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Free Kindle Nation Shorts – August 9, 2010 – An Excerpt from Sean Ellis' The Adventures of Dodge Dalton In the Shadow of Falcon's Wings

By Stephen Windwalker
Editor of Kindle Nation Daily ©Kindle Nation Daily 2010

What do I love about the terrific book of adventure yarns featured in today’s Free Kindle Nation Short?

Plenty. There’s the fast-paced writing, the vivid characters, and the almost cinematographic intercutting between intense, adrenaline-laced scenes.

But there’s something else, an effect of the whole package from the cool cover graphic to all of the things I just mentioned and more. Remember the first time you saw an Indiana Jones movie and became swept up in Indy’s outrageous transformation from professorial type to action hero? There’s something along those lines here that author Sean Ellis just plain nails, and it’s going to keep a lot of readers reading well past the generous excerpt provided below. As one reviewer said in the video trailer for the book, “Saving the world has never been this much fun!”

The Adventures of Dodge Dalton in the Shadow of Falcon’s Wings
by Sean Ellis – Download the entire book for just $2.99 in the Kindle Store



(UK Kindle Customers: Click here to download from the UK Kindle Store)

Click here to read more about the author, with his letter about the book 

 ExcerptAn Excerpt from Sean Ellis’
The Adventures of Dodge Dalton
In the Shadow of Falcon’s Wings
The Adventures of Captain Falcon
By D. “Dodge” Dalton

Castle Perilous
Episode 10

Prologue

Falcon looked up at the chute through which he had just plummeted and breathed a rare curse.  The square frame around the trap door gaped high above, mocking his helplessness.  Then the maw closed; a sheet of dull steel slid across the opening to seal him in a tomb of eternal night.

He couldn’t believe he had fallen for such an obvious ruse. Still, Hurricane and the Padre would have known better than to call out to him if there was even a remote chance that their summons would lead him into a trap.  Had he been mistaken?

“Captain, here!  Help us!”

The shout echoed in the confines of the dark chamber. The stentorian roar – like boulders crushing together in an earthquake – could only belong to Hurricane Hurley.
Falcon fished his lighter from a pocket and struck the flint wheel.  The orange tongue of fire threw scant light in the gloom, but it was enough for him to accurately assess the depth of his troubles.

The chamber into which he had fallen was long and narrow, a trench or a dried up canal; the pervasive mustiness was evidence for the latter explanation.  Holding the flame before him like a torch, with his trusty, razor sharp hatchet at the ready in his right fist, he advanced in the direction from which the shouts had come.

The voice did not repeat, but after a few strides he heard a different sound, barely audible in between the slap of his boot soles on the damp cobble floor.  He froze in place and pitched his voice just above a whisper.  “Is it a trap?”

The answer came immediately, a muffled affirmative. Then his world was abruptly filled with light.  He shaded his eyes reflexively with one hand, snuffing out the lighter with the other.  It took only a moment for his eyes to adjust to the sudden glare of the overhead klieg lights, but even through the haze he could distinguish the forms of his friends bound and gagged like sacrificial victims awaiting their fate.

Nathan “the Padre” Hobbs was held in place with only a simple wrought iron chain affixed to shackles at each extremity.  The bonds had been pulled taut, forcing him into an immobile spread-eagle against the wall, and a length of rope had been forced between his teeth like a bit, to prevent him from calling out. Somewhat more strenuous measures had been required to subdue Hurricane; the burly soldier looked like King Kong trussed up for his New York debut.  When his fierce eyes fell upon his leader, the giant found an untapped vein of fury and renewed his assault on the triple strand of rope that kept him from speaking. With a single, massive effort, he succeeded in biting the ropes apart.  He spat out the fibers with an unprintable oath.

Falcon remained motionless, studying his compatriots in their bonds.  The Padre and Hurricane had been gagged; there was no way they could have called out to him. “Then who…?”

“A trap indeed, Herr Hauptmann.”

A weasely laugh fluttered down from a parapet overlooking the junction in the trench where the two men had been secured.  Falcon didn’t have to look to identify the voice.  “Von Heissel.”

Baron Otto Von Heissel eased his
corpulent form out over the railing. “I knew your loyal men would never lure you into my snare, so I had to use something more innovative: A phonograph recording.  Very clever, nein?”

“What do you want, Baron?”

A smug expression contorted the Prussian noble’s porcine countenance.  “What I have always wanted, Hauptmann Falcon: to humiliate you, and when your humiliation is complete, to bring about your utter destruction.”

“That’s why you’ll fail,” Falcon retorted, his voice barely louder than a whisper.  “Every minute you waste crowing over your victory, brings me a minute closer to escaping your trap.  And when I get free, I won’t hesitate to wipe you off the face of the earth.”

The bald baron’s gloating grin slipped a notch. “Perhaps you are right. Very well then, I shall have to settle for simply killing you.”

Falcon knew that Von Heissel’s pronouncement was absolute. The Prussian warlord was no fool; death loomed just around the corner.  As the baron moved away from the parapet, Falcon hastened to the two bound men.  He snapped Hobbs’ bonds apart with a simple twist of his hatchet blade, but the multiple shackles holding Hurricane were more problematic; anything less than elephant chains would have been broken apart, as easily as cobwebs, by the tremendously strong giant.  Already, Hurley’s struggles had succeeded in wrenching one of the shackle rings loose from the masonry, but the others remained firmly fixed.

Before Falcon could even begin to conceive of a solution, a tremor shuddered through passage, vibrating the stones beneath his feet. He exchanged glances with his men; Hobbs shook his head gravely.  “That doesn’t sound good, Cap.”

“The sound you are hearing,” announced Von Heissel, now only a disembodied voice issuing from a loudspeaker mounted on the parapet, “is fifty thousand gallons of water rushing through the aqueduct toward you. It will hit with the force of a freight train.  In the unlikely event that you survive the impact, you will be washed into an underground river where you will certainly drown, if you do not first die shattered upon submerged rocks.”

