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

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Bargain book:

Real Life & Liars with Bonus Material by Kristina Riggle is just $0.99 at the US Kindle store (the original book without the bonus content is $9.99) - HarperCollins Publishers

Product Description

With a sneak peak of Things We Didn't Say: A Novel (out June 28)

Sometimes you find happiness where, and when, you least expect it.

For Mirabelle Zielinski's children, happiness always seems to be just out of reach. Her polished oldest daughter, Katya, clings to a stale marriage with a workaholic husband and three spoiled children. Her son, Ivan, so creative, is a down-in-the-dumps songwriter with the worst taste in women. And the "baby," impulsive Irina, who lives life on a whim, is now reluctantly pregnant and hitched to a man who is twice her age. On the weekend of their parents' anniversary party, lies will be revealed, hearts will be broken...but love will also be found. And the biggest shock may come from Mirabelle herself, because she has a secret that will change everything.

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FYI, currently just free for those in the UK

Grant Wins the War: Decision at Vicksburg by James R. Arnold (Amazon Main)

Product Description

Vicksburg is the key. . . . Let us get Vicksburg, and all that country is ours.--President Abraham Lincoln, 1862

In a brilliantly constructed and powerfully rendered new account, James R. Arnold offers a penetrating analysis of Grant's strategies and actions leading to the Union victory at Vicksburg. Approaching these epic events from a unique and well-rounded perspective, and based on careful research, Grant Wins the War is fascinating reading for all Civil War and military history buffs.

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Thread Words (A Free Word Game for Kindle) by Amazon Digital Services

Product Description

Thread Words is a word search game for Kindle.

Your goal is to find words in a 5 high grid of letters. Find words by selecting one letter from each column. On each level there are ten pairs of shapes. Make words matching each shape on the left with the same shape on the right to unlock the next level. After matching all shapes you can continue to find the rest of the words for a higher score or immediately move on to the next level.

The game progresses through 4 levels of difficulty, with grids that increase from 4 to 7 letters across. Each word you find is worth 20 points per letter, and if you find all of the qualifying words you get an 800 point bonus! Try to beat the clock or take your time in relaxed mode. The game tracks separate high scores for each mode.

If you like word games, you'll love Thread Words!

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Just FYI, new Kindle app game:

Snakes and Ladders game (A Game for Kindle) by Olmatech Technology ($0.99)

Product Description
Snakes and Ladders brings the classic board game to Kindle.

The rules of the game are simple. Roll a die and advance your marker on the 100-square board. Landing on a ladder allows you to climb more quickly, but try not to land on the snakes which cause you to slide right back down! The winner is the first player to reach the 100th square. You can play against Kindle, or with up to four people in Pass 'n' Play mode.

Three different game modes are supported: "Play," "Play & Count," and "Play & Learn Math." "Play" mode is the easiest to play as the marker advances automatically when the die is rolled. In "Play & Count" mode, each player rolls the die and then moves the marker by the number shown on the die. And in "Play & Learn Math" mode, each player must add the number from the die to the marker's current numerical position on the board and then select the correct sum from a list of numbers shown in order to advance.

Snakes and Ladders is an entertaining and educational game for the whole family!

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Free short story (Random House Digital)

Freaks by Tess Gerritsen

About the SS:

In this free Rizzoli & Isles short story from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen, author of The Silent Girl, a bizarre death comes with a supernatural twist. Homicide cop Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles have seen their fair share of mortal crimes, but the death of Kimberly Rayner may qualify as inhuman in more ways than one. When corpse of the emaciated seventeen-year-old girl is discovered next to an empty coffin in an abandoned church, mysterious bruises around the throat suggest foul play. Caught fleeing the scene is the victim's closest friend, Lucas Henry, an equally skeletal, pale teenager who claims he's guilty only of having a taste for blood-a craving he shared with Kimberly. But the victim's distraught father doesn't believe in vampires, only vengeance. And now, another life may be at risk unless Rizzoli and Isles can uncover the astonishing truth.

Includes a special preview of Tess Gerritsen's new Rizzoli & Isles novel, The Silent Girl, on sale July 5. And don't miss the season premiere of TNT's hit series Rizzoli & Isles on July 11

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Know the Past, Find the Future: The New York Public Library at 100 by Various

From Laurie Anderson to Vampire Weekend, Roy Blount, Jr., to Renée Fleming, Stephen Colbert to Bill T. Jones-more than 100 luminaries reflect on the treasures of America's favorite public library.Marking the centennial of The New York Public Library's Beaux-Arts landmark at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, now called the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Know the Past, Find the Future harnesses the thoughts of an eclectic assortment of notable people as they ponder an even more eclectic assortment of objects. From among the Library's vast collections, these writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, musicians, athletes, architects, choreographers, and journalists-as well as some of the curators who have preserved these riches-each select an item and describe its unique significance. The result, in words and photographs, is a glimpse of what a great library can be.Published by Penguin Classics for The New York Public Library

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051HFSRM?tag=discounter-20

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free at Amazon.co.uk:
Diary of the Displaced by Glynn James

There is a place where nightmares come true.

