Free and bargain romance ebooks + Discussion February 2014

[auntykatkat]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Okay now the Superbowl is over people check in!

I bought 5 books last week so not too bad seeing two were 99 cents bundles.

I Read:

Outlaw's Bride by Maureen McKade (4.5) This is a historical western that has everything a western romance should have. I bought the paperback years ago but saw it on my local library so I was able to read it as a ebook. I am going to read Winter Hearts next of hers. I really enjoy this author's writing.

I am Reading:

Welcome To Last Chance by Hope Ramsey: So far I am really enjoying this book. I wouldn't call it heavy on romance and so far it's fade to black. Clay would be a beta IMO but his brother is definitely alpha so I can't wait to read his story. I can take a beta hero now and then but have to follow it up with an alpha hero.

I have not checked in for a while as I have been busy getting my GR updated. But I have really just only purchased audiobooks these past few weeks. I too purchased Love and Other Scandals in audio form. Here are my purchases. I am enjoying the Enchanted Inc. series right now. I just finished the Noble series by Katie Macalister. I really loved it! I laughed so much. She has such a humorous way of writing.

Auntykatkat

[auntykatkat]

Ok, I have a day off today and found that Ellora's Cave is having a sale on Valentine's titles.

Ellora's Cave Valentine's Sale

Auntykatkat

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by auntykatkat

I just finished the Noble series by Katie Macalister. I really loved it! I laughed so much. She has such a humorous way of writing.

Sad moment here... I knew this series in Spain though a girl I knew about 8 years ago, who knew a lot about romance novels and liked the genre a lot. She died when she was around forty, and her boy was 3. From time to time I remember her.

[Venus]

Due to the snow I am home today and welcome the time. About 10 days ago I opened my laptop and saw an orange/red screen that had a count down screen clock with a message telling me to send $400 to Cryptolocker via the link posted or lose my files. Apparently, this is the insidious Cryptolocker virus that has attacked about 40,000 laptops since November. I immediately took action by calling Microsoft. I have been working on this every night until very late but still lost a great deal of my files. Most pictures, vids, word documents, excel files and more. Fortunately I back up often but haphazardly. Microsoft was a nightmare to work with. I was on the phone every night with someone whose accent made it very hard for me to understand her. She said she was a level 2 and kept telling me she would call me back in a few minutes which was always hours later. I was in Manhattan all week so I didn't have a lot of my flash drives with me. I lost Outlook and she kept telling me I never had it. I almost went crazy. BTW, Microsoft charged me for this service.....and still I am not done, if ever.
The positive is that I didn't for one second entertain sending Cryptolocker one cent. And I had just backed up my Calibre Library the night before.
So, I haven't bought or read anything. I thought I would post this to warn all of you. I am now working hard towards my HEA.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Venus

Due to the snow I am home today and welcome the time. About 10 days ago I opened my laptop and saw an orange/red screen that had a count down screen clock with a message telling me to send $400 to Cryptolocker via the link posted or lose my files. Apparently, this is the insidious Cryptolocker virus that has attacked about 40,000 laptops since November. I immediately took action by calling Microsoft. I have been working on this every night until very late but still lost a great deal of my files. Most pictures, vids, word documents, excel files and more. Fortunately I back up often but haphazardly. Microsoft was a nightmare to work with. I was on the phone every night with someone whose accent made it very hard for me to understand her. She said she was a level 2 and kept telling me she would call me back in a few minutes which was always hours later. I was in Manhattan all week so I didn't have a lot of my flash drives with me. I lost Outlook and she kept telling me I never had it. I almost went crazy. BTW, Microsoft charged me for this service.....and still I am not done, if ever.
The positive is that I didn't for one second entertain sending Cryptolocker one cent. And I had just backed up my Calibre Library the night before.
So, I haven't bought or read anything. I thought I would post this to warn all of you. I am now working hard towards my HEA.

Oh goodness girl! I'm sorry. I read it's spread through email attachments. I have learned never to open any attachments from any company or anyone. I don't think I would called Microsoft though. I'm not sure what they could do.

