Kobo to get Karen Marie Moning's
Shadowfever
($9.99) at a substantial discount. Current coupon codes that I know are working are
Jan20us15,
Jan20ca15 (both 20%, unlimited use),
35%offbook (one use),
save25kobo (unlimited),
FirstRead and
fbreading (one use). Two more free at Borders:
Dancing In The Lowcountry
, by James Villas, and
Admit One: My Life In Film
, by Emmett James. If you are in the Borders store checking out the readers, don't forget your
33% coupon
to use on any one item (not the reader, you need the first coupon for it, but works in the cafe). As someone pointed out on the other post, you do have to be a borders rewards member, but you can sign up online for free (they have two levels, one free and one with higher discounts that costs you a net $10). If you go to the stores at all, it's worth joining for the coupons and free coffee on your birthday.
Blood and Rust (
$3.99), by S.A. Swiniarski, would be a good price for one novel, but you get two complete novels for the price of one and the beginning chapter sucked me right in.
Book Description
FINALLY BACK IN PRINT AND IN A SINGLE VOLUME-TWO NOVELS FEATURING VAMPIRES IN CLEVELAND
Finally back in print, Raven and The Flesh, The Blood, and The Fire are two boundary-breaking novels set in Cleveland, Ohio-but is this an average American city with hardworking families striving to fulfill the American dream-or the kind of town where death is anything but final and one's neighbors may not be as normal as they seem?
Gary Cummiskey's poetry collection
Bog Docks, is free from the publisher, Dye Hard Press,
HERE.
Book Description
Bog Docks consisits of 28 surreal poems that explore, and challenge, the schizophrenic and often brutal nature of contemporary society. It is a poetry that is not afraid to take risks as it journeys across the hazardous frontiers of the known.
Triggerfish Twist with Bonus Content (
$1.99), by Tim Dorsey, is back in the Kindle store, now that
Electric Barracuda (
$11.99) arrives in just days. You can also still get
Orange Crush for $4.99.
Book Description
When Tim Dorsey sat down to write his first novel, the hilarious and hugely successful Florida Roadkill, he killed off way too many people. Now he needs them back. So in Triggerfish Twist, he invites us to take a warped trip in time as Dorsey reunites the living and the soon to be very dead.
And for the uninitiated, what a perfect place to start! Set during the summer before Roadkill's pyrotechnic climax, Dorsey's fourth novel is both a fond and perverse anti-rhapsody to the typical Florida neighborhood, as seen through the eyes of Jim Davenport, a mild-mannered, midwestern family man whose company transfers him to the Sunshine State. He purchases a lovely tropical villa on the equally idyllic Triggerfish Lane, and his family appears to have found paradise.
But it is a long, hot summer, and soon the layers are peeled back one by one to reveal all is not right in utopia. Yuppies with pit bulls, hot-rodding pizza deliverymen, Machiavellian used car salesmen, Rastafarians who refuse to smoke dope, floating pawn shops on crack street, neighborhood crime watch teams running for their lives, after-midnight clientele at 24-hour supermarkets that put zombie movies to shame, unnatural sex, casual violence, gore, blasphemy, and people who write checks at convenience stores.
It all becomes too much for Jim, and before this peaceful Indiana farm boy knows what's happened to him, he's gone and killed someone. Of course, as odds are, it was someone who richly deserved it, and police officially rule the homicide extremely justified.
Unfortunately for Jim, he has killed the youngest of the infamous McGraw Brothers, who are released from prison near a NASCAR track in Alabama and head south, bent on revenge.
Not enough, you say? Okay, Serge Storms and his cohorts Coleman and Sharon are forced to move when the latter two burn down several blocks of Tampa's historic Latin Quarter during a wacky binge of freebasing hijinks. They naturally rent a house across the street from the Davenports, and Serge decides to take Jim under his wing, determined to teach him the local history and the secrets of satisfying his woman.
The McGraw Brothers continue south.
Sharon hallucinates on coke.
Coleman refills his beer helmet.
Serge becomes a Little League coach.
And when the confluence of people and events is just about to boil over, everyone converges on Triggerfish Lane for the big Fourth of July block party, setting the stage for another knee- slapping bloodbath.
Once again, it's another day in Dorsey's paradise...
The Bewildered (
$6.17 Kindle), by Peter Rock, is $2.99
at B&N.
Book Description
A riveting novel about electricity, skateboarding, blindness, friendship, and the hope for something new.