It is a dark and terrifying place that is hidden from the world we know, by borders that only the most unfortunate of souls will ever cross.

James Halldon woke up in the dark, alone, without any food or water, and without a clue where he was.

And it only got stranger.

"Of all the places I had to end up, it had to be here."

The Journal of James Halldon is a Horror Fantasy novel, giving a detailed account of his struggle to survive, whilst trying to understand the strange, dark, terrifying world in which he is trapped.

If it's dark when you wake up, and you can hear growling, then close your eyes and maybe it will go away

But maybe it won't.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004WXEVOW?tag=discounter-21

US link (but not yet free):
Diary of the Displaced

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Bargain book:

A Bad Day for Sorry: A Crime Novel by Sophie Littlefield (Macmillan) is discounted to $2.99 at the US Kindle store (B&N still has it listed at $9.99)

Product Description
Winner of the Anthony Award for Best First Novel!

Stella Hardesty dispatched her abusive husband with a wrench shortly before her fiftieth birthday. A few years later, she’s so busy delivering home-style justice on her days off, helping other women deal with their own abusive husbands and boyfriends, that she barely has time to run her sewing shop in her rural Missouri hometown. Some men need more convincing than others, but it’s usually nothing a little light bondage or old-fashioned whuppin' can’t fix. Since Stella works outside of the law, she’s free to do whatever it takes to get the job done---as long as she keeps her distance from the handsome devil of a local sheriff, Goat Jones.

When young mother Chrissy Shaw asks Stella for help with her no-good husband, Roy Dean, it looks like an easy case. Until Roy Dean disappears with Chrissy’s two-year-old son, Tucker. Stella quickly learns that Roy Dean was involved with some very scary men, as she tries to sort out who’s hiding information and who’s merely trying to kill her. It’s going to take a hell of a fight to get the little boy back home to his mama, but if anyone can do it, it’s Stella Hardesty.


A Bad Day for Sorry won an Anthony Award for Best First Novel and an RT Book Award for Best First Mystery. It was also shortlisted for Edgar, Barry, Crimespree, and Macavity Awards, and it was named to lists of the year's best mystery debuts by the Chicago Sun-Times and South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

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2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake

Product Description
In just over a week, a group of unpaid professional and citizen journalists who met on Twitter created a book to raise money for Japanese Red Cross earthquake and tsunami relief efforts. In addition to essays, artwork and photographs submitted by people around the world, including people who endured the disaster and journalists who covered it, 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake contains a piece by Yoko Ono, and work created specifically for the book by authors William Gibson, Barry Eisler and Jake Adelstein.

“The primary goal,” says the book's editor, a British resident of Japan, “is to record the moment, and in doing so raise money for the Japanese Red Cross Society to help the thousands of homeless, hungry and cold survivors of the earthquake and tsunami. The biggest frustration for many of us was being unable to help these victims. I don’t have any medical skills, and I’m not a helicopter pilot, but I can edit. A few tweets pulled together nearly everything – all the participants, all the expertise – and in just over a week we had created a book including stories from an 80-year-old grandfather in Sendai, a couple in Canada waiting to hear if their relatives were okay, and a Japanese family who left their home, telling their young son they might never be able to return."

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the price you pay (net of VAT, sales and other taxes) goes to the Japanese Red Cross Society to aid the victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. If you'd like to donate more, please visit the Japanese Red Cross Society website, where you can donate either via Paypal or bank transfer (watch out for the fees, though!) or the American Red Cross Society, which accepts donations directed to its Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami fund (but only accepts donations made with U.S.-issued credit cards).

And of course, if you like the book, please tell your friends, and tell them to give generously as well! Thank you! Japan really does appreciate your help!

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Free Indies/Self Published/Backlist:

One True Love by Barbara Freethy

Product Description
RITA Award-winning author Barbara Freethy has enchanted readers with her warm, rich stories of love and family. Now, in an extraordinary tale of a man and a woman, once parted, now reunited, she brings readers to a place where life's sorrows are wiped away by the power of love. Fans of Kristin Hannah, Luanne Rice and Susan Wiggs will enjoy this heartwarming, sometimes heartwrenching, story.

She Walked Back Into His Life ...