The rumble beneath their feet grew ominously louder, until even Hurricane had to shout to be heard.  “What now, Cap?”

“You’ve been a worthy foe, Falcon.” The baron’s electronically amplified laughter cascaded above the tumult.  “I can’t think of a better way for your adventures to end.”

…to be continued!
CHAPTER 1
PARTY CRASHERS

“Gosh.  What happened next?  How ever did you escape?”

David Dalton – “Dodge” to both his intimate friends and the thousands of Americans who eagerly devoured his Sunday syndicated feature “The Adventures of Captain Falcon” – glanced over at the breathless young woman and the man with whom she was conversing, curious to see how the question would be answered.

The mountainous hulk that was “Hurricane” Hurley shifted nervously in his chair and averted his gaze, glancing down at the newspaper clenched in his massive paws. He had been reading aloud the latest installment of Falcon’s adventures – as one of Captain Falcon’s trusted confidants during the Great War, he was not only a contributor to the ongoing serial, but also a key player – eager to impress his pretty young blonde tablemate with this most recent tale of derring-do. 

It wasn’t at all like Hurricane to be caught with nothing to say.  Dodge considered letting the big fellow suffer a little longer, but then decided to affect a rescue worthy of Falcon’s chronicler.  “Sorry miss,” he interjected, gesturing with his champagne flute, “but you’ll have to wait a week like everyone else.”

The blonde girl’s lips turned down in a pout, but Hurricane seized the opportunity and recovered his composure.  “We had been in situations a good deal worse than that. I remember the time Jocasta Palmer nearly drowned us in fish eggs.”

Dodge smiled absently and took a sip of the bubbly, letting his attention wander.  He felt partly responsible for Hurley’s embarrassment.  In the past year, the Falcon adventures had relied less heavily upon the historical account inarticulately recorded in Hurricane’s unpublished – some would say ‘unpublishable’ – memoirs, and more on Dodge’s own imagination.  Hurley had not objected; the Falcon stories had never been more popular, and ostensibly as the only member of Falcon’s coterie of heroes still in circulation, he was more than happy to be the sole focus of attention at sporting events, county fairs and other public gatherings frequented by attractive, star struck young ladies.  Unfortunately, the hero of the story didn’t have a clue about how some of these latest adventures would end.

Dodge didn’t feel too guilty over taking creative control of the serial.  It wasn’t like he was rewriting history.  Hurley’s magnum opus read exactly like what it was; a pulp adventure worthy of the Sunday comics.  While the man was certainly an imposing physical presence, and had probably served with distinction in the Great War, the outlandish exploits of Captain Zane Falcon, Father Nathan Hobbs and Brian “Hurricane” Hurley were simply too unbelievable to be anything but fiction. 

It had been pure serendipity that Dodge, a sportswriter for The Clarion, had been buttonholed by an editor too intimidated by Hurley to say no, and given the task of cleaning up the meandering prose for publication. In only a few short months, “The Adventures of Captain Falcon” six column inches times two, and a single cartoon illustration – also Dodge’s work – had been picked up by King Features and now ran in every major Sunday newspaper in the country.  Now, three years later and at the height of their popularity, all of Hurley’s stories had been told.  The well had dried up, and it was up to Dodge to fill the void, which he had done admirably, boosting readership to a new peak.  All of which had brought him here, to a garden party in the most famous garden in America.

“Another glass, sir?” inquired a voice at his shoulder.

He glanced up at the nattily attired waiter, but before he could answer in the affirmative, a ripple of anxiety passed through the group of diners and people began rising to their feet.  He shrugged apologetically and stood up just as the band launched into the customary ruffles and flourishes.  Dodge craned his head to get a look at the man who was both host and guest of honor but couldn’t see him through the crowd. Abandoning the effort, he simply followed the example of everyone else, standing at attention until the final note was played.  He applauded along with the rest of the crowd and then queued up in the orderly reception line as the band segued from “Hail to the Chief” into “Stars and Stripes Forever.” 

Perhaps because he felt more dread than anticipation for the impending introduction, the time spent waiting flew by quickly, and in a matter of only minutes he heard a voice made familiar by weekly radio discourses speaking his name… well, almost.  “Mr. Dodge, isn’t it?
It was a common mistake.  “Dodge” was a nickname the sandy-haired athletically inclined writer had earned during a boyhood summer spent running bats out to the on deck circle at Ebbets Field.  Normally, he would have gently corrected the error, but this time he thought better of it.

“That’s right, Mr. President.”  He shook the extended hand, mildly surprised to see the chief executive of the country seated behind a small café table.

“That’s a good firm grip you’ve got there,” observed the President.  “You must get your exercise.”

“I played a lot of ball as a boy, sir.”

“Aha.  And do you tag along with Falcon and his team on their adventures?”

Dodge forced a chuckle.  “Only in my daydreams.  I fight Falcon’s villains with the pen, not the sword.”

“I’m a big fan,” the President announced with what appeared to be sincere joviality.  “Big fan.  Can’t wait to see how Falcon gets out his latest scrape.  Keep up the good work, young man.  You’re a national treasure.”

Dodge correctly read the exit cue and moved on, letting the Commander-in-Chief have the final word.  He strode away, but not before he heard: “Hurricane Hurley! Why, you’re even more impressive that I had imagined.  How did you get so strong?”

The walking mountain gave a thunderous guffaw to the delight of everyone in line.  Even Dodge couldn’t resist a smile as he heard Hurley, with the barest of prompting, launch into an elaborate anecdote about his childhood on the Cumberland Plateau.

He and Hurley had become friends after a fashion, and while the six-and-a-half foot giant wouldn’t have been his first choice for company on a Friday night, there was no denying that an aura of rough charm surrounded the man they called Hurricane.  Part of that was most certainly his proclivity for exaggeration, which had played no small part in the creation of the Captain Falcon legend.  Dodge had heard this particular tall tale before and knew it always grew with the telling.  Leaving Hurley to his admirers, he went in search of the waiter with the champagne service.

