Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: A Weekly Selection (28 Feb 2010)

Once you've purchased an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, the wonderful world of public domain, Creative Commons and free e-book promotions opens up to you. This regular Kindle Reader feature points you to a few of the most interesting new free (or very cheap) e-books available for download from the web.

Free e-book selections for this week include a ready-made library of 100 classic works for less than two bucks, a tale of travel between interplanetary rifts, two mystery novels from the early 20th century, a Dorothy Sayers' collection, a paranormal fantasy and a science fiction story by a Twilight Zone scriptwriter.

50 Classic Books: Volume One. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: $0.99.
Want to add 100 classic novels to your Kindle for a pittance? Consider this book and volume two below. You can download them all separately from most of the free e-book sites, but it's difficult to resist the convenience of a ready-made collection like this. Authors include Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Franz Kafka, Henry David Thoreau, Jane Austen, etc., etc. Both volumes include an active table of contents.

50 Classic Books: Volume Two. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: $0.99.
Books by Tolstoy, Thackeray, Henry James, Mark Twain, Raphael Sabatini, Edgar Allen Poe, Helman Melville, Jane Austen, etc.

Xenolith, by A. Sparrow. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: Smashwords. Important: when checking out, use coupon code: XY39L. Format: Kindle (.mobi). Price: Free with coupon code.
"Lassoed, knocked down, face planted in the dirt - best thing to happen to Frank Bowen in years. When wife Liz went missing in the wilds of Belize, the constables of San Ignacio could find no trace. Years later, on a pilgrimage to her remote 'grave,' Frank is abducted and whisked away to a place he can't identify, by people whose motives and origins baffle him. Could this be what happened to Liz?" - Smashwords.

The Mystery Queen, by Fergus Hume. MYSTERY. Download site: MobileRead. Format: Kindle (.prc). Price: Free.
"Sir Charles Moon is a millionaire but his daughter wants to marry a penniless young aviator. Then Sir Charles is murdered, and a strange secret society led by the mysterious Queen Beelzebub is involved." - Patricia on MobileRead.

The Secret Passage, by Fergus Hume. MYSTERY. Download site: MobileRead. Format: Kindle (.prc). Price: Free.
"A little old lady is found murdered in her country cottage. Her new maid’s father had been poisoned some years previously. And there’s a Spanish adventuress with a gambling den living nearby. These events are all connected. Life in rural England is clearly more exciting than one might expect." - Patricia on MobileRead.

In the Teeth of the Evidence, by Dorothy Sayers. MYSTERY. Download site: MobileRead. Format: Kindle (.prc). Price: Free.
"A collection, with two Lord Peter Wimsey stories; five mysteries for Mr. Montague Egg to solve; and ten short stories of mystery and suspense. Contents:
In The Teeth of the Evidence; Absolutely Elsewhere; A Shot at Goal; Dirt Cheap; Bitter Almonds; False Weight; The Professor’s Manuscript; The Milk-Bottles; Dilemma; An Arrow o’er the House; Scrawns; Nebuchadnezzar; The Inspiration of Mr. Budd; Blood Sacrifice; Suspicion; The Leopard Lady; The Cyprian Cat." - Patricia on MobileRead.

The Summoning, by Kelley Armstrong. Book 1 in the Darkest Powers series. PARANORMAL THRILLER. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle (.azw). Price: $5.59.
But wait, this is supposed to be an e-books on the cheap post. Why include a book for $5.59? Because (1) it's good reading (2) if you don't mind reading it online, it's also available temporarily for free from the publisher here. Book 2 (The Awakening) is also available in a Kindle edition and Book 3 (The Reckoning will be coming out on May 1.
"Chloe Saunders sees dead people. Yes, like in the films. The problem is, in real life saying you see ghosts gets you a one-way ticket to the psych ward. And at 15, all Chloe wants to do is fit in at school and maybe get a boy to notice her..." - www.kelleyarmstrong.com.

The Ultroom Error, by Gerald Allan Sohl. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: Manybooks. Format: .azw for Kindle. Price: Free.
"Smith admitted he had made an error involving a few murders - and a few thousand years. He was entitled to a sense of humor, though, even in the Ultroom!" - Manybooks.net.

A Week of Entertainment: Books Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly 26 Feb 10

Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the February 26th issue include:

The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman's Romp Through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis, by Tara Austen Weaver. Rodale Books. Print length: 240 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "...will you ever want a seat at the Tea & Cookies blogger's table after reading her sublime descriptions of food." Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Raised a vegetarian, writer and editor Weaver was always diet-conscious, so it was a bit of a surprise when, in her 30s, her physician recommend meat-eating for her suffering health; Weaver's consequent foray into the world of meat is a toothsome take on the learning-to-eat-better memoir. Weaver jumps into the flesh flood with both feet, sampling all things savory, up to and including roasted bone marrow, in a game effort to understand the appeal... Her narrative maintains a funny, personable tone throughout, more like a knowledgeable friend than a professional reporter. Though eventually settling on a raw food diet, Weaver avoids prescriptive finger-shaking, encouraging readers to find the diet that's right for them by incorporating a wide range of perspectives." - Publishers Weekly.

The Wife's Tale, by Lori Lansens. Little. Brown and Company. Print length: 368 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "Lansens...sketches another indelible female character..." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 reviews (32 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"On the eve of their Silver Anniversary, Mary Gooch is waiting for her husband Jimmy - still every inch the handsome star athlete he was in high school - to come home. As night turns to day, it becomes frighteningly clear to Mary that he is gone. Through the years, disappointment and worry have brought Mary's life to a standstill, and she has let her universe shrink to the well-worn path from the bedroom to the refrigerator. But her husband's disappearance startles her out of her inertia, and she begins a desperate search..." - Amazon.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. Crown. Print length: 368 p. NONFICTION - SCIENCE. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (64 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive - even thrive - in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution - and her cells' strange survival - left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story..." - Tom Nissley for Amazon.

The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell. Knopf. Print length: 384 p. MYSTERY. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (27 reviews). EW's slant: "This is hands down the best thriller I've read in five years." Kindle edition $12.60. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"January 2006. In the Swedish hamlet of Hesjövallen, nineteen people have been massacred. The only clue is a red ribbon found at the scene. Judge Birgitta Roslin has particular reason to be shocked: Her grandparents, the Andréns, are among the victims, and Birgitta soon learns that an Andrén family in Nevada has also been murdered. She then discovers the nineteenth-century diary of an Andrén ancestor - a gang master on the American transcontinental railway - that describes brutal treatment of Chinese slave workers. The police insist that only a lunatic could have committed the Hesjövallen murders, but Birgitta is determined to uncover what she now suspects is a more complicated truth. The investigation leads to the highest echelons of power in present-day Beijing, and to Zimbabwe and Mozambique..." - from the hardcover edition.

Black Hills, by Dan Simmons. Publisher. Reagan Arthur Books. Print length: 496 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...Simmons keep the tale buoyant with his evocative prose and storytelling muscle." Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $14.29. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
Unfortunately this book has three strikes against it before it even becomes available for the Kindle: Although it was released in hardcover on February 24, the Kindle edition (in which the text-to-speech feature is disabled) will not be available until Mary 25 - and at a premium price.
"When Paha Sapa, a young Sioux warrior, 'counts coup' on General George Armstrong Custer as Custer lies dying on the battlefield at the Little Bighorn, the legendary general's ghost enters him - and his voice will speak to him for the rest of his event-filled life. Seamlessly weaving together the stories of Paha Sapa, Custer, and the American West, Dan Simmons depicts a tumultuous time in the history of both Native and white Americans. Haunted by Custer's ghost, and also by his ability to see into the memories and futures of legendary men like Sioux war-chief Crazy Horse, Paha Sapa's long life is driven by a dramatic vision he experienced as a boy in his people's sacred Black Hills. In August of 1936, a dynamite worker on the massive Mount Rushmore project, Paha Sapa plans to silence his ghost forever and reclaim his people's legacy - on the very day FDR comes to Mount Rushmore to dedicate the Jefferson face." - Amazon.


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The Kindle Reads Nebula Awards Nominees

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) recently announced the nominees for the 2009 Nebula Awards. These yearly awards are voted on by active members of the organization with winners be be announced at their Nebula Awards Banquet in May.

Awards are given for best short story, best novelette, best novella, and best novel. The Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation (films), and the Andre Norton Awards for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy round out the list of awards.

The full list of nominees is available on the SFWA site. Of the six titles on the ballot for best novel, five are available for Kindle readers:

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. Tor. Print Length: 416 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (69 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. If it just me or is that Angelina Jolie on the cover of Boneshaker? Perhaps a film in the offing?
"In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska's ice. Thus was Dr. Blue's Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born. But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead. Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue's widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history..." - publisher.