The last place Lisa Alvarez expected to find herself was babysitting for her ex-sister-in-law's three rambunctious kids. But when Maggie called her up and begged for time alone, something in Lisa made her say yes - for one weekend she'd leave behind the career she'd built and her new fiancé. But Lisa never expected her handsome ex-husband Nick to show up on the doorstep, walking back into her life, and taking over more than the weekend....

And His Heart

Nick can't believe how Lisa has changed over the years - and how she's stayed the same. His heart still races when her eyes catch his, his pulse pounds when she's near. After tragedy pushed them apart, Nick spent eight years rebuilding his life and his soul. Can he risk losing his heart again, for a second chance at true love?

Ashes by Scott Nicholson

Product Description

A collection of 12 supernatural stories by bestselling author Scott Nicholson, including "Scarecrow Boy," "Dog Person" and "Sewing Circle."

From the author of THE RED CHURCH, SPEED DATING WITH THE DEAD, DISINTEGRATION, DRUMMER BOY, and the collections FLOWERS, CURTAINS, and THE FIRST, these stories visit haunted islands, disturbed families, and a lighthouse occupied by Edgar Allan Poe. From the mystery of the paranormal to the spiritual exploration of fear, Nicholson serves up chills, thrills, ghosts stories, and paranormal fantasy. Collected from the pages of Cemetery Dance Magazine, The Book of Dark Wisdom, Black Static, and more.

Dinosaur Wars: Earthfall by Thomas Hopp

Product Description
Star Wars meets Jurassic Park as dinosaurs return to earth from space.

Saying Goodbye to the Sun by David McAfee

Product Description
From the author of 33 A.D.

New York City, 1986.

The name of the beautiful woman in the red dress is Raine, and Vincent Walker has no idea she’s about to change his life forever – by ending it.

Now, impossible as it is to believe, Vincent is turning into a vampire. He sets out to find the woman who changed him, hoping she can take it back. Instead, he finds himself at the mercy of the infamous Council of Thirteen. Not wanting to risk any of its more valuable servants, The Council assigns him the task of bringing her back to be punished for turning him without permission. If he succeeds, the woman he loves will be no more. If he refuses, the Council will take out its anger on him, instead.

But Vincent is not the only one looking. Something driven by a century-old vendetta hunts them both, and it won’t stop until they are destroyed. If Vincent can find Raine first, the two may be able to disappear together. But he is beginning to like the growing evil inside him. Already he wonders if he will save her, or kill her himself.

***For a limited time, this eBook contains bonus material from Dawn Judd, Jason Krumbine, Noah Mullette-Gillman, John C. Hamilton, and Nick Davis!***

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Some bargain books from Macmillian:

Soldier of God by David Hagberg ($2.99)

Product Description
"My dearest mother," the letter from the young Saudi Arabian suicide bomber begins, as have so many before it. "The day of joy will soon arrive. Send out presents and sweets; prepare my father and my brother for my wedding to come. My black-eyed wife waits for me in Paradise. Rejoice, o my mother, for we will meet in heaven."

Suicide bombers are coming to America's heartland. Their targets: our most precious and vulnerable assets, our children.

Following the most terrifying lead of his life, CIA Director Kirk McGarvey traces the threat to a terrorist known as Khalil. But upon further investigation he is convinced that Khalil and the Saudi playboy prince Abdul Hasim bin Salman are the same man. The White House wants nothing to do with McGarvey's assumptions; accusing a Saudi prince of such a heinous plan will surely strain the delicate political balance between the US and the Saudis, always thought to be allies as well as our major oil suppliers. But McGarvey refuses to let politics stand in the way of him stopping Khalil, even if it means that the President of the United States will call him a traitor, even if it means he must resign as Director of the CIA to pursue him, and even if it means his meddling will lead to the kidnapping and brutal beating of his own wife.

From the deadly frigid Alaskan waters, to the balmy breezes of the French Rivera and finally to the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., Mac has to unravel the latest threat from Osama bin Laden in order to save American school children from a cadre of suicide bombers willing to martyr themselves for the cause as Soldiers of God.

Strong Enough to Die: A Caitlin Strong Novel by Jon Land ($2.99)

Product Description

Caitlin Strong is a fifth-generation Texas Ranger, proud to wear the badge of her father and grandfather—until a deadly shoot-out along the Mexican border causes her to question her calling.

Five years later, Caitlin is still trying to purge herself of guilt from the day that ended her Ranger career. But a shattering discovery will reopen old wounds, and Caitlin’s renewed investigation into the truth behind the bloody desert firefight uncovers a terrifying plot that reaches into every home and threatens the very core of the country.

