Get 1 of 25 Kindle Books for $1 (AL)

This offer is set up via AmazonLocal and anyone (in the US) can participate.

Free Voucher to Purchase One Select eBook from the Amazon Kindle Store for $1

Click to "purchase" the voucher, sign in (to Amazon) and click thru a few more pages and you'll find the voucher code you need under "Your Vouchers" (link in top/right corner of the page). Sign-up for this offer expires February 2, 2013 or when the number of vouchers set aside by Amazon have been exhausted (which is often sometime the first day).

To use the Voucher, just click back to Amazonlocal and then on View Code next to the offer title. Click to copy the code, the on the link in step #2, to apply the code to your account (make sure you see the green "Success" message after entering the code). It works like a gift card and once applied to your account, you can shop from your Kindle or desktop, picking any one of the 25 qualifying titles. You should be able to gift the book to someone else (I have in the past), if there isn't one you want yourself (the full price shows all the way thru, but on the invoice summary, you will see the $1 promotional price). The voucher will expire if not used toward a qualifying Kindle book purchase from Amazon.com by 11:59 p.m. PST February 7, 2013.

I don't see this offer on any of my Kindles (eInk or Fire), but it is set up just like the Fire Special Offers I've signed up for in the past. I see several books I have (and have read) on the list and at least one from an author I've read that I don't have, so I shouldn't have any problem finding a a book to choose for this offer.

• Check out the 4-star love story, The Misremembered Man by Christina McKenna
• Explore highly-rated science fiction such as Breakdown and Into the Black
• Uncover the clues with mysteries like The Shop and They Never Die Quietly
• Or choose from many more

Today's Deals 1/27

Cobra Entertainment has put together some more "must-have" classical collections and Amazon has them on sale for 99 cents each:

• 99 Must-Have Chillout Classics, Vol. 2 (7:30:12)
• 100 Must-Have Movie Classics, Vol. 2 (9:56:02)
• Sexy Classics (2:17:36)

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Horns ($1.99), by Joe Hill, one of Amazon's Best Books of the Month, March 2010.

Book Description
Joe Hill has been hailed as "a major player in 21st-century fantastic fiction" (Washington Post); "a new master in the field of suspense" (James Rollins); "one of the most confident and assured new voices in horror and dark fantasy to emerge in recent years (Publishers Weekly); a writer who "builds character invitingly and plants an otherworldly surprise around every corner" (New York Times).

This gifted and brilliantly imaginative author catapulted to bestsellerdom with the chilling Heart-Shaped Box and cemented his reputation with the prizewinning volume of short fiction 20th Century Ghosts. At last, the New York Times bestselling author returns with a relentless supernatural thriller that runs like Hell on wheels. . . .

Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples.

At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.

Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more—he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.

But Merrin's death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside. . . .

Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look—a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little revenge. . . . It's time the devil had his due. . . .

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is the first 13 books in the "Dead Man" series of original short novels that blend horror and classic adventure. Lee Goldberg (bestselling author of "The Walk" and "Monk" novels) and William Rabkin (author of the "Psych" books) are the two main authors behind this series, which has a different feature writer for each volume (I think I saw only one repeat author in the sale list). Each volume, approximitely novella length, is marked down to 99 cents, so it's a great time to pick up any in the series that you are missing.

1. Face Of Evil, by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin
2. Ring of Knives, by James Daniels, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin
3. Hell In Heaven, by William Rabkin and Lee Goldberg
4. The Dead Woman, by David McAfee, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin
5. The Blood Mesa, by James Reasoner, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin
6. Kill Them All, by Harry Shannon, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin
7. The Beast Within, by James Daniels, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin
8. Fire and Ice, by Jude Hardin, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin
9. Carnival of Death, by Bill Crider, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin
10. Freaks Must Die, by Joel Goldman, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin
11. Slaves to Evil, by Lisa Klink, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin
12. Midnight Special, by Phoef Sutton, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin
13. The Death Match, by Christa Faust, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is A Place to Rest My Heart ($0.99), by Galen Rose.

Book Description
When Laney Murphy walks into Muldoon’s Pub in San Francisco, she has no idea that her life is about to change forever. The Muldoon family’s offer of a job and a place to stay seems just too good to be true. And once she meets Sean Muldoon, the suspicious and distrustful son of the pub owners, she knows she was right - he clearly detests her.