The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak. Bantam. Print Length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (9 reviews). Kindle edition $9.60. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"...a Murakamiesque jewel box of intertwined narratives in which the lives of several strangers are gently linked through love, loss, and fate. On a train filled with quietly sleeping passengers, a young man’s life is forever altered when he is miraculously seen by a blind man. In a quiet town an American teacher who has lost her Japanese lover to death begins to lose her own self. On a remote road amid fallow rice fields, four young friends carefully take their own lives - and in that moment they become almost as one. In a small village a disaffected American teenager stranded in a strange land discovers compassion after an encounter with an enigmatic red fox, and in Tokyo a girl named Love learns the deepest lessons about its true meaning from a coma patient lost in dreams of an affair gone wrong. From the neon colors of Tokyo, with its game centers and karaoke bars, to the bamboo groves and hidden shrines of the countryside, these souls and others mingle, revealing a profound tale of connection - uncovering the love we share without knowing." - www.randomhouse.com.

Flesh and Fire by Laura Anne Gilman. Book one of The Vineart War series. Pocket. Print Length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (38 reviews). Kindle edition $14.30. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Young Jerzy, a vineyard slave, possesses the rare and extraordinary ability of the Vinearts, magicians who create spellwines from the most potent grapes. When someone begins sabotaging the fields of the traditionally reclusive winemakers, it is up to Jerzy and his master to save their way of life. A slow build of tension as Jerzy progresses from slave to student to spy keeps the reader engaged without any need for frenetic fight scenes. The tale is dominated by vivid, absorbing characters, and Jerzy's powerful narrative voice makes his joys and sorrows dramatic, authentic and potent. This intoxicating high fantasy will satisfy oenophiles and bibliophiles alike." - Publishers Weekly.

The City & The City by China Mieville. Del Rey. Print Length: 336 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (98 reviews). Kindle edition $14.30. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"...unique spin on the detective story. Inspector Tyador Borlu, a lonely police detective, is assigned to the murder of a young woman found dumped in a park on the edge of Beszel, an old city, decaying and mostly forgotten, situated in an unspecified area on the southeastern fringes of Europe. But Beszel does not exist alone; it shares much of the same physical space with Ul Qoma. Each city retains a distinct culture and style, and the citizenry of both places has elaborate rules and rituals to avoid the dreaded Breach, which separates the two across space and time. This unique setting becomes one of the most important and well-developed characters in the novel, playing a pivotal role in the mystery when Tyador discovers that his murder case is much more complex than a dumped body, requiring 'international' cooperation with the Ul Qoman authorities... An excellent police procedural and a fascinating urban fantasy, this is essential reading for all mystery and fantasy fans. --Jessica Moyer for Booklist.

Finch by Jeff VanderMeer. Underland Press. Print Length: 320 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (44 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...mysterious underground inhabitants known as the gray caps have reconquered the failed fantasy state Ambergris and put it under martial law. They have disbanded House Hoegbotton and are controlling the human inhabitants with strange addictive drugs, internment in camps, and random acts of terror. The rebel resistance is scattered, and the gray caps are using human labor to build two strange towers. Against this backdrop, John Finch, who lives alone with a cat and a lizard, must solve an impossible double murder for his gray cap masters while trying to make contact with the rebels. Nothing is as it seems as Finch and his disintegrating partner Wyte negotiate their way through a landscape of spies, rebels, and deception..." - Amazon.

The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi. Publisher: Night Shades Books. Print Length: 300 p. Amazon customer rating: Kindle edition not yet available. Hardcover: $16.47.
"...grim but beautifully written tale of Bangkok struggling for survival in a post-oil era of rising sea levels and out-of-control mutation. Capt. Jaidee Rojjanasukchai of the Thai Environment Ministry fights desperately to protect his beloved nation from foreign influences. Factory manager Anderson Lake covertly searches for new and useful mutations for a hated Western agribusiness. Aging Chinese immigrant Tan Hock Seng lives by his wits while looking for one last score. Emiko, the titular despised but impossibly seductive product of Japanese genetic engineering, works in a brothel until she accidentally triggers a civil war. This complex, literate and intensely felt tale, which recalls both William Gibson and Ian McDonald at their very best..." - Publishers Weekly.


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Kindle Genre Watch: Sci-Fi, Romance and Western Fiction (22 Feb 10)

Genre fiction - as opposed to nonfiction, graphic novels and picture books - lends itself to enjoyable Kindle reading because when you pick up a book of fiction you don't necessarily expect it to be illustrated. Authors of mysteries, science fiction, fantasy, romance novels and westerns paint word pictures and their readers use their own imagination to picture the scene of the crime or the stare of a vampire or the track of an alien space craft hurtling towards earth.

Spend less time searching for new genre fiction and more time reading it as I watch for newly-released genre fiction in the Kindle Store so you don't have to. Recent genre fiction releases in sci-fi, romance and western fiction include:

SCIENCE FICTION

Faces in Time: A Time Travel Thriller by Lewis E. Aleman. Megalodon Entertainment. Print Length: 328 p. Kindle edition $0.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Chester Fuze lived a solitary life until he flung himself twenty years back in time. For years, he had loved movie star Rhonda Romero through television screens, movie theaters, and magazine covers. It wasn't until she had fallen so far as to sell her face for a cosmetic transplant that he knew he had to travel back and save her before her life headed down such a tragic and destructive path. Lunging backward through two decades in a flash, Chester races across country and enters the world of seedy gambling and the bizarre jungle of behind-the-scenes Hollywood, while being hunted down by a deranged bookie, an escaped convict, and even his past self, all of whom are determined to kill him." - Amazon.

The Postman by David Brin. Spectra. First published in 1985; newly available for Kindle. Print Length: 336 p. Kindle edition $5.93. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"This is the story of a lie that became the most powerful kind of truth. He was a survivor - a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war. Fate touches him one chill winter's day when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker to protect himself from the cold. The old, worn uniform still has power as a symbol of hope, and with it he begins to weave his greatest tale, of a nation on the road to recovery." - from the paperback edition.

The Folding Knife by K. J. Parker. Orbit. Print Length: 432 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Basso the Magnificent. Basso the Great. Basso the Wise. The First Citizen of the Vesani Republic is an extraordinary man. He is ruthless, cunning, and above all, lucky. He brings wealth, power and prestige to his people. But with power comes unwanted attention, and Basso must defend his nation and himself from threats foreign and domestic. In a lifetime of crucial decisions, he's only ever made one mistake. One mistake, though, can be enough." - Amazon.

Atlantis by Robert Doherty. Who Dares Wins Publishing. Print Length: Kindle edition $4.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Cambodia, 1968. CIA operative Eric Dane leads a squad of commandos deep into enemy-occupied territory. Their top-secret mission is interrupted by the discovery of prehistoric ruins - believed to be the ancient lost city of Angkor Kol Ker - and a strange fog that swallows up everything in its path. The mission ends in tragedy. Only Dan has survived. Three decades later, the inexplicable fog reappears, not only in Cambodia, but in the Bermuda Triangle and the Devil's Sea, as well. It is a threat that will engage the world's strongest military forces. A power that will overwhelm our science and technology. A merciless enemy that will lead Eric Dane - and the whole planet - into the final, desperate battle for survival." - Amazon.

The NeXt Dimension by John Dillard. Pegasus Books. Print Length: 330 p. Kindle edition $0.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Levon Williams is still recovering from the events of the previous Spring when his girlfriend, Daniela, was kidnapped by agents of an underworld cartel. Despite what they have been through they decide to take a vacation to work on their future together. While in Cairo the couple purchase a statute of an Egyptian cat at a local market. Later that evening, Levon accidentally knocks it over and breaks it revealing a parchment that has been hidden inside for hundreds of years. The parchment has unusual markings on it and is made out of a strange material. A local Egyptologist notices them with the parchment one evening at a local cafe and offers her assistance. With her help they are able to translate the writings which reveal coordinates that identifies a location nearby in a ruin of pyramids. At the site they discover ancient artifacts including an unusual metallic box that may be of alien origin.The couple’s world soon becomes more complicated as they seek to find answers about the items they have discovered [and] inadvertently draw the attention of an international cartel that has been searching for the box for decades..." - book cover.

ROMANCE

Pleasure of a Dark Prince by Kresley Cole. Book 9 in the Immortals After Dark series that began with the novella "The Warlord Wants Forever" in Playing Easy to Get. Pocket. Print Length: 352 p. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"...seductive tale of a fierce werewolf prince who will stop at nothing to protect the lovely archer he covets from afar. Lucia the Huntress: as mysterious as she is exquisite, she harbors secrets that threaten to destroy her - and those she loves. Garreth MacRieve, Prince of the Lykae: the brutal Highland warrior who burns to finally claim this maddeningly sensual creature as his own. From the shadows, Garreth has long watched over Lucia. Now, the only way to keep the proud huntress safe from harm is to convince her to accept him as her guardian. To do this, Garreth will ruthlessly exploit Lucia’s greatest weakness - her wanton desire for him..." - kresleycole.com.