To his chagrin, he found that the beyond the reception line, the party seemed to have ground to a halt.  Instead of the gentle rumble of multiple conversations, there was only a faint hum of awed whispers.  The attention of the group, more than three score in number, was fixed skyward. Movie stars stood alongside cocktail servers, gaping in consternation at what appeared to be a flock of birds around a distant airship.  Curious, he joined the stilled crowd.  “What’s all the fuss?”

“Barnstormers,” suggested one man.  “Some kind of aerial circus.”

Frowning, Dodge looked again, squinting into the mid-morning sun.  The array was much nearer than he had first realized and steadily moving closer.  He now saw that what he had first taken to be birds were in fact… “Those are men up there.”

“Parachutists,” ventured the man.

“There aren’t any parachutes,” argued one woman.  “But they aren’t falling; they’re flying!”
Dodge verified her statement with a glance, then looked to the airship at the center of the formation, thinking perhaps that the men were suspended by fine wires.  What he saw however only further confounded a logical explanation.

The aircraft, if it was indeed that, was like nothing he had ever seen, save perhaps in dime novel artwork.  The vessel looked like a round cake pan and was just as featureless.  There appeared to be no means of propulsion – no spinning propellers or rocket flames – yet it was moving far too rapidly to be a dirigible carried on the wind.  One thing was certain however: the aerial display was moving inexorably toward the White House.

“I’ll wager this is something the Army cooked up; some new secret flying machine.  The President probably arranged this stunt as entertainment for the party.”

There was little conviction in the tone of the man voicing this opinion.  It sounded more like an unsuccessful attempt to hide growing panic. Dodge’s gut reaction was similar; something bad was about to happen.  “I think we should take cover.”

It was as though a dam had broken.  In an instant, the quiet group of onlookers became a pandemonium of shrieks and frantic purposeless running.  Dodge was buffeted by the human tide, and then just as suddenly found himself standing alone near the perimeter of the garden. After the chaos of the fleeing mob, the ensuing quiet was eerily peaceful.

Then the sky fell.

The next moment was surreal; something glimpsed in a dream or spawned from his pen in the latest chapter of Falcon’s adventures.  An invisible hand slapped him against the perfectly manicured lawn. He had only a dull memory of the collision; it felt something like a belly flop dive into a warm swimming pool, rather than a forceful trauma such as might accompany being struck by a solid object.  He lingered there, pressed to the ground by a blanket of pressure that seemed everywhere all at once.

“Hellfire!”  Hurricane’s voice thundered above the din, but any further imprecations were lost in a deafening hail of gunfire.

In the corner of his vision, Dodge could just make out a contingent of dark suited men – the President’s Secret Service bodyguards – forming a skirmish line.  Their backs were to him, their faces set against the entrance to the West Wing, which was the only means of egress from the Rose Garden, and each man’s Thompson sub-machine gun spat a lethal volley of lead at the unseen attackers.

Then a different noise split through the chaos.  It was a crack like the discharge of a pistol, but louder in volume and longer in duration.  There was a blinding flash of light and when his ability to see returned, Dodge saw a break in the line.  One of the Secret Service men had been pitched backward several yards and lay motionless with wisps of smoke trailing from his scorched clothing.  However, Dodge’s gaze was riveted elsewhere, for through the gap in the wall of bodyguards, he got his first good look at the party crashers.

They were men, the same men that had flown apparently unaided through the skies, but men nonetheless.  The one who now blocked the President’s only avenue of escape wore no particular uniform, but the singular distinctive accessory to his ensemble defied simple explanation.  At first glance, it looked like some kind of medical apparatus or perhaps a medieval torture device.  A framework of metal rods outlined the man, reaching down from a rigid waist belt to hinged footpads, up to his shoulders and down the length of his arms, and finally connecting to a domed cap, like something worn by medieval infantrymen.  The rods were jointed at the elbows and knees to allow fully articulated movement, but where hands ought to have been, Dodge saw what looked like heavy armored gauntlets.  The intruder brandished these metallic fists at the Secret Servicemen, disdaining the muzzle flashes of his foes’ guns.  Without warning, another brilliant flash arced through the air and blasted a second bodyguard from the line.

Dodge realized two things in that instant: First, that the blinding discharge could only be lightning -artificial lightning from a cathode in the attacker’s heavy gauntlets; and second, that the man wearing the strange exoskeleton seemed to be impervious to bullets.

One by one, the Secret Servicemen were scattered like so much chaff by the unknown enemies’ lightning bolts.  There were at least half a dozen of the intruders, all wearing the metal gloves that shot electricity and all apparently invulnerable to any sort of counterattack. 

Suddenly a new combatant appeared on the field of battle; a giant warrior who eschewed firearms and weapons in favor of the equipment Mother Nature had bestowed.  Hurricane Hurley, roaring like an enraged grizzly bear, waded into the fray swinging his fists like war hammers.  One of the intruders bounced away from a blow as if imprisoned in a giant beach ball.  Two more were slapped aside as indifferently as buzzing flies; evidently the invisible armor that deflected bullets was no match for the human touch.

As the tide began to turn, it occurred to Dodge that he had not moved since the attackers’ untimely arrival.  When he tried to rise however
, he again felt the insistent pressure at his back, like an enormous rubber balloon filled with water. As he pushed harder, the opposing force grew, then just as abruptly vanished.  He craned his head around to get a look at the cause of his temporary immobilization.

He digested what he saw in large chunks of incredulity. The first thing he noticed was an expanse of dull silvery metal looming overhead and eclipsing the sky; it could only be the airship he had glimpsed from afar.  The craft was almost close enough to touch, at least fifty feet in diameter, and its surface was impossibly smooth, without and seams or rivets. Yet all of those observations paled when held against the next thing Dodge ascertained about the invaders’ aircraft: it was floating.

Except floating wasn’t exactly the right word.  It didn’t bob or waver like a moored dirigible or hovering gyrocopter; rather it was absolutely motionless, as though the whole thing were the roof of a building supported on invisible columns. Momentarily overcome by journalistic curiosity, he reached up to touch the smooth underbelly of the craft, but the artificial thunder of the invaders’ weapons snapped him back into the moment.

