Today's Deals

Two free pre-orders, now available to download on Kindle:

• The Billionaire's Curse with Bonus Material
• Swim

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is No Buddy Left Behind ($1.99), by Terri Crisp and C. J. Hurn.

Book Description
Unlike many animal books, No Buddy Left Behind is not only about rescuing strays but also about U.S. soldiers trying to survive the horrors of war and readjust to life back home. Many troops serving in the Middle East share life-altering relationships with stray dogs and cats they save from the brutalities of life in Iraq and Afghanistan. Overcoming monumental obstacles, author Terri Crisp makes it her mission to get these soldiers’ “buddies” out of danger and bring them home to the people who love them.

So, how does someone get an animal out of a country where a dysfunctional infrastructure means that normal resources don’t exist, and every step of a plan to transport animals could get someone arrested, kidnapped, or blown apart? As Crisp soon discovers, each rescue mission, from start to finish, could easily be terminated at any point, and no animal is truly safe until its paws touch U.S. soil. Terri and her team of volunteers have saved the lives of 282 dogs and 58 cats befriended by military personnel since February 2008—and No Buddy Left Behind tells this incredible story.

A Golden Age ($1.60 / £0.99 UK), the first title in the Haque series by Tahmima Anam, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
Spring, 1971, East Pakistan. Rehana Haque is throwing a party for her beloved children, Sohail and Maya. Her young family is growing up fast, and Rehana wants to remember this day forever. But out on the hot city streets, something violent is brewing. As the civil war develops, a war which will eventually see the birth of Bangladesh, Rehana struggles to keep her children safe and finds herself facing a heartbreaking dilemma.

The Rescue ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Nicholas Sparks, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
From one of America's most beloved-and bestselling-storytellers, here is a novel about a man and a woman trying to find courage to make the biggest commitment of all...to love someone forever.

Taylor McAden was a risk taker. A volunteer firemn in the small southern town where he had lived his entire life, he was the first to take the plunge into a burning house to resue someone, the first to put his own safety on the line. However, there was one risk that Taylor seemed unable to take, and that was to let any woman into his heart. Then he met Denise Holden.

The single mother of a little boy with severe disabilities, Denise had moved from Atlanta to the small town of Edenton, North Carolina where her grandparents had left her a house. She came to Edenton in an attempt to make ends meet while devoting herself to the care of her child. Falling in love was the last thing she intended.

A near fatal car crash brings Denise and Taylor together, and awakens in them felings long dormant. But before Taylor can fully welcome Denise and Kyle into his life, he must first take the ultimate risk-to look into his heart and his past, and see if it's not too late to take a chance on the future.

Gathering Blue ($7.12 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the second title in what is now the Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.

Book Description
In perhaps her strongest work to date, Lois Lowry once again creates a mysterious but plausible future world. It is a society ruled by savagery and deceit and that shuns and discards the weak. Left orphaned and physically flawed, young Kira faces a frightening, uncertain future. Blessed with an almost magical talent that keeps her alive, she struggles with ever broadening responsibilities in her quest for truth, discovering things that will change her life forever.

As she did in THE GIVER, Lowry challenges readers to imagine what our world could become, how people could evolve, and what could be considered valuable. Every reader will be taken by Kira’s plight and will long ponder her haunting world and the hope for the future.

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Heat Wave ($1.99), by Richard Castle. This is also the Kobo Today's Deal, for those looking for an EPUB edition, and may be coupon eligible (since I bought it there some time ago, I can't test it).

Book Description
A New York real estate tycoon plunges to his death on a Manhattan sidewalk. A trophy wife with a past survives a narrow escape from a brazen attack. Mobsters and moguls with no shortage of reasons to kill trot out their alibis. And then, in the suffocating grip of a record heat wave, comes another shocking murder and a sharp turn in a tense journey into the dirty little secrets of the wealthy. Secrets that prove to be fatal. Secrets that lay hidden in the dark until one NYPD detective shines a light.

Mystery sensation Richard Castle, blockbuster author of the wildly best-selling Derrick Storm novels, introduces his newest character, NYPD Homicide Detective Nikki Heat. Tough, sexy, professional, Nikki Heat carries a passion for justice as she leads one of New York City's top homicide squads. She's hit with an unexpected challenge when the commissioner assigns superstar magazine journalist Jameson Rook to ride along with her to research an article on New York's Finest. Pulitzer Prize-winning Rook is as much a handful as he is handsome. His wise-cracking and meddling aren't her only problems. As she works to unravel the secrets of the murdered real estate tycoon, she must also confront the spark between them. The one called heat.

The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance ($1.60 / £0.99 UK), edited by Trisha Telep, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $7.99).