First Drop of Crimson by Jeaniene Frost. HarperCollins. Print Length: 384 p. Kindle edition $5.59. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The night is not safe for mortals. Denise MacGregor knows all too well what lurks in the shadows - her best friend is half-vampire Cat Crawfield - and she has already lost more than the average human could bear. But her family's past is wrapped in secrets and shrouded in darkness - and a demon shapeshifter has marked Denise as prey. Now her survival depends on an immortal who lusts for a taste of her. He is Spade, a powerful, mysterious vampire who has walked the earth for centuries and is now duty-bound to protect this endangered, alluring human - even if it means destroying his own kind..." - Amazon.

An Inconvenient Marriage by Ruth Ann Nordin. Self-published. Print Length: Kindle edition $0.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In order to receive his inheritance, Jake Mitchell must marry. In order to save her family's farm, Sue Lewis must marry a rich man. So Jake comes up with a plan. Why not strike up a platonic, business arrangement where they can marry each other for six months? Then they are free to annul the marriage and go their separate ways. Unfortunately for him, the people he knows are determined to keep them together. Between an army of suitors willing to woo Sue before her annulment and the Lewis brothers scheming to show Jake how attractive she is, laughter and love are in the air. And in the end, a confirmed bachelor might discover that an inconvenient marriage may not be so inconvenient after all. This historical romantic comedy is rated R." - Amazon.


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WESTERNS

Powder Burn by Bradford Scott. A Walt Slade Texas Ranger Western. Wonder Publishing Group. Kindle edition $3.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Double danger for Walt Slade, undercover ace lieutenant of the Texas Rangers. He is the man most feared by the owlhoots and drygulchers of the old Texas Border. The sight of this tall lawman with the lightning-fast draw astride his great black horse, Shadow, symbolizes defense of the innocent and the end of reckless careers of lawlessness.
Walt Slade trailed a killer from Texas through Mexico, all the way to Tombstone, Arizona - only to find the owlhoot riding at his back. And when he turned to face him he found he was not only up against his prey, but also in a showdown with Wyatt Earp, most famous marshal in the West. Slade had to get his man, but first he had to face death at the hands of Wyatt Earp." - Amazon.

Black Jack and Other Works by Max Brand. Halcyon Press. Kindle edition $0.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
Eighteen works by western novelist Frederick Schiller Faust, better known by his pen name, Max Brand. Includes Harrigan, Hole-in-the-Wall Barrett, Riders of the Silences, The Untamed, Trailin’, The Night Horseman, Gunman’s Reckoning Way of the Lawless, Ronicky Doone, Ronicky Doone’s Reward, Ronicky Doone’s Treasure, Alcatraz, Black Jack, The Rangeland Avenger, Bull Hunter, The Ghost, The Hair-Trigger Kid, andThe Seventh Man. Active table of contents.

Deep Creek by Dana Hand. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Print Length: 320 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Idaho Territory, June 1887. A small-town judge takes his young daughter fishing, and she catches a man. Another body surfaces, then another. The final toll: over 30 Chinese gold miners brutally murdered. Their San Francisco employer hires Idaho lawman Joe Vincent to solve the case. Soon he journeys up the wild Snake River with Lee Loi, an ambitious young company investigator, and Grace Sundown, a métis mountain guide with too many secrets. As they track the killers across the Pacific Northwest, through haunted canyons and city streets, each must put aside lies and old grievances to survive a quest that will change them forever. Deep Creek is a historical thriller inspired by actual events and people: the 1887 massacre of Chinese miners in remote and beautiful Hells Canyon, the middle-aged judge who went after their slayers, and the sham race-murder trial that followed..." - Amazon.

Kindle Genre Watch: Fantasy and Mystery Fiction (20 Feb 2010)

Genre fiction - as opposed to nonfiction, graphic novels and picture books - lends itself to enjoyable Kindle reading because when you pick up a book of fiction you don't necessarily expect it to be illustrated. Authors of mysteries, science fiction, fantasy, romance novels and westerns paint word pictures and their readers use their own imagination to picture the scene of the crime or the stare of a vampire or the track of an alien space craft hurtling towards earth.

Spend less time searching for new genre fiction and more time reading it as I watch for newly-released genre fiction in the Kindle Store so you don't have to. Recent genre fiction releases in fantasy and mystery fiction include:

MYSTERY

The Midnight House by Alex Berenson. Putnam. Print length: 400 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
This is the fourth in Berenson's fine series of spy novels featuring CIA agent John Wells. The first three are The Faithful Spy (winner of the Edgar award for best first novel), The Ghost War and The Silent Man.
"Superspy and serial country-saver John Wells ... seeks to uncover the truth about a string of murdered operatives from a top-secret unit. Last seen stopping an Islamist plot to detonate a nuclear device in Washington, D.C., CIA agent Wells is called back to duty from a rest period in New Hampshire by his grouchy but loveable Agency handler Ellis Shafer. It seems CIA head Vincent Duto, with whom Wells has repeatedly butted heads, wants them to look into a string of suspicious deaths...A superbly crafted spy thriller that doubles as a gripping mystery; the reader has no idea who the killer is until Wells figures it out. " - Kirkus Reviews.

Blood Ties by Kay Hooper. Bantam. Print length: 320 p. Kindle edition $9.99 Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The elite Special Crimes Unit, the FBI’s most controversial and effective team, is a group of mavericks and misfits trained to use their unique psychic abilities to hunt the worst monsters imaginable - human ones. Led by the enigmatic Noah Bishop, the SCU has earned a reputation for pitting their skills and cunning against killers that other cops fear. But this time Bishop and his agents face an enemy who has them in his sights... It starts with an unspeakable series of grisly murders across three states, a trail of blood leading, finally, to the small Tennessee town of Serenade... One of the first investigators on the scene, Special Agent Hollis Templeton, is willing to push herself as hard and as far as necessary. Risking more than her life to help and protect her SCU colleagues, Hollis must cope with her own psychic abilities, which are evolving in unprecedented ways, an attraction to the most complex man she’s ever known, and a serial murder investigation that turns very, very personal." - Amazon.

The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell. Knopf. Print length: 384 p. Kindle edition $13.50. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"January 2006. In the Swedish hamlet of Hesjövallen, nineteen people have been massacred. The only clue is a red ribbon found at the scene. Judge Birgitta Roslin has particular reason to be shocked: Her grandparents, the Andréns, are among the victims, and Birgitta soon learns that an Andrén family in Nevada has also been murdered. She then discovers the nineteenth-century diary of an Andrén ancestor - a gang master on the American transcontinental railway - that describes brutal treatment of Chinese slave workers. The police insist that only a lunatic could have committed the Hesjövallen murders, but Birgitta is determined to uncover what she now suspects is a more complicated truth. The investigation leads to the highest echelons of power in present-day Beijing, and to Zimbabwe and Mozambique..." - from the hardcover edition.

FANTASY

Ars Magica by Judith Tarr. Book View Cafe. Print length: 210 p. Kindle edition $3.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled. First published in 1989.
"...wonderful tale of a young monk in the 10th Century who learns the secrets of magic while rising in power and influence within the medieval Church. The mixture of fact (the main charecters are almost all versions of real people) and fantasy is well-developed, and the author's essay on the historical basis of her work is informative and fascinating." - www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/

Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan. Book 5 in The Wheel of Time series. Tor. Print length: 704 p. Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Robert Jordan again plunges us into his extraordinarily rich, totally unforgettable world: Into the forbidden city of Rhuidean, where Rand al'Thor, now the Dragon Reborn, must conceal his present endeavor from all about him, even Egwene and Moiraine... Into the Amyrlin's study in the White Tower, where the Amyrlin, Elaida do Avriny a'Roihan, is weaving new plans... Into the luxurious hidden chamber where the Forsaken Rahvin is meeting with three of his fellows to ensure their ultimate victory over the Dragon....Into the Queen's court in Caemlyn, where Morgase is curiously in thrall to the handsome Lord Gaebril. For once the dragon walks the land, the fires of heaven fall where they will, until all men's lives are ablaze. And in Shayol Ghul, the Dark One stirs..." - Amazon.