Hurricane stood transfixed in the path of a sizzling lightning bolt.  Astonishingly, the giant was not blasted aside as the President’s guards had been.  His normally curly black hair stood straight up and his jaws were clenched, teeth bared in a rictus of pain, but he did not budge; he was as immovable as the airship.  The tendril of electricity continued to lick at his torso a moment longer, then winked out.  Dodge surmised that the weapon employed some sort of capacitor and that it had entirely expended its stored charge.  Hurley shook his head, shrugging off the assault like a prizefighter, and charged at the now impotent attacker.

Lightning flared again, not from the man on the ground, but from the floating disc. 
Hurricane staggered back as the discharge struck him in the chest, but he recovered in an instant and renewed his advance.  Another blast, this time a sustained tongue of sizzling blue fire, and then a second.  To Dodge’s utter amazement, four more intruders, all wearing metal exoskeletons, descended from the airship on a ramp that had deployed unnoticed from its underbelly.  The reinforcements concentrated their electrical weapons on that lone target, and even the prodigious Hurricane Hurley could not endure such a withering assault.  As the juggernaut went down, the clamor of combat immediately ceased.  A few Secret Servicemen remained upright, but had discarded their useless weapons in order to create a defensive ring around the man they were sworn to protect.  It was a futile gesture. 
The intruders, ten altogether, advanced menacingly and peeled the bodyguards away to reveal the object of their quest: the President of the United States.

The Chief Executive sat motionless at his table, his gaze locked warily on the man directly before him.  His lips were pursed tight; if he said anything in defiance of the assault, or heaven forbid, begged for mercy, it was spoken too softly to be heard by anyone but those who now held his fate in their hands.  Two of the men seized hold of his arms and bodily lifted him away from the table.  The President was again lost from view as the remaining attackers formed a perimeter around their prize and commenced escorting him to the idle airship.

Dodge remained where he was, paralyzed with fear and disbelief as the Commander in Chief was taken up the ramp into the hovering craft. It was simply too much to absorb; anonymous commandos equipped with exoskeletons that imbued their wearers with the powers of flight and invincibility, shooting bolts of lightning and kidnapping the President. 
It was like….

“Like something from a Falcon story,” he whispered.  But Falcon wouldn’t be frozen in place, petrified with fright as the foes absconded victorious.  Falcon would take action!  He would….

What would Falcon do?

Four of the invaders, along with their captive, entered the disc after which the ramp vanished back into the craft.  The silvery metal skin sealed over the opening so that it was impossible to tell where the entryway had been. Then, without any sort of preamble, the airship leaped into the sky.  Dodge felt a push, similar to what one might experience when a descending elevator car halted abruptly, but that was all.  Whatever force motivated the craft, it seemed to operate in defiance of Newton’s Laws.

The six remaining raiders formed a circle on the lawn, their steel gauntlets extended toward the defenseless guests that huddled for cover throughout the garden.  One of them stood only a few paces from Dodge, so close that he could see the man’s dark brown eyes and the rivulets of sweat that beaded on his forehead and trickled along a furrowed scar that ran the length of his jaw.  The hard man locked eyes with Dodge and flashed a menacing grin.  The meaning was explicit: stay back or get fried.

“Move out!” shouted another of the invaders, and then acting on his own admonition, he flexed his knees as if preparing to jump and was whisked into the sky.  Another followed on his heels, zooming into the air as if there were rockets on his back.  There were no rockets, only a metal lump, of the same dull color as the airship, which extended from the rigid belt of the exoskeleton up across the man’s back.  The scarred man threw Dodge a smug nod, then bent his knees in preparation to take flight.

Something broke inside Dodge.  A sound, intimately familiar, but at the same time completely foreign, broke the ominous quiet.  It was his own voice, and his words, while simple and ambiguous, felt like a declaration of war.  He looked the man in the eye and in a grinding whisper said: “I don’t think so.”

Dodge had only one thought: seize the man to prevent him from escaping.  Beyond that, he had only the vaguest idea of what might occur.  Perhaps the police would be able to identify the culprit and compel him to betray his confederates… perhaps he could be used as a bargaining piece against the President’s safety.  He didn’t explore all the possibilities; his attention was focused on the sole objective of restraining the man.  In the instant before the man burst into flight, Dodge hurled himself forward and wrapped both arms around the intruder’s waist.  His momentum should have taken both of them down in a typical flying tackle, but what happened next was anything but typical.

As his arms opened around the man, Dodge again felt the same subtle pressure that had flattened him beneath the airship.  He recognized it now or at least was able to reconcile it with a known phenomenon.  The closest likeness he could come up with was the effect of magnetic repulsion; two magnets, lined up a certain way, would push each other apart.  But the strange corona of force around the men had proven capable of repelling bullets – lead slugs with no magnetic characteristics – and even human flesh.  Dodge could think of only one explanation, and it wasn’t something he had read or heard about in the annals of science.  Rather, it was the stuff of science fiction.  The serials that shared the comics page with Falcon were always describing invisible force fields that could protect spaceships or superheroes.  Dodge had always dismissed such stories as too fanciful to warrant serious consideration, but then again, he would have felt the same way about steel mitts that shot lightning bolts. 

Whatever the cause, the energy field almost thwarted Dodge’s desperate attempt to restrain the escaping rogue; his arms couldn’t quite close together.  He redoubled his efforts, hugging tightly to the shielded figure, b
ut it was like trying to wrestle a greased pig.  The force field seemed to squirm and ooze in his grip and for a fleeting second, Dodge knew he would fail.  Then without any particular climax, the struggle ended and Dodge’s arms locked around the man’s metal shod ankles.

“Gotcha!”  The momentum of his intended tackle maneuver had been lost, but Dodge had a taste of victory now.  He tried to plant his feet, throwing his body weight to the side; but his shoes couldn’t find the ground.  His legs thrashed about, trying to somehow gain a position of advantage, but terra firma eluded him.  He didn’t have to look down for an explanation – somehow he knew with sickening certainty what had happened – but he looked anyway.