What I would do is immediately shut down the PC and use Ubuntu Live CD to mount the drive and copy what files to an external drive that I want to keep. I read as you try to access stuff it keeps encrypting files so the sooner you shut down the better. So once you got what files left you can back up I would then reformat the drive and reinstall everything from scratch.

By using the Live CD the malware can't run while you copy your files as it only works in a Windows Environment. If your laptop is like mine and has no CD drive you can run Ubuntu from a flash drive. I can't tell how many times that Ubuntu has save me from losing files when my hard drive would crash or start to die. I think every person should have a copy of it. It's free too.

[Blue2u]

Originally Posted by Venus

Due to the snow I am home today and welcome the time. About 10 days ago I opened my laptop and saw an orange/red screen that had a count down screen clock with a message telling me to send $400 to Cryptolocker via the link posted or lose my files. Apparently, this is the insidious Cryptolocker virus that has attacked about 40,000 laptops since November. I immediately took action by calling Microsoft. I have been working on this every night until very late but still lost a great deal of my files. Most pictures, vids, word documents, excel files and more. Fortunately I back up often but haphazardly. Microsoft was a nightmare to work with. I was on the phone every night with someone whose accent made it very hard for me to understand her. She said she was a level 2 and kept telling me she would call me back in a few minutes which was always hours later. I was in Manhattan all week so I didn't have a lot of my flash drives with me. I lost Outlook and she kept telling me I never had it. I almost went crazy. BTW, Microsoft charged me for this service.....and still I am not done, if ever.
The positive is that I didn't for one second entertain sending Cryptolocker one cent. And I had just backed up my Calibre Library the night before.
So, I haven't bought or read anything. I thought I would post this to warn all of you. I am now working hard towards my HEA.

OMGosh girl, that is horrible, so sad to hear you going through this. I am thankful you'd backed up your Calibre the night before, at least some consolation in that mess. Sending good thoughts and vibes that you get everything up and working again soon. {{{HUGS}}}

[Venus]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Oh goodness girl! I'm sorry. I read it's spread through email attachments. I have learned never to open any attachments from any company or anyone. I don't think I would called Microsoft though. I'm not sure what they could do.

What I would do is immediately shut down the PC and use Ubuntu Live CD to mount the drive and copy what files to an external drive that I want to keep. I read as you try to access stuff it keeps encrypting files so the sooner you shut down the better. So once you got what files left you can back up I would then reformat the drive and reinstall everything from scratch.

By using the Live CD the malware can't run while you copy your files as it only works in a Windows Environment. If your laptop is like mine and has no CD drive you can run Ubuntu from a flash drive. I can't tell how many times that Ubuntu has save me from losing files when my hard drive would crash or start to die. I think every person should have a copy of it. It's free too.

I am going to copy and paste this for future reference. I have never heard of this...thank you for this direction. As for Microsoft and the virus I was watching my screen and it was so utterly heartbreaking watching the files being encrypted by the virus as Microsoft was ineptly trying to do something. It was encrypting so fast. These people who do this have no idea the heartache they reap....they are evil.
Thanks for the advice Blossom.....You are amazing.

[Venus]

Originally Posted by Blue2u

OMGosh girl, that is horrible, so sad to hear you going through this. I am thankful you'd backed up your Calibre the night before, at least some consolation in that mess. Sending good thoughts and vibes that you get everything up and working again soon. {{{HUGS}}}

Thanks Blue......your Hugs are wonderful right now. I have about 50 flash drives to go through and am hopeful that most of my family vids and pictures are backed up. I don't even want to use this laptop. I know this sounds ridiculous, but in a strange way I feel violated....like someone came into my home and robbed me. for your good thoughts.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Venus

I am going to copy and paste this for future reference. I have never heard of this...thank you for this direction. As for Microsoft and the virus I was watching my screen and it was so utterly heartbreaking watching the files being encrypted by the virus as Microsoft was ineptly trying to do something. It was encrypting so fast. These people who do this have no idea the heartache they reap....they are evil.
Thanks for the advice Blossom.....You are amazing.

If you ever need help PM me. I'm not a totally expert but I have out smarted baddies in my internet life.

Normally the advice on a normal virus not ransomware is not to shut the computer down because on reboot the infection spreads but in this case you are trying to save files and the only way to stop the encryption process is to shut it down as fast you can then copy the files from a non Windows Environment. I wouldn't risk trying to removing this malware as something could go wrong and you could lose even more files.

Unfortunately the files that encrypted are lost there is no way to fix that.

[Venus]

Originally Posted by Blossom

If you ever need help PM me. I'm not a totally expert but I have out smarted baddies in my internet life.

Normally the advice on a normal virus not ransomware is not to shut the computer down because on reboot the infection spreads but in this case you are trying to save files and the only way to stop the encryption process is to shut it down as fast you can then copy the files from a non Windows Environment. I wouldn't risk trying to removing this malware as something could go wrong and you could lose even more files.

Unfortunately the files that encrypted are lost there is no way to fix that.

What I did after looking at the threat message on the screen was to leave it on. It said I had about 3 days or whatever the countdown clock said to send money to the link. This was at 9 PM EST and I really was shocked. I then went to my iPad to look up Microsofts support number. After about 10 minutes I was patched somewhere overseas to a level 1 technician only to witness the takeover of my files. I had over a million files and watched thousands upon thousands of them being encrypted. Finally after I started crying he gave me to another woman who was a level two. After each day I would get on with Microsoft at night and they would hijack my computer and do their thing. At this point they tell me the virus is gone but nothing works right. Not Mozilla Firefox, not Word....not anything.
I have other devices and my previous laptop that I am using.
I am going outside to play in 2 feet of gorgeous snow and celebrate this winter wonderland.
As always, thank you for your suggestions.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Venus

What I did after looking at the threat message on the screen was to leave it on. It said I had about 3 days or whatever the countdown clock said to send money to the link. This was at 9 PM EST and I really was shocked. I then went to my iPad to look up Microsofts support number. After about 10 minutes I was patched somewhere overseas to a level 1 technician only to witness the takeover of my files. I had over a million files and watched thousands upon thousands of them being encrypted. Finally after I started crying he gave me to another woman who was a level two. After each day I would get on with Microsoft at night and they would hijack my computer and do their thing. At this point they tell me the virus is gone but nothing works right. Not Mozilla Firefox, not Word....not anything.
I have other devices and my previous laptop that I am using.
I am going outside to play in 2 feet of gorgeous snow and celebrate this winter wonderland.
As always, thank you for your suggestions.

Once you get your files backup. you need reformat and reinstall everything from your recovery image. I would not use the computer as normal till it's wiped clean and start fresh.

As for the snow you can have it! I don't want to see another flake till Christmas!

[Fbone]

Holt's Gamble (Wild Western Hearts Series, Book 1) by Barbara Ankrum is 99 cents at most retailers. Previously published by Zebra as Passion's Prize.

http://www.amazon.com/Holts-Gamble-W...olt%27s+gamble
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/holt...=9781614174660

Kierin McKendry is indentured to J. Talbot, a ruthless saloon owner, until Clay Holt wins her in a rigged poker game. When Clay tries to collect his winnings, he's attacked by Talbot's men and badly injured.

Clay never expected Keirin to take him to the wagon train on which he was due to leave, or that she would lie about being his wife and nurse him back to health while on the trail.

But, Keirin isn't interested in a man consumed by avenging his wife's murder. She's pursuing her father, who sold her for a ticket to the California gold fields.

However, posing as a married couple, spending night after night together, is fanning Keirin and Clay into a different kind of blinding passion that's blazing the way for Talbot, who will kill to have what's his.

Previously Titled: Passion's Prize

[Blossom]

A couple of old Harlequins now released by the authors.

The Tender Years by Anne Hampson
Harlequin Silhouette 1982


Truths and Roses by Inglath Cooper
Plus Bonus Book Nashville - Part One
Harlequin Super Romance 1994

[gabby98]

Originally Posted by Blossom

....

As for the snow you can have it! I don't want to see another flake till Christmas!

I am right there with you but cannot seem to escape it lately :'(

[copyrite]

Originally Posted by Blossom

A couple of old Harlequins now released by the authors.

The Tender Years by Anne Hampson
Harlequin Silhouette 1982

Had to go a'cover huntin'. There is such branding stuck in my head from those early 80's Silhouettes... the new cover just seems so wrong to me!