Take Me Out to the Kindle: New Baseball Books (18 Feb 10)

Whether you follow the Grapefruit or the Cactus League, if you're like me, about this time of year you start thinking "spring training" and counting the weeks until major league baseball gets under way again in early April. While we're waiting, get up-to-speed with these recent baseball titles for the Kindle:

Eye for Talent: Interviews with Veteran Baseball Scouts, edited by P. J. Dragseth. McFarland. Print Length: 251 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Baseball scouts are often unseen, seldom recognized, and usually underappreciated by fans, but they have contributed enormously to the development and evolution of baseball at all levels, from the players they signed to the changes in the business climate of the game. This book presents original interviews with 19 baseball scouts. In many cases, these veterans are a vanishing breed; among the most respected baseball men in the business, most have a minimum of forty years' experience in scouting. They share their experiences as players, their development as scouts while the business and the game continually evolved, the players they signed and the ones that got away. Along with each interview is a list of the scout's signed players who made it to the major leagues." - Amazon.

What's the Score: Baseball Scorekeeping in Ten Easy Chapters, by S. L. Schell. Amazon customer rating: None yet. Kindle edition $4.75 Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"S L Schell, a former member of the National Association of Scorers, has kept score for baseball and softball leagues for over thirty years, from sandlot baseball to state tournaments. you how to keep score for baseball games, whether you're a fan at the ball park, a player in a league, or a family member of a young ball player. With clear, basic instructions and over 45 accompanying diagrams, this book is appropriate for both novice and experienced scorekeepers, as you will be guided through several experience levels. Each chapter ends with a quick quiz, and helpful hints are liberally sprinkled throughout the book. These tips are based on questions which come up most often at scorekeeping clinics." - Amazon.

90% of the Game is Half Mental: And Other Tales from the Edge of Baseball Fandom, by Emma Span. Villard. Print Length: 320 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"...in this winning collection of essays, Span chronicles her love of the sport, from childhood hobby to full-blown obsession, from big break (becoming The Village Voice’s first staff sports reporter in years) to heartbreak (getting a pink slip within a year). She recounts elbowing her way to get a quote from Yankees captain Derek Jeter and waiting for Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez to put some pants on for an interview. She literally gives her lifeblood to see the Mets and hops a plane to Taiwan, home to perhaps the largest concentration of Yankees fans outside of the five boroughs. But after getting laid off and being forced to leave her press pass behind, Span wonders if her passion for the sport will fade. Highly unlikely. Baseball helped Span forge a lasting bond with her father, connect with total strangers, and endure even the toughest times. With a fresh voice, a devastating wit, and an alarmingly encyclopedic knowledge of the game, Span offers a new perspective on America’s favorite pastime - as a journalist, a baseball nerd, a daughter, and a fervent stay-until-the-last-out fan." - Amazon.

The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime, by Jason Turbow with Michael Duca. Pantheon. Print Length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Nearly as long as baseball has existed in its current form, so too have unofficial rules that professional players have strictly adhered to. Yet as Turnbow demonstrates in this highly entertaining read, every rule of the code has certain variations. Most casual baseball fans are keenly aware of many topics that Turnbow broaches, and some are universally agreed upon - hitters admiring home runs is severely frowned on, as is arguing with one's manager in public view and being caught stealing signs. But other rules are less cut-and-dried. On the subject of retaliating for a teammate being hit by a pitch: some believe the pitcher should be plunked in his next at-bat, while others say it should be a player with corresponding talent to the hit batter. Turnbow has an example for nearly every conceivable situation, and with quotes from dozens of former major league players, managers, and broadcasters, the reader can better understand the actions that can set off even the most even-tempered ball player..." - Publishers Weekly.

Play Ball: 100 Baseball Practice Games, by Thomas O'Connell. Human Kinetics. Print Length: 240 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Tom O'Connell has over 30 years of amateur and professional baseball coaching experience. A Major League Baseball recommending scout since 1986, O'Connell has worked for the Cincinnati Reds, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the 2008 World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies. With more than 100 skill-building competitions, Play Ball: 100 Baseball Practice Games covers everything from the fundamentals of fielding, pitching, catching, and hitting to special situations such as rundowns, base stealing, and bunting. You'll even learn how to incorporate the games into team practices to perfect execution and prepare for opponents." - Amazon.

Baseball's Dead of World War II: A Roster of Professional Players Who Died in Service, by Gary Bedingfield. McFarland. Print Length: 272 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"While most fans know that baseball stars Ted Williams, Hank Greenberg, and Bob Feller served in the military during World War II, few can name the two major leaguers who died in action. (They were catcher Harry O'Neill and outfielder Elmer Gedeon.) Far fewer still are aware that another 125 minor league players also lost their lives during the war. This book draws on extensive research and interviews to bring their personal lives, baseball careers, and wartime service to light." - Amazon.

Baseball Fiends and Flying Machines: The Many Lives and Outrageous Times of George and Alfred Lawson, by Jerry Kuntz. McFarland. Print Length: 238 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"It's hard to imagine a wilder pair of brothers than Alfred and George Lawson. Best known as early promoters of professional baseball, they were intense rivals whose shared narcissism led them from one grand scheme to another, both in and away from the game, generating headlines as they went. Alfred had a long career as a player, manager, and minor league organizer before gaining notoriety as a utopian novelist, philosopher, economic reformer, cult leader, and early aviation promoter. George was a soldier, vaudeville troupe manager, performing hypnotist, medical quack, evangelist, and anti-KKK crusader who sought to break baseball's color line by founding integrated leagues." - Amazon.


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Kindle E-Books on the Cheap: A Weekly Selection (16 Feb 2010)

Once you've purchased an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, the wonderful world of public domain, Creative Commons and free e-book promotions opens up to you. This regular Kindle Reader feature points you to a few of the most interesting new free (or very cheap) e-books available for download from the web.
Jan 27
Free e-book selections for this week include a fan fiction treat for Harry Potter fans, a Jules Verne adventure tale, two classic mysteries, science fiction by Philip José Farmer and Michael Graeme, a novel of time travel back to 1940s Britain and - for history buffs - Lytton Strachey's biography of a queen who gave her name to an era and reigned for more than 63 years.

James Potter and the Hall of Elders Crossing, by G. Norman Lippert. Book 1 of the James Potter trilogy. FAN FICTION. Download site: www.jamespotterseries.com. Format: PDF. Price: FREE.
"What's it like to be the son of the most famous wizard of all time? James Potter thinks he knows, but as he begins his own adventure of Hogwarts, he discovers just how much of a challenge it really is to live up to the legend of the great Harry Potter. And if it wasn't enough dealing with the delegates from the American wizarding school and figuring out the mysteriously polite Slytherins, James and his new friends, Ralph and Zane, begin to uncover a secret plot that could pit the Muggle and Magical worlds against each other in all-out war." - www.jamespotterseries.com.


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The Adventures of a Special Correspondent, by Jules Verne. ADVENTURE. Download site: Amazon. Format: Kindle.
"Claudius Bombarnac, a reporter is assigned by the Twentieth Century to cover the travels of the Grand Transasiatic Railway which runs between Uzun Ada, Turkestan and Peking, China. Accompanying him on this journey is an interesting collection of characters, including one who is trying to beat the round the world record and another who is a stowaway. Claudius hopes one of them will become the hero of his piece, so his story won't be just a boring travelogue. He is not disappointed when a special car guarded by troops is added to the train, said to be carrying the remains of a great Mandarin. The great Mandarin actually turns out to be a large consignment being returned to China from Persia. Unfortunately the train must travel through a large part of China that is controlled by unscrupulous robber-chiefs. Before the journey is over, Claudius finds his hero." - Amazon.

Average Jones, by Samuel Hopkins Adams. MYSTERY. Download site: MobileRead. Format: .PRC for Kindle.
"On the case from 1911 is the detective the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection called mystery master Samuel Hopkins Adams' 'most famous creation,' the man whose moniker totally belies his real character, that ratiocinating genius and member of the Cosmic Club, Adrian Van Reypen Egerton, or 'Average' Jones as his friends shorten it. Here how the Enyclopedia describes his adventures: This handsome young advertising genius maintains a remarkable sense of humor throughout a series of unusual cases which often have a medical background. Match wits with Jones as he takes on the cases of The Red Spot, the Mercy Sign, the Blue Fires, the Million Dollar Dog, and others." - HarryT on MobileRead.

The Fellowship of the Frog, by Edgar Wallace. MYSTERY. Download site: MobileRead. Format: .PRC for Kindle. Price: FREE.
"1923 thriller by the prolific British crime writer, Edgar Wallace. London is being swept by a series of audacious robberies perpetrated by a secret society known as the 'Fellowship of the Frog', a loose confederation of seedy characters, thieves, hustlers, and other ne’r-do-wells who follow the commands of a mysterious criminal mastermind known only as The Frog." - HarryT on MobileRead.