… continued ….
*     *     *

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UK Edition Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert, Monday, 9 August: 3 Kindle Freebies, Plus a Riveting Contemporary Fantasy for Young and Old by Today's Sponsor

UPDATE: Alas, several dozen previously free Kindle books including several listed below have been lifted overnight from the UK Kindle Store, and are no longer available in any Kindle editions. Stay tuned, and we will update soon.

If you’re enjoying the bargains in the new UK Kindle Store, I invite you to click here to subscribe to a free 14-day trial of Kindle Nation Daily so you can have our daily blast of UK Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert listings like the new titles below pushed directly to your Kindle in real time via the Whispernet. And if you’ve already done so, let me say thanks for helping to make Kindle Nation Daily the # 1 blog in the UK Kindle Store. Three new freebies today….

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(Editor’s Note: Today’s sponsoring novel is a special treat that is already a big favorite with many Kindle Nation citizens. It’s the first book of Imogen Rose’s Portal Chronicles, and it is likely to become one of a small number of select titles recommended here to the attention of the editors at Amazon Encore…. –SW)
A Novel by Imogen Rose
Come Find Me Two Years Ago…

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She suddenly found herself in the past. In one moment she went from being an ice hockey playing teenager in New Jersey to a glamorous cheerleader in California. She found herself transported from a happy life with her dad, Dillard, to a new, strange one living with her mother whom she hates. Apparently it’s a life she’s always lived in.

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by Lee Lamothe    

 
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Literary Fiction, Published by AmazonEncore


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“Six Fundamentals to Building a Lifelong Career,” written by Doug Hardy, a Monster.com employment and career expert, reveals the simple daily habits every working person needs to take command of his or her career. Most people will have 6-12 jobs over the course of their lifetime, and this book encourages lifelong career management throughout those jobs. Bonus chapters teach how to handle recessions, plus a personal “on-boarding” program that makes the most of your first 90 days in a new position.  
 

“We’re happy to be able to offer our customers this exclusive book from Monster in the Kindle Store,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content. “Available for download in less than 60 seconds at the low price of $7.99, this timely addition to the Kindle Store is a smart investment in any professional’s career.”

“My objective for ‘Six Fundamentals to Building a Lifelong Career’ is to move people from urgent job search to lifelong career management,” said Doug Hardy. “Everyone needs to take command of his or her career: to anticipate change, prepare for job transitions, and continuously grow in skills and knowledge. These six fundamentals are timeless, proven principles applicable to any stage in a career. I want to inspire others to keep moving ahead through today’s turbulent economy, to prosper and succeed in the years ahead.”

Here’s the guts of Amazon’s press release this morning:

Monster.com’s New Book Available Exclusively in the Kindle Store

“Six Fundamentals to Building a Lifelong Career” is Available Exclusively as an E-Book in the Kindle Store for Download in Under 60 Seconds
SEATTLE, Aug 09, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) –Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that Monster.com has released the book “Six Fundamentals to Building a Lifelong Career” exclusively in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). The book, which is currently only available in digital format, will be exclusive to the Kindle Store for one year and priced at $7.99. Kindle lets you buy your books once and read them everywhere–on Kindle, Kindle DX, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, Mac, PC, BlackBerry, and Android-based devices. Amazon’s Whispersync technology syncs your place across devices, so you can pick up where you left off. With Kindle Worry-Free Archive, books you purchase from the Kindle Store are automatically backed up online in your Kindle library on Amazon where they can be re-downloaded wirelessly for free, anytime.
“We’re happy to be able to offer our customers this exclusive book from Monster in the Kindle Store,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content. “Available for download in less than 60 seconds at the low price of $7.99, this timely addition to the Kindle Store is a smart investment in any professional’s career.”
“Six Fundamentals to Building a Lifelong Career,” written by Doug Hardy, a Monster employment and career expert, reveals the simple daily habits every working person needs to take command of his or her career. Most people will have 6-12 jobs over the course of their lifetime, and this book encourages lifelong career management throughout those jobs. Bonus chapters teach how to handle recessions, plus a personal “on-boarding” program that makes the most of your first 90 days in a new position.
“My objective for ‘Six Fundamentals to Building a Lifelong Career’ is to move people from urgent job search to lifelong career management,” said Doug Hardy. “Everyone needs to take command of his or her career: to anticipate change, prepare for job transitions, and continuously grow in skills and knowledge. These six fundamentals are timeless, proven principles applicable to any stage in a career. I want to inspire others to keep moving ahead through today’s turbulent economy, to prosper and succeed in the years ahead.”
Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE:MWW), parent company of Monster, the premier global online employment solution for more than a decade, strives to inspire people to improve their lives. With a local presence in key markets in North America, Europe and Asia, Monster works for everyone by connecting employers with quality job seekers at all levels and by providing personalized career advice to consumers globally. Through online media sites and services, Monster delivers vast, highly targeted audiences to advertisers. Monster Worldwide is a member of the S&P; 500 index. To learn more about Monster’s industry-leading products and services, visit www.monster.com. More information about Monster Worldwide is available at http://www.about-monster.com.
“Six Fundamentals to Building a Lifelong Career” is available exclusively in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). Kindle offers the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read. The U.S. Kindle Store now has more than 630,000 books, including New Releases and 107 of 110 New York TimesBestsellers. Over 510,000 of these books are $9.99 or less, including 74 New York Times Bestsellers. Over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on Kindle.
Kindle is the #1 bestselling item on Amazon.com for two years running. I
t’s also the most-wished-for, most-gifted, and has the most 5-star reviews of any product on Amazon.com. Kindle can be ordered at www.amazon.com/kindle.

Great reads by recent Kindle Nation sponsors! 
 
Swallow by Tonya Plank – “Watch out, Scott Turow!” – $0.99

Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert for Monday, August 9, 2010: Lisa Turner's "A Little Death in Dixie," plus "Vampires menace Jesus in 33 A.D." from Today's Sponsor!