Book Description
Fall in love with someone out of this world.If love transcends all boundaries then paranormal romance is its logical conclusion. From the biggest names around, here are 24 tales to take you to another time and place. Let Alyssa Day, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Cheyenne McCray, Jeaniene Frost, Ilona Andrews, Kelley Armstrong, Maria V. Snyder, Carrie Vaughn, Allyson James Marland and others show you powers beyond your wildest imaginings. Within these pages mythical beasts, magical creatures of all shapes and sizes, heart-stoppingly handsome ghosts, angels, and mortals with extra-sensitive sensory perception play out the themes of extraordinary desires.

King of Heists: The Sensational Bank Robbery of 1878 That Shocked America ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by J. North Conway, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
King of Heists is a spellbinding account of the greatest bank robbery in American history, which took place on October 27, 1878, when thieves broke into the Manhattan Savings Institution and stole nearly $3 million in cash and securities—around $50 million in today’s terms. One of the largest banks in the world, the Manhattan Savings Institution was a depository for the money, jewelry, securities, and other valuables of some of the most prominent, wealthy citizens of New York City.

In an absorbing narrative set against the colorful backdrop of New York in the Gilded Age, J. North Conway tells the story of those who plotted and carried out this infamous robbery, how they did it, and how they were tracked down and captured.

The robbery was planned to the minutest detail by the mysterious and notorious George L. Leslie—a society architect whose double life as the nation’s most prolific bank robber led him to be dubbed the “King of the Bank Robbers.” Despite his reputation, he was never caught and never spent a day in jail.

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales / With an Introduction by Lemony Snicket ($9.50 Kindle, $2.99 B&N), by Chris Van Allsburg, is the Nook Daily Find for Families. This was one of the Amazon Best Books of the Month, November 2011, and I've reported the lower price on the Kindle book page; if enough of us do, it should drop down to match by this evening.

Book Description
An inspired collection of short stories by an all-star cast of best-selling storytellers based on the thought-provoking illustrations in Chris Van Allsburg’s The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.

For more than twenty-five years, the illustrations in the extraordinary Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg have intrigued and entertained readers of all ages. Thousands of children have been inspired to weave their own stories to go with these enigmatic pictures. Now we’ve asked some of our very best storytellers to spin the tales. Enter The Chronicles of Harris Burdick to gather this incredible compendium of stories: mysterious, funny, creepy, poignant, these are tales you won’t soon forget.

This inspired collection of short stories features many remarkable, best-selling authors in the worlds of both adult and children's literature: Sherman Alexie, M.T. Anderson, Kate DiCamillo, Cory Doctorow, Jules Feiffer, Stephen King, Tabitha King, Lois Lowry, Gregory Maguire, Walter Dean Myers, Linda Sue Park, Louis Sachar, Jon Scieszka, Lemony Snicket, and Chris Van Allsburg himself.

Van Allsburg's Harris Burdick illustrations have evoked such wonderment and imagination since Harris Burdick's original publication in 1984; many have speculated or have woven their own stories to go with his images. More than ever, the illustrations send off their eerie call for text and continue to compel and pick at the reader's brain for a backstory—a threaded tale behind the image. In this book, we've collected some of the best storytellers to spin them.

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Psychopath ($0.99), by Dr. Katherine Ramsland and Marilyn Bardsley.

Book Description
H. H. Holmes was a central character in Erik Larson’s hugely successful The Devil in the White City, which is planned as a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Holmes is commonly viewed as a real-life Hannibal Lecter, a devious and cunning serial killer without equal. Holmes used the persona of a successful doctor and entrepreneur to draw untold numbers of young women to his three-story Chicago hotel to experiment on before killing them. Not one to waste, he’d often deflesh the corpses to sell the skeletons to medical schools. He enjoyed trying out methods of murder and watching his victims die. Scientists from his era believed Holmes’ brain would unlock the secret of his perversity, but he denied them the chance to find out. Today, we can figure him out without access to his brain. We know more today about the neuroscience of sadistic psychopaths and we can better understand what his brain – if dissected – would reveal. For the first time, we can look to research findings about killers to decode Holmes’s vile behavior.

An Epic Swindle: 44 Months with a Pair of Cowboys ($1.60 / £0.99 UK), by Brian Reade, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.39).

Book Description
AN EPIC SWINDLE is the inside story of how Liverpool FC came within hours of being re-possessed by the banks after the shambolic 44-month reign of American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett. It is the tale of a civil war that dragged Britain's most successful football club to its knees, through the High Court and almost into administration. Players Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher tell of their anger at the broken promises, as well as their pain at watching loyal fans in open revolt. Manager, chief executive, board members, leading fans and journalists reveal the turmoil at a revered sporting institution run by two men at war with each other, who trampled Liverpool's cherished traditions into the gutter. No story sums up the naked greed at the heart of modern football quite like Hicks' and Gillett's attempt to turn a buck at Liverpool. No-one has had as much access to the truth, or tells it with as much passion, wit and insight as Brian Reade. AN EPIC SWINDLE is the riveting story of how close one of the great football clubs came to financial implosion.