Sean is on the fast track as a bodyguard with Woo Security and he isn’t going to allow some grifter to get in his way or to mess with his family. But he soon discovers that Laney is not all sharp tongue and sarcasm, and he finds himself wanting to kiss her more than deck her.

But Laney’s past comes back to haunt her and she soon must put her life on the line to save Sean and the family she has come to love.

Sensuality Level: Behind Closed Doors

The Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK is 4 Books in the Disaster series of historical crime thrillers by award-winning author Max Allan Collins for £0.99/$1.57 each (~75% off).

The Titanic Murders (Main/UK; US edition $4.99)

When a passenger is found dead inside a locked cabin aboard the opulent Titanic, it’s a crime worthy of “the Thinking Machine,” the popular fictional investigator who solves mysteries using formidable logic. So who better to crack this real-life case than author Jacques Futrelle, the man behind America’s favorite detective?

On board for a romantic getaway with his wife, Futrelle agrees to conduct a stealth inquiry. The list of suspects on the Titanic’s first-class deck is long and includes the brightest lights from high society, each with no shortage of dark secrets. As the mammoth ship speeds across the Atlantic toward its doom, Futrelle races to uncover which passenger has a secret worth killing for—before the murderer strikes again.

Set in the days leading up to the luxury liner’s tragic sinking, this historical thriller is a dazzling blend of fact and fiction that will enthrall readers with page-turning revelations and Titanic lore.

The Hindenburg Murders (Main/UK; US edition $4.99)

How the Hindenburg went from luxury airship to gargantuan fireball wasn’t the only mystery surrounding the zeppelin’s fatal flight. First came the murder.

When a passenger vanishes during the Hindenburg’s trans-Atlantic voyage from Frankfurt to New Jersey, mystery writer Leslie Charteris is asked to use his knowledge of the criminal mind to quietly pinpoint the killer. Charteris is famous for his fictional detective, the Saint, who extracts riches as well as vengeance from evildoers in true Robin Hood fashion. But in this case, the villain turns out to be the murder victim himself—a Nazi spy. And the list of passengers who might want him dead is long. Suspecting that sabotaging the German airship is the killer’s true aim, Charteris must solve the murder before innocent lives are engulfed in flames.

Reconstructing the zeppelin’s fatal flight on the eve of World War II, The Hindenburg Murders proves that Max Allan Collins is the master of hard-boiled historical fiction.

The Pearl Harbor Murders (Main/UK; US edition $4.99)

Edgar Rice Burroughs created the wildly popular Tarzan of the Apes and John Carter of Mars, but the exploits of his heroes cannot rival the writer’s own explosive adventure, sparked by the tragic murder of an exotic young beauty on a moon-swept Honolulu beach.

The killing is written off as the tragic result of a lovers’ quarrel, but Burroughs suspects that the alluring half-Japanese singer was executed by espionage agents. It’s December 6, 1941. War with Japan is looming, and Burroughs has reason to suspect an attack on Oahu is imminent. Was the songstress silenced to prevent her from “singing” about certain sinister plans? As Burroughs and his son Hully search for clues and track down suspects, all signs point to the next day—Sunday—as the perfect time for a Japanese invasion. But the thought of such devastation raining down on paradise seems almost unbelievable….

Set against the catastrophic aerial strike that led the United States into another world war, The Pearl Harbor Murders effortlessly mixes hard-hitting action and exotic romance in this gripping untold chapter from our nation’s most tragic day.

The London Blitz Murders (Main/UK; US edition $4.99)

By day, she’s Mrs. Mallowan, hospital pharmacist. By night, she’s Agatha Christie, queen of crime.

Doing her part for the war effort, Agatha dispenses medicine in shell-shocked London. But the world’s most renowned mystery writer is troubled. Compared to the horrors of World War II, her detective novels seem trivial and quaint. When a Jack the Ripper–style murderer strikes, Agatha lobbies her friend, forensics expert Sir Bernard Spilsbury, to take her to the crime scenes. But the killings are far more gruesome than any that her fictional detectives have ever solved. Can a crime writer also be a crime fighter? Joining forces with London’s top investigators, Agatha risks her life to stop the monstrous serial killer.

With this ripped-from-the-headlines mystery, author Max Allan Collins presents a blood-stained valentine to the most celebrated author of detective fiction.

The Story, NIV: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People ($2.84 Kindle, $2.99 B&N), by Zondervan, is the Nook Daily Find, better than price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
'The Greatest Story Ever Told' is more than just a cliche. God has gone to great lengths to rescue lost and hurting people. That is what The Story is all about: the story of the Bible, God's great love affair with humanity. Condensed into 31 accessible chapters---and using the clear, accessible text of the NIV---this rendering of the Bible allows its stories, poems, and teachings to come together in a single, compelling read. The Story sweeps you into the unfolding grand narrative of the Scriptures, and like any good story, it is filled with intrigue, drama, conflict, romance, and redemption. From the foreword by Max Lucado and Randy Frazee: 'This book tells the grandest, most compelling story of all time: the story of a true God who loves his children, who established for them a way of salvation and provided a route to eternity. Each story in these 31 chapters reveals the God of grace---the God who speaks; the God who acts; the God who listens; the God whose love for his people culminated in his sacrifice of Jesus, his only Son, to atone for the sins of humanity.' NIV 2011. The New International Version (NIV) translation of the Bible is the world's most popular modern-English Bible---easy to understand, yet rich with the detail found in the original languages.

Today's Kindle Teen Daily Deal is Anna and the French Kiss ($2.99), by Stephanie Perkins. That's a good price for those who missed the brief pricing snafu that had it free on morning in 2010.

Book Description
Anna can't wait for her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a good job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. So she's not too thrilled when her father unexpectedly ships her off to boarding school in Paris - until she meets Etienne St. Clair, the perfect boy. The only problem? He's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her crush back home. Will a year of romantic near-misses end in the French kiss Anna awaits?

Today's Deals 1/26

Today's Gold Box at Amazon is The Godfather Collection on Blu-ray for only $17.99.

If you have a Nintendo Wii, Amazon now supports it for Instant Video. If you register it for the first time between January 24, 2013 and February 28, 2013, you'll get a $5 Instant Video Credit towards "purchase or rental of eligible movies or TV episodes. This credit will expire on June 30, 2013."

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book ($1.99), by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch.

Book Description
This version of APE was updated with the most recent content, facts, figures, tools, and resources on Jan 25th, 2013. To see what content has been added since the last update of APE please visit apethebook.com/updates. This is version 1.1 (Austen).

In 2011 the publisher of one of my books, Enchantment, could not fill an order for 500 ebook copies of the book. Because of this experience, I self-published my next book, What the Plus!, and learned first-hand that self-publishing is a complex, confusing, and idiosyncratic process. As Steve Jobs said, "There must be a better way."

With Shawn Welch, a tech wizard, I wrote APE to help people take control of their writing careers. APE's thesis is powerful yet simple: filling the roles of Author, Publisher and Entrepreneur yields results that rival traditional publishing. We call this "artisanal publishing"--that is, when writers who love their craft control the publishing process and produce high-quality books.

APE is 300 pages of step-by-step, tactical advice and practical inspiration. If you want a hype-filled, get-rich-quick book, you should look elsewhere. On the other hand, if you want a comprehensive and realistic guide to self-publishing, APE is the answer.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is Lost In Italy ($1.99), by Stacey Joy Netzel, the 2012 WINNER Write Touch Readers' Award in Romantic Suspense.

Book Description
The best laid plans...

Halli Sanders spent two years planning the trip of a lifetime to Italy. Her itinerary did not include being stranded by her siblings, kidnapped by a sexy American movie star, dodging bullets, or fleeing criminals in a car chase around Lake Como. And that's just in the first three hours.

...often go awry.

Trent Tomlin put his movie career on hold to investigate his brother's murder-ruled-suicide at his Italian villa. He's closing in on the suspects when an American tourist unwittingly films the murder of the retired cop helping him. The killers will stop at nothing to get the evidence--including holding Halli's family as collateral.

Life's a little different unscripted.

Thrust into the role of real-life hero, Trent finds himself falling for the Plain Jane whose beauty blossoms with every challenge they face. But how can he keep the evidence from the murderers to get justice for his brother and friend without betraying Halli and her family?

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is The Bone House ($1.99), by Stephen R. Lawhead [publisher: Thomas Nelson].

Book Description
Kit Livingstone met his great-grandfather Cosimo in a rainy alley in London where he discovered the truth about alternate realities.

Now he’s on the run—and on a quest—trying to understand the impossible mission he inherited from Cosimo: to restore a map that charts the hidden dimensions of the multiverse. Survival depends on staying one step ahead of the savage Burley Men.

The key is the Skin Map—but where it leads and what it means, Kit has no idea. The pieces have been scattered throughout this universe and beyond.

Mina, from her outpost in seventeenth-century Prague, is quickly gaining both the experience and the means to succeed in the quest. Yet so are those with evil intent who, from the shadows, are manipulating great minds of history for their own malign purposes.

Those who know how to use the ley lines have left their own world behind to travel across time and space—down avenues of Egyptian sphinxes, to an Etruscan tufa tomb, into a Bohemian coffee shop, and across a Stone Age landscape where universes collide—in this, the second quest to unlock the mystery of The Bone House.

The Bright Empires series—from acclaimed author Stephen R. Lawhead—is a unique blend of epic treasure hunt, ancient history, alternate realities, cutting-edge physics, philosophy, and mystery. The result is a page-turning, adventure like no other.

God's Highlander ($1.57 / £0.99 UK), by E.V. Thompson, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
Fresh from ministering to a poor parish in the slums of 1830's Glasgow after a brief but distinguished career in a Scots regiment of the British army, young Reverend Wyatt Jamieson takes up the ministry of the Highland village of Eskaig. He is greeted with suspicion and resentment by a community facing the destruction of its way of life by the greed and ambition of its city bred factor, who is ruthlessly determined to clear the fiercely independent Highlanders from the vast lands he controls on behalf of an absent landlord. However, by his support for them Wyatt wins the hearts of the people, whilst losing his own to Mairi, a fiery, barefooted Highland girl.

Tigerheart ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Peter David, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle, where the companion audiobook is $4.95.

Book Description
For all readers who have ever lent an enthusiastic ear to a wonderfully well told tale, or tumbled gladly into pages that could transport them anywhere, now comes novelist Peter David’s enchanting new work of fantasy. Action-packed and suspenseful, heart-tugging and wise, it weaves a spell both hauntingly familiar and utterly irresistible for those who have ever surrendered themselves to flights of fancy, and have whispered in their hearts, “I believe.”

Paul Dear is a good and clever boy, doted on by a father who fills his son’s head with tall tales, thrilling legends, and talk of fairy-folk, and by a mother who indulges these fantastic stories and tempers them with common sense. But Paul is special in ways that even his adoring parents could never have imagined. For by day, in London’s Kensington Gardens, he walks and talks with the pixies and sprites and other magical creatures that dwell among the living–but are unseen by most. And at night in his room, a boy much like himself, yet not, beckons to Paul from the mirror to come adventuring. It’s a happy life for Paul, made all the more so by the birth of his baby sister.

But everything changes when tragedy strikes, and Paul concludes that there’s only one course of action he can take to dispel the darkness and make things right again. And like countless heroes before him, he knows that he must risk everything to save the day.

Thus begins a quest that will lead Paul down the city’s bustling streets, to a curio shop where a magical ally awaits him, and launches him into the starry skies, bound for a realm where anything is possible. Far from home, he will run with fierce Indian warriors, cross swords with fearsome pirates, befriend a magnificent white tiger, and soar beside an extraordinary, ageless boy who reigns in a boundless world of imagination.

Brimming with the sly humor and breathless excitement of a traditional Victorian bedtime story, deftly embroidered with its own unique wisdom and wonder, Tigerheart is a hymn to childhood’s happiness and heartbreak, a meditation on the love, courage, sacrifice, and faith that shape us and define our lives, and a splendidly rendered modern fable–for readers of any age–that brilliantly proves itself a worthy brother to the timeless classic that serve as its inspiration.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is A Dog's Life ($1.99), by Caroline Sherman.

Book Description
From morning till night, a dog’s life is very busy. He wakes people up. He welcomes visitors. He washes dishes. He keeps humans warm. Without a dog around, how would a family get through the day? This wonderfully endearing text by debut author Caroline Sherman is matched with adorable digital artwork by Donald Wu.

Grade Level: Pre-K and up

This book features Kindle Text Pop-Up for reading text over vivid, full-color images when using Kindle Fire/HD or select Kindle Reading Apps (Kindle Cloud Reader, Kindle for iPad or Kindle for Android); unlike some other Text Popup books, this one won't work on any of the eInk Kindles.

Today's Deals 1/25

Today's Gold Box at Amazon is "Save up to 25% on an RCA 55-Inch or 42-Inch LED HDTV" (you'd think it's nearing that big Game day of the year!).

Amazon's Android Appstore free App today is PetWorld 3D: My Animal Rescue (usually $4).

For those looking for a basic EPUB eInk reader (not compatible with Kindle or Nook books), you might want to check out Kobo's in-store sale on the Kobo Mini for the next couple of weeks:

From January 25th until February 14th pick up a Kobo Mini for $59.99 at top North American retailers. The promotion will be available in the U.S. through select American Bookseller Association independent bookstores and Family Christian bookstores. In Canada the promotion is available at Indigo-Chapters, Future Shop, Best Buy, Staples, Walmart, The Source, and Toys“R”Us. To make this deal even sweeter, customize the Kobo Mini with a complimentary, colourful Kobo SnapBack while supplies last.

Audible's $100 discount on an electronics item (including the Kindle family) with a one-year subscription commitment will be expiring soon (January 31), for those considering taking advantage of that deal this year.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is The Farwalker's Quest ($1.99), the first novel in the Farwalker Trilogy by Joni Sensel. Be sure to also pick up the third novel in the series, The Skeleton's Knife, while it is on sale for $2.99 (and maybe Book 2 will drop sometime soon).

Book Description
Ariel has always been curious, but when she and her best friend Zeke stumble upon a mysterious old telling dart she feels an unexplained pull toward the dart, and to figuring out what it means. Magically flying great distances and only revealing their messages to the intended recipient, telling darts haven't been used for years, and no one knows how they work. So when two strangers show up looking for the dart, Ariel and Zeke realize that their discovery is not only interesting, but very dangerous. The telling dart, and the strangers, leads them to a journey more perilous and encompassing than either can imagine, and in the process both Zeke and Ariel find their true calling.

Grade Level: 3 and up

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Siege of Krishnapur ($2.99), by J.G. Farrell. This Booker Prize-winning book is "widely considered one of the finest British novels of the last fifty years" and the companion audiobook is only $3.99.

Book Description
India, 1857—the year of the Great Mutiny, when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. This time of convulsion is the subject of J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur, widely considered one of the finest British novels of the last fifty years.

Farrell's story is set in an isolated Victorian outpost on the subcontinent. Rumors of strife filter in from afar, and yet the members of the colonial community remain confident of their military and, above all, moral superiority. But when they find themselves under actual siege, the true character of their dominion—at once brutal, blundering, and wistful—is soon revealed. The Siege of Krishnapur is a companion to Troubles, about the Easter 1916 rebellion in Ireland, and The Singapore Grip, which takes place just before World War II, as the sun begins to set upon the British Empire. Together these three novels offer an unequaled picture of the follies of empire.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is The Birthday Scandal ($1.99), by Leigh Michaels, with the companion audiobook also $1.99.

Book Description
The wealthy Duke of Weybridge knows that everyone loves a good surprise…and a good scandal. He has bounteous amounts of both for the guests—particularly for his nieces and nephew, Emily, Isabel, and Lucien—at his extravagant seventieth birthday ball. They think his promise to improve their lives means a generous stipend. But he’s gotdifferent gifts in mind: finding them the perfect matches. His task won’t be easy, because the Arden siblings have given up on love.

Bachelor Lucien spends more time merrymaking than looking for a proper wife. His sister Emily, broken-hearted when her betrothal ended in disgrace, committed herself to an early spinsterhood. And Isabel’s marriage has been troubled from the moment it began—with a terrible betrayal on her wedding night.

Though witty and strong-willed, the siblings are no match for their uncle’s wily machinations. And as the celebration approaches, his romantic scheming ignites illicit liaisons and irresistible temptations, sparking enough rumors to keep the ton abuzz until his next birthday.

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Darkly Romantic Mystery ($1.99), by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall [Midnight Ink].

Book Description
Reporter Lizzie Vaughan doesn't realize it, but she has 2,000 years of royal Vampiric blood coursing through her veins. Neither she nor Tucker, her cowboy lover, has any idea that Julius, the leader of the undead, has a diabolical plan to reign over darkness for all eternity--with Lizzie at his side. Lizzie battles for her life--and her soul--as she and Tucker find themselves caught up in a vampire war, pursued by hordes of Julius' maniacal, bloodthirsty followers. Who will be left standing when the sun rises?

Vow of Silence ($1.57 / £0.99 UK), by Veronica Black, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition).

Book Description
When Sister Joan of the Order of the Daughters of Compassion is transfered to the convent in Cornwall she goes wth instructions from the Mother Superior to solve the puzzle in the last letter of a dying nun. On the surface, all is sweetness and light in the convent on the moors, but it does not take Joan long to detect that there are som ugly shadows lurking beneath and some very suspicious circumstances to be explained. There is the novice who vanished, and the statue that doesn't fit, and the accident that might not have been an accident at all. And who is the young man hiding in the bracken? In an atmosphere of silence, prayer and increasing menace, Sister Joan, a natural rebel, tries to discover the truth and set it right without violating the vows she has taken. This mystery novel is the first in a series about a modern young woman who has chosen to live under medieval discipline, and finds that only too frequently her two worlds collide.

Bel Canto ($7.74 $1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Ann Patchett, is the Nook Daily Find. Update: Now price matched on Kindle, where the companion audiobook is $3.95 for those who get the ebook from Amazon.

Book Description
Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks in through the air-conditioning vents and takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different countries and continents become compatriots.

Without the demands of the world to shape their days, life on the inside becomes more beautiful than anything they had known before. At once riveting and impassioned, the narrative becomes a moving exploration of how people communicate when music is the only common language. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion and cannot be stopped.

Ann Patchett has written a novel that is as lyrical and profound as it is unforgettable. Bel Canto engenders in the reader the very passion for art and the language of music that its characters discover. As a reader, you find yourself fervently wanting this captivity to continue forever, even though you know that real life waits on the other side of the garden wall. A virtuoso performance by one of our best and most important writers, Bel Canto is a novel to be cherished.

Today's Deals 1/24

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is California Sunset ($0.99), by Casey Dawes.

Book Description
Divorced mother Annie Gerhard meets rugged new bookstore owner John Johnson at the worst possible time in her life. Her high tech company is threatening to lay her off if she doesn’t move from California to New Jersey and her 15-year-old son David is causing trouble. The recession has hit Silicon Valley hard and there are no jobs for a middle manager, even if she hates what she does. And this is no time for romance, no matter how good the man looks in his jeans.

John has escaped Montana memories of a deceased wife and betraying girlfriend by buying an independent bookstore in California. He’s got bigger problems than falling for a spunky woman with control issues. Keeping a bookstore afloat in a recession and finding a home where he can stable his horse are all he can handle right now.

Unless . . .

John and Annie must both face their pasts in order to greet the future. Can they risk it?

Sensuality Level: Behind Closed Doors

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is the 2012 "Best American" Books for $1.99 apiece. If you read short fiction/non-fiction, then you'll want to pick up at least one or two of these (if not the entire set, especially at this price).

• The Best American Mystery Stories 2012, edited by Otto Penzler and Robert Crais
  includes Peter S. Beagle, Kathleen Ford, Mary Gaitskill, Lou Manfredo, Thomas McGuane, Gina Paoli, T. Jefferson Parker, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Charles Todd, Daniel Woodrell, and others
• The Best American Essays 2012, edited by Robert Atwan and David Brooks
  includes Marcia Angell, Miah Arnold, Mark Doty, Joseph Epstein, Jonathan Franzen,
  Malcolm Gladwell, Francine Prose, Lauren Slater, Sandra Tsing Loh, Jose Antonio Vargas, and others
• The Best American Short Stories 2012, edited by Tom Perrotta and Heidi Pitlor
  includes Nathan Englander, Mary Gaitskill, Roxane Gay, Jennifer Haigh, Steven Millhauser, Alice Munro, Lawrence Osborne, Eric Puchner, George Saunders, Kate Walbert, and others
• The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2012, edited by Dan Ariely and Tim Folger
  includes JEROME GROOPMAN, SY MONTGOMERY, MICHAEL BEHAR, DEBORAH BLUM, THOMAS GOETZ, DAVID EAGLEMAN, RIVKA GALCHEN, DAVID KIRBY, and others
• The Best American Travel Writing 2012, edited by Jason Wilson and William T. Vollmann
  includes Bryan Curtis, Lynn Freed, J. Malcolm Garcia, Peter Gwin, Pico Iyer, Mark Jenkins, Dimiter Kenarov, Robin Kirk, Kimberly Meyer, Paul Theroux, and others
• The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012, edited by Dave Eggers
  includes Kevin Brockmeier, Judy Budnitz, Junot Díaz, Louise Erdrich, Nora Krug, Julie Otsuka, Eric Puchner, George Saunders, Adrian Tomine, Jess Walter, and others
• The Best American Sports Writing 2012, edited by Glenn Stout and Michael Wilbon
  includes PAUL SOLOTAROFF JEANNE MARIE LASKAS WELLS TOWER WRIGHT THOMPSON S. L. PRICE DAVE SHEININ JON MOOALLEM and others

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is Luxuria ($0.99), by Nicci Sefton.

Book Description
Vampires and mortals, love and lust; these things usually don’t make good combinations. Though, in Luxuria, they all come together to make one enthralling and captivating story. Nicci Sefton creates a world between the living and the undead from which a love story unravels. Because Nicci was 17 when she wrote this literary work, she was better able to relate to her characters and draws from her own experiences to make the story more lifelike.

Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard ($1.57 / £0.99 UK), by Ben Crystal, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $8.39).

Book Description
Who's afraid of William Shakespeare? Just about everyone. He wrote too much and what he did write is inacessible and elitist. Right? Wrong. Ben Crystal, the 'Jamie Oliver of Shakespeare' (BBD Radio 5), sweeps the cobwebs from the Bard and finds Shakespeare's own voice amid the poetry, revealing both the man and his work to be relevant, accessible and full of beans. 'Ben Crystal's witty and engaging book is a relaxed, user-friendly reminder that enjoying Shakespeare should be as easy as breathing.' Domini Dromgoole, Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe.

The Memory Jar ($8.00 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Tricia Goyer, is the Nook Daily Find [Zondervan].

Book Description
Every year, 30-40 young Amish men descend on the cozy little town of West Kootenai, Montana, arriving in the spring to live there for six months and receive 'resident' status for the hunting season in the fall. They arrive as bachelors, but go home with brides!

Sarah Shelter has lived in West Kootenai for the last ten years and wonders if she will ever fall in love. Since the tragic death of her best friend, she carries her memories in a jar along with the small items connected to them. For just as long, she's also been carrying around her emotions instead of allowing them to penetrate deep into her heart.
Now she's met a kind and gentle man who may be able to break down the wall. But can Sarah risk her heart to finally achieve her dreams?

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is My Unfair Godmother ($1.99), by Janette Rallison.

Book Description
After her parents' divorce Tansy never really felt like her life got back to normal. And now that her too-busy parents and their respective new spouses don't seem to have time for her, Tansy has been sent to live with her semi-neurotic grandmother. After one incident involving a bad date, a can of spray paint, and the police, Tansy fears she is doomed for life. Enter Chrissy Everstar, Tansy's fairy in shining er... high heels. With three wishes to help set her life right, Tansy is taken along for a ride that includes Robin Hood and his Merry Men, who turn out to be trouble when they steal from the rich in her town. When the police chief's son, Hudson, sees Tansy hanging out with these fairy tale criminals, she'll have some serious explaining to do. That's if Tansy can find a way to stop spinning gold and undo the "help" that Chrissy has bestowed.

Grade Level: 5 and up