In Portland, Oregon, three high school friends—Leon, Chris, and Kayla—skateboard beneath the Burnside Bridge, study languages and classical music, and try to avoid the superficiality they witness in the world around them. The only adult they suspect might hold secrets worth knowing is Natalie—a strange, forgetful woman who hires them to illegally harvest copper wire from electrical lines outside the city.
The three friends become intrigued by Natalie: her odd behavior, her obsession with the Playboy Playmates of 1976, the exposed wiring in her trailer, and her seeming ability to subsist on Tang and beef jerky. The more they learn, the less they understand.
When a disastrous accident leads the three on an adventure through underground tunnels and into the back rooms of Chinatown, they discover a remarkable group of people who are almost impossible to recognize, yet possess unique needs and powers. And the friends are not alone in attempting to study, use, and perhaps even join the ranks of the bewildered.
Shadowmagic (
$3.06), by John Lenahan
Book Description
Conor thought he was an average teenager. OK, so his father only had one hand, spoke to him in ancient languages and was a bit on the eccentric side but, other than that, life was fairly normal. Until, that is, two Celtic warriors on horseback and wearing full armour appear at his front door and try to kill him. After that, things get pretty weird. Shadowmagic is a fantasy adventure for young adults (although grown ups will like it too). Written by one of the most popular magicians in the country it brings a fresh approach to the genre and will have a broad appeal beyond the fantasy sections.
Erynn Mangum's
Miss Match (Lauren Holbrook Series, Book 1) (
$2.78) and
Match Point (Lauren Holbrook Series, Book 3) (
$1.43) are at bargain prices once again.
Book Description
Lauren Holbrook has found her life's calling: matchmaking for the romantically challenged. And with the eclectic cast of characters in her world, there's tons of potential to play "connect the friends."
Lauren sets out to introduce Nick, her carefree singles' pastor, to Ruby, her neurotic coworker who plans every second of every day. What could possibly go wrong? Just about everything.
The Queens of K-town (
$1.70), by Angela Hur
Book Description
Reminiscent of Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides and Joyce Carol Oates’s Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, The Queens of K-town introduces us to twenty-six-year-old Cora Moon. She returns to New York bruised, broken-hearted, and on the verge of ending it all. Ten years after she watched her best friend leap off the roof of a building, she’s trying to hold onto the pieces of her own fragile existence while reliving her past.
Her days are flooded with memories of her first summer there, when she became entrenched in a tight-knit group of girls who roamed the fluorescent alleyways of K-town. Along with her new teenage friends—Bev, Mina, and Soo Young—Cora navigated the fast-paced maze of nightclubs and hostess bars, engaging in backroom brawls and disastrous private meals with Korean mafia members.
A haunting tale of desire and loss, and sex and suicide, The Queens of K-Town marks the arrival of a brave new voice in fiction.
Eight Weeks in Washington, 1861: Abraham Lincoln and the Hazards of Transition (
$4.99), by Richard J. Tofel, is a pre-order for February 11, 2011.
Book Description
As we celebrate 150 years since Lincoln first took the oath of office on March 4, 1861, a reappraisal of Lincoln’s first eight weeks in office is in order. A close look at those weeks, our most hazardous transition, reveals a time when the fate of the nation’s capital, certainly of the Lincoln Administration, and perhaps of the nation itself, seemed very much in doubt.
This is a story of a president uncertain and sometimes amateurish, of a man not yet fully recognized as a legitimate leader, of an executive anxious to the point of illness, of a beleaguered figure, occasionally despairing, but also starting to find his footing. Lincoln himself soon remembered it as the most troubled and anxious time of his life, one that might actually have threatened his physical survival. In a sense, it is a story of Abraham Lincoln the human being beginning to become the Abraham Lincoln we now recall.
Teresa Medeiros, author of
The Devil Wears Plaid (
$7.99), has two romances at $3.99 currently:
Thief of Hearts and
Whisper of Roses.
Thief of Hearts
Prim and pampered, Lucina Snow knew little of men and nothing of danger, until the fog-shrouded night she found herself abducted—and at the mercy of the legendary Captain Doom. Ruthless and mocking, tender and virile, the notorious pirate awakened all Lucy's passionate longings, then abandoned her with nothing but a kiss...
Now safely at home, the alluring waif is tormented by treacherous memories—and by the presence of Gerard Claremont, her mysterious new bodyguard. Everything about him, from his forbidding size to his impertinent manner, sparks her defiance. And even when Gerard's smile turns seductive, no one can make her forget Doom. Yet only when Lucy's path crosses the captain's once more, will she learn who is on a voyage of retribution, and who is out to steal her heart...