Some books have it all! Today’s latest addition to our Free Book Alerts listings involves “a complex spider’s web of tragedy, mystery, suspicion, and sordid secrets” and it’s pulling nothing but positive reviews from Amazon readers….

But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor

33 A.D.

by David McAfee

Published by Coelacanth Press

Kindle Edition

List Price: $2.99
Our Price: $2.84 (Save 5%)

Buy Now


(Editor’s Note: If you’ve been reading Kindle Nation for any length of time, you may be aware that I’m not a zombie novel guy. But I’ve been reading 33 A.D. and I can tell you that David McAfee is a gifted writer with an amazing command of history, plot, character, and pace. And perhaps most surprising to me — this is, in its own way, a reverent book. I think it may be one of those books that teaches its readers never to allow genre alone to guide them away from any work of fiction. –S.W.)

Jerusalem, 33 A.D. The vampires of the era have long sought to gain a foothold into Israel, but the faith of the local Jewish population has held them in check for centuries.

When one of their own betrays them to follow a strange young rabbi from Galilee, the elders of the vampire race dispatch Theron, a nine hundred year old assassin, to kill them both.

The rabbi’s name is Jesus. Killing him should be easy.

33 A.D. by David McAfee is a wildly original, non-stop pulse pounder that tells the story of a vampire assassin whose mission is to kill Jesus of Nazareth. In a genre mired by cliché stories, this stands out as something bold and new.”
Jeremy Robinson, author of Pulse and Instinct

“David McAfee’s 33 A.D. is a truly compelling and unique perspective on the events surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. With all the skill of a seasoned novelist, McAfee’s thriller brings a melange of riveting characters, otherworld mythology, and political intrigue together in one fascinating read – a tautly paced winner on all levels.”
Jon F. Merz, author of the Lawson Vampire novels & Parallax

“This story is an action-packed thriller, filled with mystery, intrigue, betrayal and murder. The attention to detail and careful plotting are masterfully done. You’d never guess this was David McAfee’s first novel.”
Jess Haines, author of Hunted by the Others


*
Click here to download 33 A.D. (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!

Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title. We encourage you to support our sponsors! 

Authors, Publishers, Kindle Accessory Manufacturers:
Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information: 

Click here to sponsor a Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert!

*     *     *

(Sponsorship can take a number of different forms and implies no endorsement either of or by Kindle Nation or a sponsoring company or individual.)

Free Listings in the US Kindle Store!
(For our UK Kindle Free Book Alerts click here.)

A Little Death In Dixie
By Lisa Turner

“Memphis, the Mississippi River, and the underbelly of human nature they’re all exposed in the dark brew of this fast-paced Southern Gothic suspense. Page-turning and atmospheric, this tightly-plotted novel turns the screws and sends readers racing to its surprise conclusion.” ~Michael Finger, Senior Editor, Memphis Magazine

The Blues were born out of need, anger and pride. Murder comes from those same dark places. Memphis has both. One of Memphis’ most seductive and notorious socialites has vanished. Either she’s off on another drunken escapade or the disappearance is something much more frightening. What begins as an ordinary day’s work for Detective Billy Able quickly grows into a complex spider’s web of tragedy, mystery, suspicion, and sordid secrets including a few of Billy’s own. With the help of Mercy Snow, the estranged sister of the missing socialite, Billy follows a twisted trail of human frailty and corruption to disturbi
ng truths that undermine everything he thought he knew about himself and the people he loves.

New from Harper Collins, Inc. 
(Pre-Order Now and the Free Book Will Download 

Automatically to Your Kindle on October 12, 2010):

Mysterious Profile #24: Ian Rutledge by Charles Todd

New from Harper Collins, Inc. 
(Pre-Order Now and the Free Book Will Download 

Automatically to Your Kindle on September 7, 2010):

Buddha: With Bonus Material 
by Deepak Chopra 

New from Harper Collins, Inc. 
(Pre-Order Now and the Free Book Will Download 

Automatically to Your Kindle on August 31, 2010):
The Girl on the Beach: A Bess Crawford Mystery
By Charles Todd, 

author of A Duty to the Dead 


The Postcard Killers (Special Free Preview: Book One) by James Patterson and Liza Marklund
(About 87 pages in print)

(That’s the good news. The bad news is that Patterson and his agency model publisher, Hachette, have priced pre-orders for the ebook’s August 16 release at the exorbitant and unsustainable price of $14.99.)

Paris is stunning in the summerNYPD detective Jacob Kanon is on a tour of Europe’s most gorgeous cities. But the sights aren’t what draw him–he sees each museum, each cathedral, and each cafe through the eyes of his daughter’s killer.

The killing is simply marvelous
Kanon’s daughter, Kimmy, and her boyfriend were murdered while on vacation in Rome. Since then, young couples in Paris, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, and Stockholm have been found dead. Little connects the murders, other than a postcard to the local newspaper that precedes each new victim.

Wish you were here
Now Kanon teams up with the Swedish reporter, Dessie Larsson, who has just received a postcard in Stockholm–and they think they know where the next victims will be. With relentless logic and unstoppable action, The Postcard Killers may be James Patterson’s most vivid and compelling thriller yet.

