FREE (and bargain) books for the Kindle - July 2011

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free indies:

The Empty Door by E.R. Mason

Product Description
Cassiopia Cassell’s high IQ had always been too much for the men she’d dated. But now her beloved father was missing, and the only way to rescue him required she retain the services of a man with special abilities, a man she did not care for, and one she would have to convince to accompany her through an unexplained portal that led to dangers beyond imagination.

The Days and Months We Were First Born- The Unraveling (Book 1 of 3) by Christopher Hunter

Product Description
In the summer of 2068, New Yorker Martin Jacob had a sweet life ahead of him. He had recently graduated from NYU. He spent most of his time with his artist girlfriend, who had a wonderful apartment in Harlem. And in September, he was to begin his career as a History teacher for a private school in Connecticut. An easy life was laid out before him. Then a man-made virus came along, and it turned his world upside down.

Martin wakes to find a disheveled President addressing the nation. His girlfriend is driven mad with grief, right before his very eyes. His parents call to inform him that they are going to die. And he steps outside to find Martial Law on the streets.

"The Days and Months We Were First Born- The Unraveling" is book one of Martin's epic tale of survival. At times funny, at times heartbreaking, and at times action packed, this book will take the reader on an unforgettable journey.

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Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen (reduced to $2.99, HarperCollins)

Product Description
The highly acclaimed and provocatively rendered story of a young postulant's claim to divine possession and religious ecstasy.

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free again, currently for those in the UK:

The Sentinels: Fortunes of War by Gordon Zuckerman (Amazon Main, Amazon UK)

Product Description
In this riveting amalgam of political intrigue, poignant romance, and bare-knuckled action, six friends risk everything to thwart an international Nazi conspiracy. In the financial devastation of the 1930s, a greedy, power-hungry group of German industrialists plot to usher in the National Socialist Party in order to rearm Germany and reap the financial rewards. Thus rises Hitler. With Hitler in power, the Six Sentinels, graduates of an elite American doctoral program, uncover the industrialists' plan to hoard hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal war profits. Using their financial and familial connections around the globe, they work to foil the machinations of the financiers of the Third Reich. In a daring strategy of Robin Hood-style thievery, the sentinels put their lives on the line to serve justice - and thus become embroiled in a dangerous and violent international conspiracy.

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Still Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny (reduced to $2.99, Macmillian)

Product Description
Winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys awards.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it’s a tragic hunting accident and nothing more, but Gamache smells something foul in these remote woods, and is soon certain that Jane Neal died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter.

Still Life introduces not only an engaging series hero in Inspector Gamache, who commands his forces---and this series---with integrity and quiet courage, but also a winning and talented new writer of traditional mysteries in the person of Louise Penny.

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Grace (Leisure Historical Romance) by Deneane Clark

Product Description
SHE WOULDN’T.
The institution of marriage held no attraction for Grace Ackerly. The world, she had noticed, expected nothing more from women than that they be submissive, demure brood mares, allowed absolutely no rights or even opinions of their own. And yet, at twenty, an age at which most of Society considered her well past her prime, she need only wait a little longer to be safe. No—she was fairly comfortable declaring—she would never marry, no matter the temptation set before her.

HE WOULD.
With a flashing green gaze potently combining warmth, humor and seductive promise, Trevor Christian Caldwell was resisted by few women. When one factored in the earldom of Huntwick and his legendary charm, his conquests became all the more indubitable. But never had there been a woman he truly respected. Not until now. Here, in Pelthamshire, a spirited redhead forced a decision he had never before considered: He would marry Grace Ackerly, no matter what protestations, no matter what travails.

It was yet to be seen who would prevail. And how.

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The Demon Trapper's Daughter: A Demon Trappers Novel by Jana Oliver (reduced to $2.99, Macmillian)

Product Description
Riley Blackthorne just needs a chance to prove herself – and that’s exactly what the demons are counting on…

Seventeen-year-old Riley, the only daughter of legendary Demon Trapper, Paul Blackthorne, has always dreamed of following in her father's footsteps. The good news is, with human society seriously disrupted by economic upheaval and Lucifer increasing the number of demons in all major cities, Atlanta’s local Trappers’ Guild needs all the help they can get – even from a girl. When she’s not keeping up with her homework or trying to manage her growing crush on fellow apprentice, Simon, Riley’s out saving distressed citizens from foul-mouthed little devils – Grade One Hellspawn only, of course, per the strict rules of the Guild. Life’s about as normal as can be for the average demon-trapping teen.