Whisper of Roses
s she peered over the edge of the gallery, Sabrina Cameron trembled at the sight of the sun-bronzed giant striding into view. But she never recognized the stranger...not until the moment she found herself surrounded by arms of warm steel—and drowning in smoldering green eyes that had once held cool disdain but now shimmered with passion. Morgan MacDonnell, the boy, had been her tormentor. Now it looked as if Morgan, the man, would prove infinitely more dangerous...
Though hatred divided their clans, Morgan MacDonnell had come to Cameron Glen hoping for a truce...only to find that by evening's end the only way to avert bloodshed between the two families was for him to marry his enemy's daughter. But even as Morgan spirited Sabrina away to his rugged fortress, his battle would not be won. For this delicate rose of a girl would put up a bold fight...and the spoils of victory would be nothing less than a heathen MacDonell's heart.
I thought Lisa Gardner's
Alone was a good deal when it went under $3, so it is a great deal now that it is only
89 cents.
Book Description
BONUS: This edition includes the full text of the novel plus the following content:
-- Lisa Gardner on Detective D.D. Warren: Who was the inspiration for D.D. Warren? Find out in this essay.
-- An excerpt from Lisa Gardner’s Love You More.
Alone . . . Massachusetts State Trooper Bobby Dodge watches a tense hostage standoff unfold through the scope of his sniper rifle. Just across the street, in wealthy Back Bay, Boston, an armed man has barricaded himself with his wife and child. The man’s finger tightens on the trigger and Dodge has only a split second to react . . . and forever pay the consequences.
Alone . . . that’s where the nightmare began for cool, beautiful, and dangerously sexy Catherine Rose Gagnon. Twenty-five years ago, she was buried underground during a month-long nightmare of abduction and abuse. Now her husband has just been killed. Her father-in-law, the powerful Judge Gagnon, blames Catherine for his son’s death . . . and for the series of unexplained illnesses that have sent her own young son repeatedly to the hospital.
Alone . . . a madman survived solitary confinement in a maximum security prison where he’d done hard time for the most sadistic of crimes. Now he walks the streets a free man, invisible, anonymous . . . and filled with an unquenchable rage for vengeance. What brings them together is a moment of violence—but what connects them is a passion far deeper and much more dangerous. For a killer is loose who’s woven such an intricate web of evil that no one is above suspicion, no one is beyond harm, and no one will see death coming until it has them cornered, helpless, and alone.
Pirates of the Retail Wasteland (
$1.35), by Adam Selzer, is geared toward pre-teens.
Book Description
Leon and his miscreant buddies from the gifted pool are mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore! Their favorite downtown coffeeshop, Sip–the only survivor in the barren moonscape of decrepit Old Downtown–is in danger of being run out of business by the ubiquitous and oh-so-corporate coffee chain, Wackford’s. Wackford’s doesn’t host readings or smell funky or support the arts the way Sip does–it’s basically a glorified office. With the help of the Wackford’s manager–a self-described “McHobo” who’s worked for every chain along the strip–Leon and his friends decide to protest by taking over the Wackford’s and making it into a middle-management office. Meanwhile, Leon deals with an unwanted crush, a Mohawked father, and his friend Dustin’s ongoing quest to take down the gym teacher via depressing poems. Nothing quite goes as expected, but that’s the great thing about life in the gifted pool.
Trouble in Mudbug (
$3.99 Kindle), by Jana DeLeon, is
free on Smashwords with coupon code
BR76Y. Expires Jan 21
Book Description
Scientist Maryse Robicheaux thought her problems had gone away with her mother-in-law’s death. The woman was manipulative and used her considerable wealth to control Mudbug, Louisiana. But death doesn't slow down Helena one bit. DEA Agent Luc LeJeune wonders what his undercover assignment investigating the sexy scientist has gotten him into – especially as it seems someone wants her dead.
'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy (
$3.99 Kindle), by Leslie Langtry, is
free on Smashwords with coupon code
SS88N. Expires Jan 22
Book Description
YOU CAN'T PICK YOUR FAMILY...
Death by Chocolate is her favorite dessert. And those knitting needles aren't just for craft projects. To most people, Gin Bombay is an ordinary single mom. Then again, they don't know she's from a family of top secret assassins. Somewhere between leading a Girl Scout troop for her kindergartner--would nooses count for a knot badge?--and keeping their puppy from destroying the furniture, Gin now has to take out a new target.
BUT YOU CAN PICK THEM OFF
Except this target has an incredibly hot Australian bodyguard who knows just how to make her weak in the knees. But with a mole threatening to expose everything, Gin doesn't have much time to let her hormones do the happy dance. She's got to find the leak and clear her assignment...or she'll end up next on the Bombay family hit list.
Spying in High Heel (
$3.99 Kindle), by Gemma Halliday, is
free on Smashwords with coupon code
NJ67R. Expires Jan 21
Book Description
L.A. shoe designer, Maddie Springer, lives her life by three rules: Fashion. Fashion. Fashion. But when she stumbles upon the work of a brutal killer, her life takes an unexpected turn from Manolos to murder. And things only get worse when her boyfriend disappears - along with $20 million in embezzled funds - and her every move is suddenly under scrutiny by the LAPD's sexiest cop. With the help of her post-menopausal bridezilla of a mother, a 300 pound psychic and one seriously oversexed best friend, Maddie finds herself stepping out of her stilettos and onto the trail of a murderer. But can she catch a killer before the killer catches up to her...
If you like the free book from Gemma Halliday, you might want to take a look at
High Heels Mysteries Boxed Set (
$9.99)
Book Description
Boxed set of all five High Heels Mystery novels featuring fashion designer turned amateur sleuth, Maddie Springer, including:
SPYING IN HIGH HEELS
L.A. shoe designer, Maddie Springer, lives her life by three rules: Fashion. Fashion. Fashion. But when she stumbles upon the work of a brutal killer, her life takes an unexpected turn from Manolos to murder.
KILLER IN HIGH HEELS
Maddie straps on her stilettos and, along with her trigger-happy best friend, makes tracks for Sin City in search of her MIA dad.
Maddie finds not only her dad, but also a handful of aging drag queens, an organized crime ring smuggling fake Prada pumps, and one relentless killer. Plus, it seems the LAPD's sexiest cop is doing a little Vegas moonlighting of his own. In a town where odds are everything, Maddie bets it all on her ability to out-step a vicious murderer.
UNDERCOVER IN HIGH HEELS
Secret affairs, hunky gardeners, and housewives desperate enough to bare it all... welcome to Magnolia Lane, TV's hottest new prime time show... where a rising young starlet is found dead on the show's set. Now it's up to Maddie to sift through a leading lady with a secret, an actor on the verge of a nervous breakdown, a sexy cyber scandal, and one tabloid reporter who'll stop at nothing to get the story of the century. Not to mention Maddie's hot-cold relationship with the case's familiar lead detective, Jack Ramirez. In a world where secrets, lies, and deception can earn you an Oscar, Maddie plays the role of a lifetime to catch Hollywood's hottest killer. But if she doesn't watch her step, Maddie's fifteen minutes of fame just may be her last.
ALIBI IN HIGH HEELS
Baguettes, bodies, and haute couture galore! Shoe designer turned amateur sleuth, Maddie Springer, is at it again, this time in fabulously fashionable Paris. When Europe's designer de jour, Jean Luc LeCroix, invites Maddie to show her creations at Paris Fashion Week, Maddie's sure she's died and gone to heaven. That is until Jean Luc's top model is found dead on the runway, stabbed with a familiar stiletto heel. Sure someone is trying to frame her, Maddie enlists the help of her friends, including the sexy Detective Jack Ramirez, to uncover a daring jewel heist, a devious blackmailer, and even a few skeletons lurking in the closets of those closest to her. But as the evidence mounts, Maddie becomes the prime suspect and Ramirez is stuck between a badge and a cute blonde with a tendency for trouble. Will he stand by her as she attempts to track down an international killer, or will this be the case that finally comes between them? One thing's for sure, if Maddie doesn't uncover the real killer soon, she may be saying her final adieu.
MAYHEM IN HIGH HEELS
Maddie Springer is finally walking down the aisle with the man of her dreams. And she's got the perfect wedding planner to pull it all off in style. Well, perfect, that is, until the woman winds up dead - murdered in buttercream icing. With the help of her fellow fashionista friends, Maddie vows to unveil the cold-blooded killer, but as the wedding day grows closer, tempers flare, old flames return, and Maddie's race to the altar turns into a race against time.
Sudoku Unbound #1 ($2.99), is a new Kindle Active Content App from Puzzazz, the makers of Wordoku Unbound #1 ($2.99), which I have (and like) and has all 5-star reviews. Since this should be essentially the same interface, but with traditional numbers instead of words, I think I'd ignore the lone 1-star review posted (complete with a nonsense title and misspellings in the body and which was not posted by a verified purchaser).