Her only hope for success—and survival—is to team up with Cort Wesley Masters, a deadly outlaw who has every reason to want her dead. But he also holds the key to the truth she desperately seeks in the anguished brain of an amnesiac torture victim.

Caitlin’s tormented quest for redemption takes her to a dark world, ranging from Washington to Bahrain to the wastelands of Mexico, as she finds that the strength to live comes from learning how to die.

Blood Vines by Erica Spindler ($2.99)

Product Description

In this bare-knuckled adrenaline ride from New York Times bestselling author Erica Spindler, Alex Clarkson’s worst nightmares are about to come true…

A sinister, hooded figure…

When Alexandra Clarkson starts having terrifying visions filled with blood and ceremonial images, she tries to find a rational explanation – maybe her mind is playing tricks on her, resurrecting creepy tableaux from her research on religious ceremonies and sects. But when Alex’s mother, Patsy, commits suicide without leaving behind any information, Alex is left wondering: could she be haunted by something from the childhood she doesn’t remember?

Naked, writhing bodies…

Detective Daniel Reed was the last person to speak to Patsy. What he reveals to Alex is shocking. Twenty-five years earlier, Patsy was married to Harlan Sommer, one of Sonoma County’s most prominent vintners, when their infant son disappeared without a trace. The loss destroyed the Sommers’ marriage, causing Patsy to leave and take Alex with her.

A dead child…

Called on to investigate the identity of a baby’s remains unearthed in a Sonoma vineyard, Reed had picked up a trail that led him to Patsy in San Francisco. Now Reed and Alex both wonder if the cold bones could be her baby brother Dylan, and Alex decides to accompany Reed back to Sonoma for the investigation. No sooner does she arrive, however, than she is drawn deep into the search for a twisted killer…

The Point Man by Steve Englehart ($2.99)

Product Description
Max August was a point man when he served during the Vietnam War, the guy who had to lead his patrol through dangers he couldn't possibly anticipate. Now he’s a disc jockey, at one with the music and his faithful audience . . . until the day when he is swept into a battle invisible to all but the participants.

For nearly five centuries, Cornelius Agrippa has fought against an evil that has threatened to corrupt and destroy everything good and untainted in the world. Now, Max has joined the battle. It wasn't his idea to fight a demonic entity that can become anything it wants: an undying monster or the most desirable woman in the world. Max has been chosen by fate to fight those who would use magick to destroy freedom and wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world. Along with Agrippa and Valerie Drake, a beautiful, talented singer, Max is the only hope of the free world.

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FYI, promo from Amazon "Stock Up for Summer: Great Reads for $3.99 or Less" - these are all either AmazonEncore or AmazonCrossing books

For a limited time, customer favorites and bestsellers from Amazon Publishing are just $3.99 or less. These titles are also available as paperbacks for $5.99.

*There's around 40 or more titles

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Bunch of more new free indies/classics/religious:

Bound By The Heart by Marsha Canham

How To Publish An Ebook On A Budget - An Author's Guide to the Free Yet Professional Way to Get Your Writing Up For Sale on Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble NOOK, Smashwords and more by Stephanie Zia

Place of Peace by Debra Diaz

One Fall by Spencer Baum

Shades of Gray #1 Noir, City Shrouded By Darkness ( scifi mystery thriller series) by Kristie Lynn Higgins

The I Love Lukla Club (Silk Road Travel Series) by Brian Lawrenson

Straw Hats and Bicycles (Asian) by Brian Lawrenson

Mysteries of Easter Island (South American) by Brian Lawrenson

Goal Setting: Discover What You Want in Life and Achieve It Faster than You Think Possible by SelfMadeEasy.com

Chief Cook and Bottle Washer (Travers Brothers Series) by Rita Hestand

Above the Arctic Circle by Brian Lawrenson

The Interior Life by Thomas C. Upham

Rockets Mice and Men (USA) by Brian Lawrenson

My Objection to a Sinning Religion by Bud Robinson

The Certainties of Faith by Phineas. F. Bresee

Daron's Guitar Chronicles: Volume One by Cecilia Tan

Sermons on Isaiah by P. F. Bresee

Dangerous Journey by Marie Harlech-Jones

Temptations Peculiar to the Sanctified by C. W. Ruth

The Harcombe Diet: 25 Members' Recipes by Zoe Harcombe

Security: The False and the True by W. T. Purkiser

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Jacks School of Shines by Jack Sorenson

Memiors of a Vending Machine by James Pollard

Bible Holiness by E. P. Ellyson

Nazarene Missions International Handbook and Constitution 2009-13

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For just 99 cents get a quick read on goal-setting. It's comprehensive & entertaining.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051EYIHG