But then a Grade Five Geo-Fiend crashes Riley’s routine assignment at a library, jeopardizing her life and her chosen livelihood. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, sudden tragedy strikes the Trappers’ Guild, spinning Riley down a more dangerous path than she ever could have imagined. As her whole world crashes down around her, who can Riley trust with her heart – and her life?

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FYI, new Kindle app:

Ghostboy and the Nameless Grave (An Interactive Children's Book for Kindle) by Robot Media ($2.99)

Product Description
Ghostboy and the Nameless Grave is an interactive children's book in which your child gets to make choices in the story and solve basic reading and writing puzzles that help advance the adventure.

Your child chooses an avatar and a name, and becomes ghostboy's best friend. The goal is to help Tristan (soon to be ghostboy) uncover the mystery of the little ghost girl. Why is she haunting Tristan on his birthday? How did she become a ghost? The answers lie within four illustrated chapters, and a secret epilogue which will be unlocked for those who solve all the puzzles.

As your child explores a town full of mysteries on the night before Halloween, their choices affect how the story unfolds, and only the most curious will achieve the maximum score. Did they miss something? They can always retrace their steps to find that detail they overlooked.

Ghostboy and the Nameless Grave is perfect for children who are established early readers. So if you are looking for a fun way to share the joy of reading with your kids, or if you are looking for a way for early readers to explore interactive fiction, then the haunting world of Ghostboy is for you.

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The Samurai's Wife: A Novel (Sano Ichiro Mysteries) by Laura Joh Rowland is reduced to $2.99 (Macmillian)

Product Description
Far from the Shogun's court at Edo, Most Honorable Investigator Sano Ichiro begins the most challenging case of his career. Upon the insistence of his strong-willed and beautiful wife Reiko, Sano arrives with her at the emperor's palace to unmask the murderer--who possesses the secret of kiai, "the spirit city," a powerful scream that can kill instantly. A high Kyoto official is the victim. Treading carefully through a web of spies, political intrigue, forbidden passions, and intricate plots, Sano and Reiko must struggle to stay ahead of the palace storm--and outwit a cunning killer. But as they soon discover, solving the case means more than their survival. For if they fail, Japan could be consumed in the bloodiest war it has ever seen...

A legendary land comes alive in this compelling murder mystery set in seventeenth-century Japan. Filled with finely drawn characters and suspenseful plot twists, The Samurai's Wife is a novel as complex, vivid, and artful as the glorious, lost world it portrays.

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Texas Hold Him (Leisure Historical Romance) by Lisa Cooke

Product Description
To save her family from ruin, a Southern belle appeals to a high-stakes gambler to teach her poker, but he’s more interested in giving her lessons in love.

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Hawks Mountain by Elizabeth Sinclair

Product Description
Rebecca Hawks has come home to remember who she was before the lure of life as a social worker in a big city nearly destroyed her-and might, still. She's moved back to her family's namesake mountain in West Virginia, where Granny Jo Hawks can help her forget the horrors she'd seen and been unable to prevent. Ex-Navy Corpsman, Nicholas Hart, has moved to Hawks Mountain in hope that its timeless Appalachian serenity will help him overcome his painful war memories. Now Rebecca and Nicholas must find each other-and their chances of a life together after putting the past to rest-on Hawks Mountain. Elizabeth Sinclair is the award-winning, bestselling author of numerous romance novels and two acclaimed instructional books for writers. Her novels have been translated into seven languages and are sold in seventeen countries. She lives in St. Augustine, Florida, with her husband and two dogs.

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The Anger Diet: Thirty Days to Stress-Free Living by Brenda Shoshanna Ph.D.

Product Description
Shoshanna extends an empty and richly filled hand, offering both the sublime and the practical, Publishers Weekly once noted of Brenda Shoshanna, Ph.D. Now Shoshanna unites the sublime and the practical once again, this time to show us how to rid ourselves of anger and become immune to its toxic effects in a new 30-day program called The Anger Diet.

Road rage, school shootings, workplace violence, domestic abuse, drug addiction, and even the national obesity epidemic are manifestations of an overarching problem gripping our society: anger.

Other books about anger are on the market, but this is the first and only diet from anger: a practical, step-by-step 30-day program designed to help readers cleanse their lives of the toxic effects of anger. As Dr. Shoshanna points out, It is one thing to have an intellectual understanding of what is harmful. It is something else to know how to actually get rid of anger in your life. The Anger Diet is the book that bridges the gap between intellectual understanding and practical action.

The practical actions correspond to the 24 forms of anger, many of which are hidden; each form is identified and addressed in its own chapter. Each day readers are asked to give up one form of anger and are given a replacement for it. One chapter per day, one day at a time, readers will learn how to loosen anger's hold on their lives and gain greater happiness, health, and peace.

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Free from indies:

The Stone of Cuore (The Third Age of Timare) by Stephen I. Carmer and Gregory L. Otvos

Product Description
Adventure 1: By the age of twelve, Platov has earned two enemies—Scorch, a ghastly dragon and Wraith the Dark Wizard. Who was Tatton? And why did Alexander the Great Artist paint them the boys in his masterpiece with Lord Tancred? Step back into the Dark Ages of time, into a land of dragons, castles, and wizards.

Visit with characters of the Third Age of Timare Series as they unravel yet another mystery.

stories in between: narratives and mediums @ play by Drew Davidson

Product Description
This is a unique text exploring the interplay between stories and media. The discussion focuses around the Myst narrative as it moves across media from games to books to comics to games. Along the way, the text also discusses the Sandman comics, and the hypermedia of Ultima Online and MitterNachtSpiel. This text was created hypertextually to exist online as a website with an inter-related book.

Centaurs (Parallel Worlds) by Aaron Pery

Product Description
This is the First book in a series of parallel worlds adventures. It follows the story of Nicole and Martin Sherman's strangely acquired ability to travel at will from dimention to dimention in geographically similar worlds.
Their first stop, though unintentional, is the ancient island of Crete, in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey where they are quite shocked to find thenselves in the bodies of two young centaurs.
They befriend the other centaurs on the island, all of whom are not native to it since they were brought over under false promises in order to serve their new masters' hidden agenda of rebuilding their population by mating with the centaurs.
Nicole and Martin quickly uncover the Gogian's secret plans and help the enraged centaurs get rid of their opressors and become a nation under their own rule.

Novellas/Short Stories:

The Turtle Boy (The Timmy Quinn Series) by Kealan Patrick Burke and Caniglia

Mighty Chief Chappose Picks Berries (Sketches from the Spanish Mustang) by Benjamin X. Wretlind

One More Winter: A Short Story by Rebecca K. O'Connor

Copy Bird by B.C. Young

The Kidnapping of Billy Buttons by R.G. Crossley

1 Law by Keith Latch

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Until Proven Guilty (J. P. Beaumont Mysteries) by J. A. Jance (reduced to $0.99, HarperCollins)

Product Description
The little girl was only five, much too young to die -- a lost treasure who should have been cherished, not murdered.She could have been J.P. Beaumont's kid, and the determined Seattle homicide detective won't rest until her killer pays dearly. But the hunt is leading Beaumont into a murky world of religious fanaticism, and toward a beautiful, perilous obsession all his own. And suddenly Beau himself is a target -- because faith can be dangerous...and love can kill.

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Smallworld by Dominic Green (Fingerpress Ltd)

Product Description
Smallworld is like nothing you've ever read before... truly innovative speculative fiction from Hugo-nominated Brit SF writer Dominic Green.

Mount Ararat isn't your average extrasolar arable farming colony. A world the size of an asteroid yet having Earth-standard gravity, Mount Ararat plays host to a strangely confident family whose children are protected by the Devil, a mechanical killing machine, from such passers-by as Mr von Trapp (an escapee from a penal colony), the Made (manufactured humans being hunted by the State), and the super-rich clients of a gravitational health spa established at Mount Ararat's South Pole.

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Free from indies:

Cougar Cub Tales: Lost and Alone by Sharon Cramer (B & F Publishing)

Product Description
Lost and Alone, is about two sibling cougar cubs who live alone after losing their mother. The cubs are at odds one day, as siblings will be, and they decide to go their separate ways. The adventure becomes lonely and the cubs discover that the single most important thing is to find one another. Unusual circumstances come into play as the cubs are wonderfully reunited, never again to be separated.

The story deals with the everyday childhood issues of friend or sibling rivalry and spats and conflict resolution. It communicates to a child in a wonderful, nonsensical rhyme, and the eighteen watercolors are an exquisite representation of this timeless story.

The Secrets of the German War Office - World War I by Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves and Edward Lyell Fox

Product Description
This book was written right before the start of World War I. What did we know about the Germans before the war started? Could the first world war have been avoided.

Migrations, Volume I : Don't Forget to Breathe by Ashim Shanker

Short stories:

Legend of the Tiger's Throne by Ian Alexander and Joshua Graham (Dawn Treader Press)

Mug Shot by Edward Winslow

Passages by Emily Ward

Free To Die: A Short Story by John Brinling

Lucky Leprecock (City Girl Series) by C. J. Starr

Adam's Bar-B-Que Ribs by Sugar Lee Ryder

Memoirs of a Snowflake by Joe Vasicek