Rastignac the Devil, by Philip José Farmer. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: Manybooks. Format: .AZW for Kindle. Price: FREE.
First appeared in Fantastic Universe, May 1954. "Here is high fidelity fiction at Philip José Farmer's story-telling best. It's a vibrant, distractingly different tale of three centuries into the future. And as you read you'll have a vague, uneasy feeling that it's all taking place somewhere in the unexplored parts of the universe, even today." - Manybooks.

The Man Who Talked to Machines, by Michael Graeme. SCIENCE FICTION. Download site: Feedbooks. Format: Mobipocket/Kindle. Price: FREE.
A short story from web-author Michael Graeme (a half hour read):
"You have to talk to them, counsel them, mesmerise them into stillness before you set foot anywhere near them. And, though I may not be considered wholly sane, at least I have a reputation for the way I talk to machines."

Whirl of the Wheel, by Catherine Condie. FANTASY. Download site: Feedbooks. Format: Mobipocket/Kindle. Price: FREE.
"Three children whirl back in time through an enchanted potter’s wheel into the reality of evacuation in 1940s Britain. Whirl of the Wheel pulls feisty Connie, her brother Charlie-Mouse, and school pest Malcolm into dangers on the homefront and towards a military secret that will save their home from demolition. The children hit trouble when Malcolm ails to return to the present day." - Feedbooks.

Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey BIOGRAPHY. Download site: MobileRead. Format: .MOBI for Kindle. Price: FREE.
"A while ago, I was reading a books of essays by the late American author and critic, Edmund Wilson, and came across his essay on Lytton Strachey. In it, he said that Strachey had approached Queen Victoria in the mood of Eminent Victorians and then relented. Instead of being caricatured as Florence Nightingale was in Eminent Victorians, he presented her as living a woman's limited life, for all her position and public responsibility. This sounded encouraging and I ended up enjoying this very readable biography. He reserves most of his acid for the cast of supporting characters, though it has a very sympathetic portrait of Albert, I thought. Anyhow, here it is, a biography of Princes William and Harry's great, great, great, grandmother (I think.)" - Strether on MobileRead.

New Popular Science for the Kindle (14 Feb 2010)

"A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty, until found effective." - Edward Teller.

Scientists read PDFs, we're told, but those of us who read for pleasure like to dip into science nonfiction now and then to keep up with what's happening in world scientists are still uncovering. New on the Kindle popular science shelves:

The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature, by Timothy Ferris. HarperCollins. Print length: 384 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...award-winning author Timothy Ferris - "the best popular science writer in the English language today" (Christian Science Monitor) - makes a passionate case for science as the inspiration behind the rise of liberalism and democracy. Ferris argues that just as the scientific revolution rescued billions from poverty, fear, hunger, and disease, the Enlightenment values it inspired has swelled the number of persons living in free and democratic societies from less than 1 percent of the world population four centuries ago to more than a third today. Ferris deftly investigates the evolution of these scientific and political revolutions, demonstrating that they are inextricably bound. He shows how science was integral to the American Revolution but misinterpreted in the French Revolution; reflects on the history of liberalism, stressing its widely underestimated and mutually beneficial relationship with science; and surveys the forces that have opposed science and liberalism - from communism and fascism to postmodernism and Islamic fundamentalism. ...a stunningly original work that transcends the antiquated concepts of left and right." - Amazon.

The Perfect Swarm: The Science of Complexity in Everyday Life, by Len Fisher. Basic Books. Print length: 288 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"One of the greatest discoveries of recent times is that the complex patterns we find in life are often produced when all of the individuals in a group follow the same simple rule. This process of self-organization reveals itself in the inanimate worlds of crystals and seashells, but as Len Fisher shows, it is also evident in living organisms, from fish to ants to human beings. The coordinated movements of fish in shoals, for example, arise from the simple rule: Follow the fish in front. Traffic flow arises from simple rules: Keep your distance and -Keep to the right. Now, in his new book, Fisher shows how we can manage our complex social lives in an ever more chaotic world. His investigation encompasses topics ranging from swarm intelligence to the science of parties and the best ways to start a fad. Finally, Fisher sheds light on the beauty and utility of complexity theory. An entertaining journey into the science of everyday life, The Perfect Swarm will delight anyone who wants to understand the complex situations in which we so often find ourselves." - Amazon.

Healing Hearts: A Memoir of a Female Heart Surgeon, by Kathy Magliato. Broadway. Print length: 272 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In her amazing memoir, Magliato belies the myth of surgeons as distant, cocky, robotic - and male. Yet she also bluntly explains why, as one of the world's very few female heart surgeons, she once relied on the psychological full metal jacket. Sometimes, it was the only thing holding me together, she says of the distance she needed during an insanely grueling training in cardiac surgery. Magliato describes the bloody trenches of the operating theater; the vulnerable patients who are saved or who die; and the juggling of a demanding career with her role as wife and mother. However, it's the doctor's tender heart that makes her far more than a healing robot..." - Publishers Weekly.

The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives, by Shankar Vedantam. Spiegel & Grau. Print length: 288 p. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (22 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Most of us would agree that there’s a clear - and even obvious - connection between the things we believe and the way we behave. But what if our actions are driven not by our conscious values and beliefs but by hidden motivations we’re not even aware of? The 'hidden brain' is Shankar Vedantam’s shorthand for a host of brain functions, emotional responses, and cognitive processes that happen outside our conscious awareness but have a decisive effect on how we behave. ... It decides whom we fall in love with, whether we should convict someone of murder, and which way to run when someone yells 'Fire!' It explains why we can become riveted by the story of a single puppy adrift on the ocean but are quickly bored by a story of genocide. The hidden brain can also be deliberately manipulated to convince people to vote against their own interests, or even become suicide terrorists. Shankar Vedantam, author of The Washington Post’s popular 'Department of Human Behavior' column, takes us on a tour of this phenomenon and explores its consequences. Using original reporting that combines the latest scientific research with compulsively readable narratives that take readers from the American campaign trail to terrorist indoctrination camps, from the World Trade Center on 9/11 to, yes, a puppy adrift on the Pacific Ocean..." - Amazon.

Danger to Self: On the Front Line with an ER Psychiatrist, by Paul Linde. University of California. Print length: 280 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Linde..., clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California–San Francisco medical school, performs a remarkably successful balancing act by presenting both the theory and practice of emergency room psychiatry in a compelling manner. He personalizes his cases and demonstrates how essential the human dimension is in high-quality care. Using 10 fascinating case studies from his 17-year career - with patients manifesting symptoms from suicidal behavior to catatonia - Linde discusses the medical, legal, philosophical and ethical implications of treatment options. He brings the reader along as he is forced to make almost immediate diagnoses and determine courses of treatment, including incarceration, that have the potential to shape (or end) these patients' lives..." - Publishers Weekly.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. Crown. Print length: 368 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (40 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive - even thrive - in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution - and her cells' strange survival - left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story..." - Tom Nissley for Amazon.


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The Kindle Reads the Alex Award Winners

Each year when the Alex Award winners are announced by YALSA, the public awaits with bated breath the fabled walk down the red carpet and the star-studded awards ceremony. Oh, wait! Wrong awards. Actually the Alex Awards may promise more enjoyment - and certainly better reading opportunities for Kindle readers - than watching the more highly touted Academy Awards.

The Alexes are awarded each year by the Young Adult Library Services Association (a division of the American Library Association) to ten books originally written for adults that have special appeal to young adults ages 12 through 18. Almost invariably these books are entertaining and well-written - with enough flare to interest easily bored teens.

Eight of the ten winners for 2010 are available in Kindle editions. And the winners are:

The Bride's Farewell, by Meg Rosoff. Viking. Print length: 224 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (27 reviews). Kindle edition $14.09. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"In rural 1850s England, a horse-mad young woman flees home on her wedding day. Fearful that her fiancé's promise of 'a house full of children' will translate into a future of drudgery, Pell plans to visit the Salisbury Horse Fair. Her mute little brother insists on accompanying her, but when he and her horse disappear at the fair - along with the man for whom she's spent the day working and who still owes her money - Pell's vision of her future is drastically altered. The twists and turns along her new path bring her into contact with a wide variety of people, from the Gypsy family that helps her on her way to Dogman, to a taciturn poacher who becomes her savior. Rosoff's simple yet descriptive language paints a clear picture of a world both bleak and beautiful...." - School Library Journal.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope, by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. HarperCollins. Print length: NONFICTION. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (90 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Discarded motor parts, PVC pipe, and an old bicycle wheel may be junk to most people, but in the inspired hands of William Kamkwamba, they are instruments of opportunity. Growing up amid famine and poverty in rural Malawi, wind was one of the few abundant resources available, and the inventive fourteen-year-old saw its energy as a way to power his dreams. 'With a windmill, we'd finally release ourselves from the troubles of darkness and hunger,' he realized. 'A windmill meant more than just power, it was freedom.' Despite the biting jeers of village skeptics, young William devoted himself to borrowed textbooks and salvage yards in pursuit of a device that could produce an 'electric wind.' The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is an inspiring story of an indomitable will that refused to bend to doubt or circumstance. When the world seemed to be against him, William Kamkwamba set out to change it." - Dave Callanan.

Everything Matters!, by Ron Currie, Jr.. Viking. Print length: 320 pages. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (45 reviews). Kindle edition $13.97. Text-to-Speech: Disabled. Reader alert: The hardcover edition of this book is less expensive than the Kindle edition.
"On the day that Junior Thibodeau is born, he learns the exact moment when the world will end: 36 years, 168 days, 14 hours, and 23 seconds into the future - pretty heavy news for a newborn. Knowledge of the pending apocalypse - revealed by an omniscient, unnamed 'we' - colors Junior's existence from day one and leaves him wondering: 'Does anything I do matter?' Ron Currie, Jr.'s terrific debut novel unfolds through the funny, poignant, and tragic stories told by Junior and his family, (each of them owning a chapter) including the all-knowing Greek chorus that gently, affectionately nudges Junior toward his destiny. ...unpredictable without being flashy, sweet without being sentimental, thoughtful without being preachy - a fun read that will keep you thinking long after the story is over. - Daphne Durham for Amazon.

The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Print length: 304 p. NONFICTION. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (65 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. 'Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences,' he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them. Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Bagdad, and almost every grueling step of the way. What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success?-Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines." - Amazon.

The Kids Are All Right: A Memoir, by Diana Welch and Liz Welch with Amanda Welch and Dan Welch. Publisher. Print length: 352 p. MEMOIR. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (79 reviews). Kindle edition $14.84. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Well, 1983 certainly wasn’t boring for the Welch family. Somehow, between their handsome father’s mysterious death, their glamorous soap-opera-star mother’s cancer diagnosis, and a phalanx of lawyers intent on bankruptcy proceedings, the four Welch siblings managed to handle each new heartbreaking misfortune in the same way they dealt with the unexpected arrival of the forgotten-about Chilean exchange student - together. All that changed with the death of their mother... Told in the alternating voices of the four siblings, their poignant, harrowing story of un­breakable bonds unfolds with ferocious emotion. Despite the Welch children’s wrenching loss and subsequent separation, they retained the resilience and humor that both their mother and father endowed them with - growing up as lost souls, taking disastrous turns along the way, but eventually coming out right side up..." - www.randomhouse.com.

The Magicians, by Lev Grossman. Viking. Print length: 416 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (197 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he's still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn't bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin's fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart." - Amazon.

Soulless: An Alexia Tarabotti Novel, by Gail Carriger. Orbit. Print length: 384 p. FANTASY. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (124 reviews). Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette. Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire - and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate. Soulless is a comedy of manners set in Victorian London: full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking." - Amazon.

Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, by Kevin Wilson. HarperCollins. Print Length: 240 p. SHORT STORY COLLECTION. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (10 reviews). Kindle edition $8.79. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The stories in Kevin Wilson's collection are populated by the strange and the fascinating: Grand Stand-In is narrated by an employee of the Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider - a company that supplies stand-ins for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents. The young boy in Birds in the House is assigned the task of judging a bizarre origami contest, in which his father and uncles are competing for his grandmother's estate. And in Blowing Up On the Spot... a young woman works sorting tiles at a Scrabble factory after her parents have spontaneously combusted. Kevin Wilson's characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. Southern gothic at its best, laced with humor and pathos, these wonderfully inventive stories explore the relationship between loss and death and the many ways we try to cope with both." - Amazon.

My Abandonment, by Peter Rock. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Print length: 240 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (68 reviews). Not yet available for the Kindle. Hardcover edition $14.96.
"A thirteen-year-old girl and her father live in Forest Park, the enormous nature preserve in Portland, Oregon. There they inhabit an elaborate cave shelter, bathe in a nearby creek, store perishables at the water’s edge, use a makeshift septic system, tend a garden, even keep a library of sorts. Once a week, they go to the city to buy groceries and otherwise merge with the civilized world. But one small mistake allows a backcountry jogger to discover them, which derails their entire existence, ultimately provoking a deeper flight.
Inspired by a true story and told through the startlingly sincere voice of a young narrator, Caroline, Peter Rock's My Abandonment is a riveting journey into life at the margins..." - Amazon.

Stitches: A Memoir, by David Small. W. W. Norton & Company. Print length: 336 p. GRAPHIC MEMOIR. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (72 reviews). Not yet available for the Kindle. Hardcover edition $16.47.
In this profound and moving memoir, Small, an award-winning children's book illustrator, uses his drawings to depict the consciousness of a young boy. The story starts when the narrator is six years old and follows him into adulthood, with most of the story spent during his early adolescence. The youngest member of a silent and unhappy family, David is subjected to repeated x-rays to monitor sinus problems. When he develops cancer as a result of this procedure, he is operated on without being told what is wrong with him. The operation results in the loss of his voice, cutting him off even further from the world around him. Small's black and white pen and ink drawings are endlessly perceptive as they portray the layering of dream and imagination onto the real-life experiences of the young boy.... Small tells his story with haunting subtlety and power." - Publishers Weekly.


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And finally, a brief message for Kindle Reader subscribers: There will be no Entertainment Weekly book reviews this week or next because the latest issue of EW (Special Double Issue for February 12-19) reviews only two books - The Postmistress and Game Change - both of which have been featured in earlier Kindle Reader postings.

History Thru the Lens of Fiction: New Historical Novels for the Kindle (10 Feb 10)

Blending historical fact with fiction, a novel set in other times and places can transport you into the past more convincingly than a dry historical treatise - and entertain you in the bargain. What I look for in historical fiction are books by authors who, after reading the histories and doing the research, create stories based in the past that include characters I want to know better and a plot that keeps me turning pages - books like Peter Ackroyd's The Clerkenwell Tales, Bernard Cornwell's The Last Kingdom, and Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth.

Now you can spend less time searching and more time reading as I watch for new historical fiction in the Kindle Store so you don't have to. New on historical fiction shelves:

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake. Putnam. Print Length: 336 p. TIME FRAME: 1940 - in the U.S. and Europe. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (34 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Weaving together the stories of three very different women loosely tied to each other, debut novelist Blake takes readers back and forth between small town America and war-torn Europe in 1940. Single, 40-year-old postmistress Iris James and young newlywed Emma Trask are both new arrivals to Franklin, Mass., on Cape Cod. While Iris and Emma go about their daily lives, they follow American reporter Frankie Bard on the radio as she delivers powerful and personal accounts from the London Blitz and elsewhere in Europe. While Trask waits for the return of her husband - a volunteer doctor stationed in England - James comes across a letter with valuable information that she chooses to hide..." - Publishers Weekly.

Secrets of the Tudor Court: Between Two Queens by Kate Emerson. Volume two of Emerson's Tudor Court series, following Secrets of the Tudor Court: The Pleasure Palace. Pocket. Print Length: 384 p. TIME FRAME: 16th century England. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Pretty, flirtatious, and ambitious. Nan Bassett hopes that an appointment at the court of King Henry VIII will bring her a grand marriage. But soon after she becomes a maid of honor to Queen Jane, the queen dies in childbirth. As the court plunges into mourning, Nan sets her sights on the greatest match in the land...for the king has noticed her. After all, it wouldn't be the first time King Henry has chosen to wed a maid of honor. ... But the favor of a king can be dangerous and chancy, not just for Nan, but for her family as well...and passionate Nan is guarding a secret, one that could put her future - and her life - in grave jeopardy should anyone discover the truth.Based on the life of the real Anne Bassett and her family, and drawing extensively from letters and diaries of the time, Between Two Queens is an enthralling picture of the dangers and delights of England's most passionate era." - Amazon.

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom. Touchstone. Print Length: 384 p. TIME FRAME: Late 18th and early 19th century Virginia. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Lavinia, an orphaned seven-year-old white indentured servant, arrives in 1791 to work in the kitchen house at Tall Oaks, a Tidewater, Va., tobacco plantation owned by Capt. James Pyke. Belle, the captain's illegitimate half-white daughter who runs the kitchen house, shares narration duties, and the two distinctly different voices chronicle a troublesome 20 years: Lavinia becomes close to the slaves working the kitchen house, but she can't fully fit in because of her race. At 17, she marries Marshall, the captain's brutish son turned inept plantation master, and as Lavinia ingratiates herself into the family and the big house, racial tensions boil over into lynching, rape, arson, and murder. The plantation's social order's emphasis on violence, love, power, and corruption provides a trove of tension and grit, while the many nefarious doings will keep readers hooked..." - Publishers Weekly.

The Blue Orchard by Jackson Taylor. Touchstone. Print Length: 416 p. TIME FRAME: Depression-era Pennsylvania. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (9 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"On the eve of the Great Depression, Verna Krone, the child of Irish immigrants, must leave the eighth grade and begin working as a maid to help support her family. Her employer takes inappropriate liberties, and as Verna matures, it seems as if each man she meets is worse than the last. Through sheer force of will and a few chance encounters, she manages to teach herself to read and becomes a nurse. But Verna’s new life falls to pieces when she is arrested for assisting a black doctor with 'illegal surgeries.' As the media firestorm rages, Verna reflects on her life while awaiting trial. Based on the life of the author’s own grandmother and written after almost three hundred interviews with those involved in the real-life scandal, The Blue Orchard is as elegant and moving as it is exact and convincing..." - Amazon.

The Last Station by Jay Parini. Anchor. Print Length: 304 p. TIME FRAME: 1910 Russia. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
Now a major motion picture starring Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, & James McAvoy.
"...a fascinating glimpse into the turbulent final year of Leo Tolstoy's life. Based on the diaries of various family members and associates and the great Russian's own words, and told through their different voices, it effectively and sensitively depicts the forces vying for his very soul. Tolstoy's stormy relationship with his wife, the philosophical as well as practical implications of her battle with his beloved disciple Valdimir Chertkov over the rights to his literary heritage, and the mental anguish of a man professing the virtues of poverty and chastity while living a life of great privilege become clearly manifest... - David W. Henderson for Library Journal.

The Queen's Governess by Karen Harper. Putnam. Print Length: 368 p. TIME FRAME: 16th Century England. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $14.27. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Katherine Ashley is the daughter of a country squire with no hope of a future, until a chance meeting with Thomas Cromwell gets her sent to Henry VIII's court as a waiting gentlewoman to Queen Anne Boleyn and a spy for Cromwell. When Boleyn comes to an untimely end, Ashley becomes tutor and servant to her daughter, Elizabeth, and accompanies the girl throughout her trials and tribulations before she finally takes her father's throne and goes on to become England's greatest queen. Rarely does a work of historical fiction endeavor to cover so much territory - Ashley lives through the reigns of four Tudors - but Harper's diligent research, realistic portrayal, and insider/outsider heroine will hook those who can't get enough of England's turbulent history.." - Publishers Weekly.

War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk. Originally published in 1978, this is the sequel to The Winds of War. Back Bay Books. Print Length: 1042 p. TIME FRAME: 1941-1945 in many locales. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (71 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...picks up where Winds of War stopped: Pearl Harbor, December 1941, yet the book stands alone to be fully enjoyed without its prequel. After U.S. Navy Captain Victor 'Pug; Henry watched the first ship he was about to command, the U.S.S. California, sink brutally broken beneath the waves, he has been given a new command, the U.S.S. Northampton. He's learned that his son Byron survived the sinking of his submarine, but that Byron's wife, Natalie and their son are missing in Europe. Natalie is the daughter of a famous Hebrew scholar, also missing, and the implications, as Nazi atrocities are only beginning to surface, are terrifying. Pug's marriage is shaky, the United States is in chaos as it struggles to recover from its isolationism and join, at sword's point, the allies in the conflagration to come. Wouk's scrupulous attention to historic accuracy and finely honed storytelling skills offer what many feel is the finest wartime novel ever written about World War II." - bookreporter.com

The Boleyn Wife by Brandy Purdy. Kensington Books. Print Length: 384 p. TIME FRAME: 16th century England. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $9.60. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Shy, plain Lady Jane Parker feels out of place in Henry VIII's courtly world of glamour and intrigue - until she meets the handsome George Boleyn. Overjoyed when their fathers arrange a match, her dreams of a loving union are waylaid when she meets George's sister, Anne. For George is completely devoted to his sister, and cold and indifferent to his bride. As Anne acquires a wide circle of admirers, including King Henry, Jane's resentment grows. But if becoming Henry's queen makes Anne the most powerful woman in England, it also makes her highly vulnerable. And as Henry, desperate for a male heir, begins to tire of his mercurial wife, the stage is set for the ultimate betrayal..." - Amazon.


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Kindle Genre Watch: Sci-Fi, Romance and Western Fiction (8 Feb 10)

Genre fiction - as opposed to nonfiction, graphic novels and picture books - lends itself to enjoyable Kindle reading because when you pick up a book of fiction you don't necessarily expect it to be illustrated. Authors of mysteries, science fiction, fantasy, romance novels and westerns paint word pictures and their readers use their own imagination to picture the scene of the crime or the stare of a vampire or the track of an alien space craft hurtling towards earth.

Spend less time searching for new genre fiction and more time reading it as I watch for newly-released genre fiction in the Kindle Store so you don't have to. Recent genre fiction releases in sci-fi, romance and western fiction include:

SCIENCE FICTION

Blackout by Connie Willis. Roc. Print Length: 512 p. Kindle edition $13.69. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place. Scores of time-traveling historians are being sent into the past, to destinations including the American Civil War and the attack on the World Trade Center. Michael Davies is prepping to go to Pearl Harbor. Merope Ward is coping with a bunch of bratty 1940 evacuees and trying to talk her thesis adviser, Mr. Dunworthy, into letting her go to VE Day. Polly Churchill’s next assignment will be as a shopgirl in the middle of London’s Blitz. And seventeen-year-old Colin Templer, who has a major crush on Polly, is determined to go to the Crusades so that he can 'catch up' to her in age. But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments for no apparent reason and switching around everyone’s schedules. And when Michael, Merope, and Polly finally get to World War II, things just get worse. For there they face air raids, blackouts, unexploded bombs, dive-bombing Stukas, rationing, shrapnel, V-1s, and two of the most incorrigible children in all of history - to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control." - from the hardcover edition.

Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson. Spectra. Print Length: 288 p. Kindle edition $14.30. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"At the heart of a brilliant narrative that stretches from Renaissance Italy to the moons of Jupiter is one man, the father of modern science: Galileo Galilei. To the inhabitants of the Jovian moons, Galileo is a revered figure whose actions will influence the subsequent history of the human race. From the summit of their distant future, a charismatic renegade named Ganymede travels to the past to bring Galileo forward in an attempt to alter history and ensure the ascendancy of science over religion. And if that means Galileo must be burned at the stake, so be it. Yet between his brief and jarring visitations to this future, Galileo must struggle against the ignorance and superstition of his own time. And it is here that Robinson is at his most brilliant, showing Galileo in all his contradictions and complexity. Robinson's Galileo is a tour de force of imaginative and historical empathy: the shining center around which the novel revolves." - Amazon.

Star Trek: Inception by S. D. Perry. Pocket. Print Length: 320 p. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"As man expands beyond explored space, the need to find a way to make inhospitable planets hospitable grows greater. One young biologist, Carol Marcus, has a project that she is convinced can reshape planets. She puts together a team of young, committed scientists who dare to dream as she does: of a Federation remade so hunger is eradicated, where every world can be reshaped into a paradise. The belief that all things are possible, that man can strive to conquer space not with force but with science, is shared by James Kirk, a young Starfleet officer and her lover. Leila Kalomi, a renowned botanist, is looking for a new direction. After hearing about Marcus's project, she applies for a position. She finds Carol's passion contagious, and a chance encounter with the Enterprise's science officer, Spock, convinces her to join Project: Inception..." - books.simonandschuster.com.

The Sleep of the Gods by James Sperl. Print Length: 426 p. Kindle edition $2.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"It had been six long years since Catherine Hayesly’s last vacation. In another few weeks she and her family would finally commence their dream trip of a lifetime. But then came the call. The one her high-ranking military husband, Warren, had warned might someday arrive. With a fateful string of cryptic words, and violating every security protocol, Warren informs Catherine of an impending world-altering event. With the clock ticking and her mind reeling, Catherine finds herself suddenly thrust into a nightmare of global, apocalyptic proportions. Left to fend for herself and her three children in the wake of Warren’s information, Catherine must abandon any semblance of her former life and commit to the only thing that now matters: survival..." - Amazon.

ROMANCE

The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie. Bantam. Print Length: 288 p. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Daisy Flattery is a free spirit with a soft spot for strays and a weakness for a good story. Why else would she agree to the outrageous charade offered by her buttoned-down workaholic neighbor, Linc Blaise? The history professor needs to have a fiancée in order to capture his dream job, and Daisy is game to play the role. But something funny happens on their way to the altar that changes everything. Now, with the midnight hour approaching, will Daisy lose her prince, or will opposites not only attract but live happily ever after?" - from the paperback edition.