Catch of the Day ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Kristan Higgins, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. At B&N, there are two editions, both on sale - the link is for the newest of the two; at Amazon, there are also two editions, only one on sale price, and it appears to be the older edition (but cuter cover).

Book Description
What's the market price on a decent guy these days?

Maggie Beaumont's luck is about to change. Sure, she's known for her bad romantic choices—her former boyfriend broke up with her by bringing his new girlfriend home for a visit. And then there was the crush she had on a gorgeous young Irishman, who turned out to be Father Tim, the parish's new priest.

But romantic salvation has arrived in the form of handsome, if surly, fisherman Malone. It turns out there's a heart of gold underneath his barnacle-clad exterior. Will this catch of the day turn into the dish of a lifetime?

Winnie the Pooh: Party in the Wood ($4.99 paperback. 4-for-3 eligible; $3.99 B&N), by Lisa Ann Marsoli and Disney Storybook Artists, is the Nook Daily Find for Families (requires NOOK Color or NOOK Tablet); no Kindle edition.

Book Description
When Pooh and his friends set out to find the perfect tail for Eeyore (since his is missing), the fun ends happily with a party in the Hundred-Acre Wood! The storybook includes over 20 stickers!

Today's Deals

Today's free MP3 is an audiobook edition of the New Revised Standard Version New Testament.

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is The Deal ($0.99), by Adam Gittlin.

Book Description
Everything about Jonah Gray screams success movie-star good looks, expensive clothes, a Park Avenue penthouse, and a seven-figure income. A cutthroat, rainmaking New York city commercial real estate broker, Jonah craves opulence and power. He beds models, romps the globe on the weekends and sees the world as his for the taking. Jonah Gray has it all. Or at least he had it all.

When a friend presents Jonah with the deal of a lifetime, Jonah jumps at the chance. All Jonah has to do is act quickly, invest half a billion dollars in prime NY office buildings, and collect a huge payoff.

But this golden opportunity is anything but. Within days of signing on, Jonah is mysteriously thrust into the epicenter of an international and personal scandal.

Forced to explore a whole new territory where he can trust no one, and where danger, death and deception lurk at every corner, Jonah will learn some painfully hard lessons about the quest for easy money.

Closing this deal could mean losing everything.

Dark Redemption ($1.61 / £0.99 UK), by Stav Sherez, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $8.39).

Book Description
A Dark Redemption introduces DI Jack Carrigan and DS Geneva Miller as they investigate the brutal rape and murder of a young Ugandan student. Plunged into an underworld of illegal immigrant communities, they discover that the murdered girl's studies at a London College may have threatened to reveal things that some people will go to any lengths to keep secret...

Unflinching, inventive and intelligent, A Dark Redemption explores a sinister case that will force DI Carrigan to face up to his past and DS Miller to confront what path she wants her future to follow.

The Baker's Wife ($3.40 Kindle, B&N), by Erin Healy, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, so why is Audrey weakening day by day?

It's been a tough year for Audrey's family. Her husband Geoff, a pastor, lost his job after a scandal rocked their congregation.

Audrey hasn't lost faith. She's held her family together. Their attempt to resurrect a failing bakery is an effort to heal the family wounds and restore their place in the community.

Late to the bakery one dim, foggy morning, Audrey turns into the intersection in front of the shop and strikes a vehicle that she can't see even after the collision settles. Emerging from her car into the fog, she discovers she's hit a motor scooter. There's no rider in sight. There's blood, though, so much that she slips in it, injuring her wrists.

The absence of the scooter driver is a mystery, especially to Sergeant Jack Mansfield, the detective and church member who drove Geoff from his pulpit. The scooter belongs to Jack's wife, Julie, a teacher at the local high school. She has vanished like morning fog.

Though there is no evidence to support Jack's growing suspicion that Audrey and Geoff were involved in Julie's disappearance, the detective is convinced of their guilt. Jack's ability to reason slips as the leads on his wife dry up.

When Jack takes the tiny bakery and its patrons hostage, Audrey must find Julie and unravel the secret of her own mysterious suffering before Jack comes undone.

Kristy's Great Idea ($4.61 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the first title in The Baby-Sitters Club series by Ann M. Martin, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.

Book Description
It all began with a great idea...Kristy Thomas' brilliant business plan to form a club of friends who will babysit for neighbours gets off to a flying start wit the help of Claudia Kishi (vice-president), Mary Anne Spier (secretary), and Stacey McGill (treasurer). Friendships are forged, adventures begun and life lessons learned in the first book of the series that took the world by storm.

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Second Honeymoon ($1.99), by Joanna Trollope.

Book Description
Now that her third and last child has left the nest, Edie Boyd's life turns suddenly and uncomfortably silent. She begins to yearn for the maternal intimacy that now seems lost to her forever. Be careful what you wish for…Before long, a mother-and-child reunion is in full swing: life away from the nest has proven to be unexpectedly daunting to the children, who one-by-one return home, bringing their troubles. With an unannounced new phase of parenthood suddenly stretching ahead of her, Edie finds her home more crowded than ever. In this touching, artful novel, Joanna Trollope has created a family drama for the ages, a moving story of work, love and eternal parenthood.

The AmazonEncore edition of Carry Yourself Back to Me ($1.61 / £0.99 UK), by Deborah Reed, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $4.99).

Book Description
Famed alt-country artist Annie Walsh has more than enough reason to sing her version of the blues, including a broken heart, a stalled career, and a troubled family. Annie seeks refuge from an upended love affair with her producer, Owen Pettybone, by sequestering herself at home with her old dog Detour, surrounded by a lush Florida tangelo grove. There, she spends her days furiously sanding down the house’s every veneer in a vain attempt at erasing the painful memory of the love she lost. Soon, however, this quiet, small town existence—far from recording studios, ardent fans, and affairs of the heart—comes crashing down around her. A violent murder connected to her brother Calder threatens to tear her family apart and forces Annie to shore up her loyalties and uproot profound disappointments from her distant past. The evidence stacks against Calder, compounded by his lifelong affliction with Tourette syndrome that causes some in the community to cast aspersions on the soundness of his mind. As the circumstances converge to challenge lifetime ties and forge unexpected new bonds, this soulful, stirring novel shifts its narrative from an imperiled and ever-changing present, where each hour brings an unforeseen and unwelcome piece of news, to the poignant childhood days of first allegiances and life-altering loss. Like a fine and forlorn love ballad, the gifted, conflicted Annie lulls the reader into a journey through love and loss that mines the mysterious, and, at times, paradoxical rhythms of the human heart. As vibrant as Annie's treasured tangelo grove, Carry Yourself Back to Me cultivates an always tender, sometimes tart, portrait of one family’s regret and redemption. Inflected with melancholy and redeemed by melody, this deeply affecting novel is certain to strike a resonant chord with music fans and lovers of fine fiction everywhere.

The Everything Spanish Phrase Book - Special eBook Edition ($3.25 Kindle, B&N), by Cari Luna, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
With the increase in travel to Spanish-speaking countries-as well as the rise in the Latino population in the United States-a growing number of people are in need of a quick reference to help them communicate. The Everything Spanish Phrase Book remedies these shortcomings with a practical, real-world approach to learning the language that is both quick and easy to use. From ordering dinner and asking for directions, to working and communicating in Latino communities, this handy guide provides readers with all they need to speak Spanish in any setting. Organized by situation, The Everything Spanish Phrase Book contains the right words for, traveling and making reservations, dining and shopping, speaking Spanish in a business setting, and working with the Latino community. Fully indexed and complete with a pronunciation guide and helpful dictionaries, this books is the ideal resource for business or pleasure. This eBook special edition contains exclusive bonus content featuring more than 200 Spanish idioms and expressions--decoded!

The Grapes of Math ($6.99 paperback; no Kindle edition; $2.49 B&N), by Greg Tang, is the Nook Daily Find for Families (requires NOOK Color, NOOK Tablet or NOOK Kids for iPad).

Book Description
"How many grapes are on the vine?
Counting each takes too much time.
Never Fear, I have a hunch
There is a match for every bunch!"

Greg Tang, a lifelong lover of math, shares the techniques that have helped him solve problems in the most creative ways! Harry Briggs's vibrant & inviting illustrations create a perfect environment for these innovative games. So open your mind-and have fun!

Veronika Decides to Die ($0.99 Kindle, Kobo), by Paulo Coelho, is Today's Deal at Kobo, price matched on Kindle. This is just one of 12 of the authors's books that are on sale for 99 cents in both the Kindle store and at Kobo.

Book Description
Twenty-four-year-old Veronika seems to have everything -- youth and beauty, boyfriends and a loving family, a fulfilling job. But something is missing in her life. So, one cold November morning, she takes a handful of sleeping pills expecting never to wake up. But she does -- at a mental hospital where she is told that she has only days to live.

Inspired by events in Coelho's own life, Veronika Decides to Die questions the meaning of madness and celebrates individuals who do not fit into patterns society considers to be normal. Bold and illuminating, it is a dazzling portrait of a young woman at the crossroads of despair and liberation, and a poetic, exuberant appreciation of each day as a renewed opportunity.