*     *     *

Here’s a list of the categories in today’s Free Book Alert:

Crime and Suspense
Writing and Publishing
Children/Young Adult/Teen
Contemporary Fiction
Nonfiction/Leadership/Change/Reference/Essay
Christian Spirituality and Christian Fiction

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Historical Fiction and Romance 
Erotica
Gay and Lesbian 

Samples
Memoir, Biography, Personal Story
Mystery/Thrillers/Crime/Suspense

Harper Collins Pre-Order for July 30, 2010 – Suspense

Harper Collins Pre-Order for August 24, 2010 – Suspense

Writing and Publishing
Publish on Amazon Kindle with the Digital Text Platform

Publish on Amazon Kindle with the Digital Text Platform

by Rick Riordan
Contemporary Fiction

The Hunters

The Hunters

Nonfiction/Business/Leadership/Change/Reference/Essay

Spirituality and Christian Fiction

Science Fiction and Fantasy
 Bright of the Sky (Entire and the Rose, Book 1)

 First Flight: A Tor.Com Original

Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #3: Paragon

Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #3: Paragon

Swashbuckling Fantasy: 10 Thrilling Tales of Magical Adventure

Swashbuckling Fantasy: 10 Thrilling Tales of Magical Adventure

Historical Fiction and Romance

The Wicked House of Rohan
The Wicked House of Rohan – Historical Fiction by Anne Stuart

 Hide in Plain Sight

Memoir, Biography, Personal Story
More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea

Kindle Nation Daily Bargain Book Alert: A Feast of 99-Cent Short Stories by Two Talented Authors, and a Riveting Contemporary Fantasy for Young and Old by Today's Sponsor

Although I love the idea of the Atlantic Shorts exclusive stories for the Kindle, anyone who has read my recently published ebook for authors and publishers knows that I think that Atlantic’s offerings are overpriced at $3.99 apiece. So I am especially glad to see HaperCollins experimenting with pricing and with its own selection of short stories by popular fiction writers Joe Hill and Laura Lippman, available to US Kindle readers at the far more reasonable price point of 99 cents apiece….

But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor

(Editor’s Note: Today’s sponsoring novel is a special 99-cent treat that is already a big favorite with many Kindle Nation citizens. It’s the first book of Imogen Rose’s Portal Chronicles, and it is likely to become one of a small number of select titles recommended here to the attention of the editors at Amazon Encore…. –SW)
A Novel by Imogen Rose
$0.99
Come Find Me Two Years Ago…

Six words that propelled ice hockey playing tomboy, Arizona, into an alternate dimension.

She suddenly found herself in the past. In one moment she went from being an ice hockey playing teenager in New Jersey to a glamorous cheerleader in California. She found herself transported from a happy life with her dad, Dillard, to a new, strange one living with her mother whom she hates. Apparently it’s a life she’s always lived in.

Everyone knows her as Arizona Darley, but she isn’t. She is Arizona Stevens.

As she struggles to find answers she is certain of one thing — that her mother Olivia, a brilliant physicist, is somehow responsible. .

PORTAL is the story of the repercussions of Olivia Darley’s attempt at creating a perfect world for herself and her children. Arizona’s quest for answers threatens to undermine the seemingly perfect world that her mother has so carefully constructed.

PORTAL is the first book of the Portal Chronicles. Fans of time travel, romance, and the supernatural will enjoy Arizona’s quest for answers. 

If you are wondering about whether Portal is in a category that appeals to you, here’s where it stands as of this writing on the Kindle Store bestseller lists:

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #318 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

#9 in  Kindle Store > Kindle Books > Children’s Books > Literature > Love & Romance
#2 in  Books > Romance > Time Travel
#13 in  Kindle Store > Kindle Books > Fantasy > Contemporary


*
Click here to download PORTAL (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!

Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title. We encourage you to support our sponsors! 

Authors, Publishers, Kindle Accessory Manufacturers:
Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information: 

Click here to sponsor a Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert!

*     *     *

(Sponsorship can take a number of different forms and implies no endorsement either of or by Kindle Nation or a sponsoring company or individual.)

Today’s 99 Cent Stories!
As you’ll see below, if you aren’t already aware of it, these are two talented storytellers.

Last Breath by Joe Hill

Honor Bar by Laura Lippman

The Widow’s Breakfast by Joe Hill

Easy as A-B-C by Laura Lippman

The Cape by Joe Hill

The Shoeshine Man’s Regrets by Laura Lippman

Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead by Joe Hill

Dear Penthouse Forum (A First Draft) by Laura Lippman

  • The author of the critically acclaimed Heart-Shaped Box and 20th Century Ghosts, Joe Hill is a two-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, and a past recipient of the Ray Bradbury Fellowship. His stories have appeared in a variety of journals and Year’s Best collections. He calls New England home. See more at his Amazon author page.
  • Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working fulltime and published seven books about “accidental PI” Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001. Her work has been awarded the Edgar, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards. She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association. Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade. After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald and the San Antonio Light. Ms. Lippman returned to Baltimore in 1989 and has lived there since. Find out about her books at her Amazon author page.

UK Edition Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert: Four Dummies for Free, Plus the #1 Bestselling Kindle Guide of All Time from Today's Sponsor

Everything you’ll ever want to know about a wide range of subjects, and all free with four new additions today to our UK Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert listings….

But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor

From the author and publisher of Kindle Nation Daily (the #1 blog in the Kindle Store), here’s the inside scoop on the latest generation Kindle (both the Kindle International and the Kindle 2).

*
Click here to download The Complete User’s Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle 2: Tips, Tricks, & Links To Unlock Cool Features & Save You Hundreds on Kindle Content (#1 Guide to the Kindle US & Global)  (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!

Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title. We encourage you to support our sponsors! 

Authors, Publishers, Kindle Accessory Manufacturers:
Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information: 

Click here to sponsor a Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert!

*     *     *
  • “Free” in the Kindle Store refers here to the price for download to UK-based Kindles.
  • The best way to find out about these free listings right away, when they occur, is to subscribe to the UK Kindle edition of Kindle Nation Daily, which pushes Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alerts directly to your Kindle Home screen 24/7. And in the case of many free listings that disappear within a matter of hours or days, “right away” is often just in time.
  • No Kindle Required: Whether you are a long-time Kindle owner or you’ve just acquired an iPad and are filling it with ebooks for the first time or you are reading Kindle books on a PC, Mac,  iPhone or iPad Touch, you can get any and all of these titles absolutely free on your Kindle-compatible device of choice! Click here to download a free Kindle App for your device.

(Sponsor
ship can take a number of different forms and implies no endorsement either of or by Kindle Nation or a sponsor.)

Free Listings!