McKettricks of Texas: Tate by Linda Lael Miller. HQN Books. Print Length: 384 p. Kindle edition $5.76. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"There are barely enough hours for divorced dad Tate McKettrick to run the Silver Spur ranch, do the suit-and-tie thing for his business and run herd on his beloved six-year-old twin daughters. But time stands still at the sight of Libby Remington. When they were high school sweethearts, the wealthy McKettrick couldn't convince Libby he loved her. But now they're both back in Blue River, Texas. And cattle rustlers, a manipulative ex-wife and a killer stallion can't keep him from trying again. Libby has her hands full taking care of her mother - and running the Perk Up Coffee Shop. Caffeine, she needs. Tate McKettrick, with his blazing blue eyes and black hair? ...can they really hope for a second chance?" - Amazon.

The Elusive Bride by Stephanie Laurens. HarperCollins. Print Length: 464 p. Kindle edition $5.59. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens takes a bold turn in her exciting new series. A second battle-hardened, completely unstoppable, all-male hero, an ex-officer of the Crown, confronts the deadly enemy known only as the Black Cobra. He's focused on his mission, then sees a lady he never dreamed he'd see again - with an assassin on her heels. She secretly followed him, unaware her path is deadly - or that she'll join him to battle a treacherous foe." - Amazon.

Never Say Never by Lisa Wingate. Bethany House. Print Length: 352 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Kai Miller floats through life like driftwood tossed by waves. She's never put down roots - and she doesn't plan to. But when a chaotic hurricane evacuation lands her in Daily, Texas, she begins to think twice about her wayfaring existence. And when she meets hometown-boy Kemp Eldridge, she can almost picture settling down in Daily - until she discovers he may be promised to someone else. Daily has always been a welcoming place of refuge for those the wind blows in, but for Kai, it looks like it will be just another place to leave behind. Then again, Daily always has a few surprises in store - especially when Aunt Donetta Bradford has cooked up a scheme." - back cover.

Back in Black by Lori Foster. Berkley. Print Length: 320 p. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"SBC president Drew Black is as controversial as they come. But the hot-headed entrepreneur is a perfect match for his popular sports club venture: uncompromising and extreme. Maybe too extreme. With a reputation for saying what he thinks, Drew's been causing a lot of friction. That's why someone's been called in to clean up his image - before he does any permanent damage. The lucky lady is Gillian Noode, a PR expert who's smoothed out the rough edges on many a man. But Drew is rougher than anyone she's ever met, and he refuses to change for any woman, for any reason. To make matters more complicated, Gillian's starting to like him raw. Now, opposites aren't only attracting, they're igniting." - www.lorifoster.com.

Nauti Deceptions by Lora Leigh. Berkley. Print Length: 368 p. Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Caitlyn 'Rogue' Walker left her life in Boston to become a teacher in a small Kentucky town. But her dream was shattered when she was framed in a sex scandal. Refusing to be run out of town, Caitlyn shed the identity she had and became Rogue. Sheriff Zeke Mayes knows there's more to her than meets the eye, though what meets the eye is pretty smoking. He's prepared for a long struggle getting Rogue to drop her defenses-and give in to desire. But soon Zeke will become embroiled in a deadly game that sweeps Rogue up in its wake. And when everything seems to be a matter of life and death, there is no reason to hold back..." - Amazon.

Angel's Peak by Robyn Carr. Publisher. Print Length: 384 p. Kindle edition $5.76. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Four years ago, Air Force sweethearts Franci Duncan and Sean Riordan reached an impasse. She wanted marriage and a family. He didn't. But a chance meeting proves that the bitter breakup hasn't cooled their sizzling chemistry. Sean has settled down in spite of himself - he's not the cocky young fighter pilot he was when Franci left, and he wants them to try again. After all, they have a history...but that's not all they share. Franci's secret reason for walking away when Sean refused to commit is now three and a half..." - Amazon.

Ravishing in Red by Madeline Hunter. Jove. Print Length: 368 p. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Audrianna Kelmsleigh is unattached, independent-and armed. Her adversary is Lord Sebastian Sommerhays. What they have in common is Audrianna's father, who died in a scandalous conspiracy-a deserved death in Sebastian's eyes. Audrianna vows to clear her father's name, never expecting to fall in love with the man devoted to destroying it." - Amazon.
"...irresistible and wonderfully entertaining." - John Charles for Booklist.

Archangel's Kiss by Nalini Singh. Berkley. Print Length: 352 p. Kindle edition $6.39. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Vampire hunter Elena Deveraux wakes from a year-long coma to find that she has become an angel - and that her lover, the stunningly dangerous archangel Raphael, likes having her under his control. But almost immediately, Raphael must ready Elena for a flight to Beijing, to attend a ball thrown by the archangel Lijuan. Ancient and without conscience, Lijuan's power lies with the dead. And she has organized the most perfect and most vicious of welcomes for Elena..." - Amazon.

In The Warrior's Bed by Mary Wine. Kensington Books. Print Length: 368 p. Kindle edition $8.96. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Cullen McJames will not have his honor sullied, certainly not by his clan's nemesis Laird Erik McQuade. So when McQuade tells the Court of Scotland that Cullen has stolen his daughter's virtue, Cullen steals the daughter instead. Since his brother wed a fetching lass, Cullen's been thinking he too needs a wife. A marriage could end the constant war between the clans. And looking on Bronwyn McQuade but once has put her in his dreams for a week. But Bronwyn won't go quietly. And however brave and beautiful a man Cullen may be, he has much to learn about a woman's fighting spirit." - Amazon.

Ecstasy Unveiled by Larissa Ione. Book 4 in the Demonica series which began with Pleasure Unbound. Forever. Print Length: 432 p. Kindle edition $5.59. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Lore is a Seminus half-breed demon who has been forced to act as his dark master's assassin. Now to earn his freedom and save his sister's life, he must complete one last kill. Powerful and ruthless, he'll stop at nothing to carry out this deadly mission. Idess is an earthbound angel with a wild side, sworn to protect the human Lore is targeting. She's determined to thwart her wickedly handsome adversary by any means necessary - even if that means risking her vow of eternal chastity..." - Amazon.

WESTERNS

Longarm and the Skull Mountain Gold by Tabor Evans. (Longarm, 375). Jove. Print Length: 192 p. Kindle edition $4.79. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"For Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long, some well-deserved R & R with a well-appointed woman turns into a hunt for gold. But when his companion's father is killed, Longarm will have to put the quest for justice before the rush for riches." - Amazon.

Matt Jensen: The Last Mountain Man. Snake River Slaughter. by William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone Pinnacle Books. Print Length: 448 p. Kindle edition $4.47. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Matt Jensen didn't want to kill two murderers in Wyoming but he had no choice. Now, his fame has reached into Idaho Territory where a woman Matt knew as a child in an orphanage is being hunted by predators. Kitty Wellington inherited her uncle's 20,000-acre ranch - and a mortgage - on the Snake River. She plans to pay her debt by selling thoroughbreds to the U.S. Army. But a relative is trying to steal it all...until Matt enters a fight whose most dangerous combatants have yet to show their hand." - Amazon.

Slocum and the Sonoran Fugitive by Jake Logan. Slocum, 372. Jove. Print Length: 192 p. Kindle edition $4.79. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"A killer has slipped through Slocum's fingers, stealing one of his most prized possessions. Rest assured when Slocum gets his hands on this repeat offender yet again, he won't be facing jail time. He'll be meeting his maker." - Amazon.

Gun Work by J. Lee Butts. Berkley. Print Length: 208 p. Kindle edition $4.79. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"The further exploits of Hayden Tilden continue. From the author of Written in Blood. Tilden's latest mission: track down the Coltrane brothers, who butchered most of the Cassidy family and made off with their daughter, Daisy. But when a girl down in Texas claims to be Daisy Cassidy, Tilden smells a lie. Still, he and his partners set off to escort her from Texas to Arkansas-and if they should come across the Coltranes, there might be no need to bring them back alive." - Amazon.

Pleasant Valley Shoot-Out by J. R. Roberts. The Gunsmith, 338. Jove. Print Length: 192 p. Kindle edition $4.79. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"By day, Clint Adams is helping the Pleasant Valley sheriff keep the peace between sheep herders and cattle barons. At night, he's trying his luck loving a high stakes lady gambler." - Amazon.

Hannibal Rising by Jon Sharpe. The Trailsman, 340. Signet. Print Length: 176 p. Kindle edition $4.79. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Skye Fargo's taking part in the most dangerous game - a twisted contest of predator and human prey. And the Trailsman knows too well that the hunter can all too easily become the hunted." - Amazon.


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