Emotional Intelligence For Dummies by Stein (Kindle Edition – 15 Jul 2009) – Kindle Book
Buy: £0.00
Global Warming For Dummies(r) (For Dummies (Math & Science)) by Zoe Caron (Kindle Edition – 5 Jun 2009) – Kindle Book
Buy: £0.00

Available for download now

Lacrosse For Dummies by James Hinkson and Joe Lombardi (Kindle Edition – 10 Mar 2010) – Kindle Book
Buy: £0.00

Available for download now
Violin For Dummies (For Dummies (Sports & Hobbies)) by Katharine Rapoport (Kindle Edition – 20 Jul 2010) – Kindle Book
Buy: £0.00

Available for download now
Sleeping Naked Is Green 
Available for download now
£0.00
The GI Made Simple
Available for download now
£0.00
Biker
Available for download now

Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert for Sunday, August 8, 2010: A Mysterious Addition, Plus Portal by Imogen Rose (Today's Sponsor)

Three days in a row of temperatures in the 90s? We call that a heat wave. Three days in a row of free pre-orders from a Big Six agency model publisher? We’re not sure what to call it, and we’re not even sure of what this new Charles Todd title consists of, but we note it with today’s latest addition to our Free Book Alerts listings of over 100 titles ….

But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor

(Editor’s Note: Today’s sponsoring novel is a special 99-cent treat that is already a big favorite with many Kindle Nation citizens. It’s the first book of Imogen Rose’s Portal Chronicles, and it is likely to become one of a small number of select titles recommended here to the attention of the editors at Amazon Encore…. –SW)
A Novel by Imogen Rose
$0.99
Come Find Me Two Years Ago…

Six words that propelled ice hockey playing tomboy, Arizona, into an alternate dimension.

She suddenly found herself in the past. In one moment she went from being an ice hockey playing teenager in New Jersey to a glamorous cheerleader in California. She found herself transported from a happy life with her dad, Dillard, to a new, strange one living with her mother whom she hates. Apparently it’s a life she’s always lived in.

Everyone knows her as Arizona Darley, but she isn’t. She is Arizona Stevens.

As she struggles to find answers she is certain of one thing — that her mother Olivia, a brilliant physicist, is somehow responsible. .

PORTAL is the story of the repercussions of Olivia Darley’s attempt at creating a perfect world for herself and her children. Arizona’s quest for answers threatens to undermine the seemingly perfect world that her mother has so carefully constructed.

PORTAL is the first book of the Portal Chronicles. Fans of time travel, romance, and the supernatural will enjoy Arizona’s quest for answers.


*
Click here to download PORTAL (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!

Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title. We encourage you to support our sponsors! 

Authors, Publishers, Kindle Accessory Manufacturers:
Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information: 

Click here to sponsor a Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert!

*     *     *
(Sponsorship can take a number of different forms and implies no endorsement either of or by Kindle Nation or a sponsoring company or individual.)

Free Listings!

New from Harper Collins, Inc. 
(Pre-Order Now and the Free Book Will Download 

Automatically to Your Kindle on October 12, 2010):

Mysterious Profile #24: Ian Rutledge by Charles Todd

New from Harper Collins, Inc. 
(Pre-Order Now and the Free Book Will Download 

Automatically to Your Kindle on September 7, 2010):

Buddha: With Bonus Material 
by Deepak Chopra 

New from Harper Collins, Inc. 
(Pre-Order Now and the Free Book Will Download 

Automatically to Your Kindle on August 31, 2010):
The Girl on the Beach: A Bess Crawford Mystery
By Charles Todd, 

author of A Duty to the Dead 


The Postcard Killers (Special Free Preview: Book One) by James Patterson and Liza Marklund
(About 87 pages in print)

(That’s the good news. The bad news is that Patterson and his agency model publisher, Hachette, have priced pre-orders for the ebook’s August 16 release at the exorbitant and unsustainable price of $14.99.)

Paris is stunning in the summerNYPD detective Jacob Kanon is on a tour of Europe’s most gorgeous cities. But the sights aren’t what draw him–he sees each museum, each cathedral, and each cafe through the eyes of his daughter’s killer.

The killing is simply marvelous
Kanon’s daughter, Kimmy, and her boyfriend were murdered while on vacation in Rome. Since then, young couples in Paris, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, and Stockholm have been found dead. Little connects the murders, other than a postcard to the local newspaper that precedes each new victim.

Wish you were here
Now Kanon teams up with the Swedish reporter, Dessie Larsson, who has just received a postcard in Stockholm–and they think they know where the next victims will be. With relentless logic and unstoppable action, The Postcard Killers may be James Patterson’s most vivid and compelling thriller yet.

*     *     *

Here’s a list of the categories in today’s Free Book Alert:

Crime and Suspense
Writing and Publishing
Children/Young Adult/Teen
Contemporary Fiction
Nonfiction/Leadership/Change/Reference/Essay
Christian Spirituality and Christian Fiction

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Historical Fiction and Romance 
Erotica
Gay and Lesbian 

Samples
Memoir, Biography, Personal Story
Mystery/Thrillers/Crime/Suspense

Harper Collins Pre-Order for July 30, 2010 – Suspense

Harper Collins Pre-Order for August 24, 2010 – Suspense

Writing and Publishing
Publish on Amazon Kindle with the Digital Text Platform

Publish on Amazon Kindle with the Digital Text Platform

by Rick Riordan
Contemporary Fiction

The Hunters

The Hunters

Nonfiction/Business/Leadership/Change/Reference/Essay

Spirituality and Christian Fiction

by Cathy Marie Hake

Science Fiction and Fantasy
 Bright of the Sky (Entire and the Rose, Book 1)

 First Flight: A Tor.Com Original

Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #3: Paragon

Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #3: Paragon

Swashbuckling Fantasy: 10 Thrilling Tales of Magical Adventure

Swashbuckling Fantasy: 10 Thrilling Tales of Magical Adventure

Historical Fiction and Romance

The Wicked House of Rohan
The Wicked House of Rohan – Historical Fiction by Anne Stuart

 Hide in Plain Sight

Memoir, Biography, Personal Story
More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea