Important Note: This post is dated Saturday, January 28, 2012, and the titles mentioned here may remain free only until midnight PST tonight.

A glimmer of hope. A pinch of horror. A sprinkle of desire and a journey of mixed emotions. This is a compilation of short stories and additionally features a special selection of books and blogs for you to discover.

Story 1 – Mirror Me Martha
Hawley Mansion was to have been the beginning of their lives together but a nasty accident leaves Martha moving into the mansion alone and desperately grieving. She gets off on the wrong foot with her service staff and starts to experience strange incidents. She even claims that a red robin is spying on her. Has grief swallowed Martha’s sanity or does Hawley Mansion really have a secret?

Story 2 – Drive On Hope
Mary and Brian had it all planned out as they headed for the city of bright lights, London from the small coastal town of Scarborough. They had the drive to succeed, the will to be different and the brevity to move away from their past. Success was theirs and nothing or no one could stop them. But one year later and still living in their car would they ever be able to drive on hope?

Story 3 – Jane Holden is like any other student at Pickering University. Away from home for the first time, she looks forward to having her social calendar packed with activities and to meeting new people. But an unexpected enemy changes all of this. She goes from scholarship recipient to social outcast. Will life be normal again? Will she ever recover from the cat that barked?

Story 4 – Globetrotting With Cathy Dixon
Meet Cathy Dixon from Frequent Traveller. From the blue oceans of Antigua to the bustling streets of Vietnam, the racing adrenaline at the Green Hell, the devastating natural disaster in Japan and the stunning architecture in Germany, Cathy finds herself in a whirlwind of fine dining, plush clothes and sheer extravagance. But is perfection a mask for untold disaster?

Special Feature – Books, Blogs & Smiles 1
January to March 2012. A daily dose of books, blogs and quotes from all corners of the BlogSphere. Whether you’re having a good day or a bad day, this eBook is bound to offer you a smile or two.

Are you mad as hell?

At last, Stephen Windwalker provides the concise tell-it-like-it-is narrative for which we have all been waiting: How did we get here, how much worse is it going to get, and what can we do to protect ourselves, our families, and our future?

The time for seeing the world through a rose-colored lens is long over. Simple truths that run deep through Windwalker’s writing come directly from years of helping working and retired people stand up for economic justice as one of the country’s top community organizers. Readers of Windwalker’s books on technology and commerce have come to appreciate the thoughtfulness and intellectual depth with which he has illuminated those subjects. Now he applies the same intelligent focus to a far more daunting task: helping us all to see how, together, we can climb out of the deep hole that we have dug together for ourselves, our children and grandchildren. With a succinct explanation of the relentless waves that continue to drown national economies around the world, he clears the fog of denial to reveal a rolling global depression that could last through much of the coming decade.

Table of Contents

Preface: Iceland 2008, and Six Degrees Of Global Thermonuclear Economic Collapse

Part One
What’s Really Going On Here?

1. What Does This Have to Do with Dominoes?
2. Arm Yourself with Knowledge and Curiosity
3. Don’t Declare Victory at Halftime
4. Prepare for Pain
5. Get Your Head Around the Numbers and the Zeroes
6. It’s a Wonderful Life – Not!
7. Pop Goes the Bubble
8. Economic Collapse, One State at a Time
9. Over 20 Million Unemployed and Underemployed
10. How Deflation Turns Into Inflation
11. Expecting to Fly: The Problem with History
12. Perhaps You’ve Heard This One Before: The Markets Always Recover
13. The Collapse of Safe Havens
14. Say No to Child Abuse
15. Rise Above the Hard Bigotry Of Hard Times
16. This is Not a “Mental Recession”
17. Don’t Believe in Jobs That May Never Come Back
18. Don’t Be the Ostrich That the Wise Guys Want You to Be
19. Rampant Private Corruption
20. The Cyclical Nature of Electoral Politics and The Myth of the Republican Political Narrative
21. Funny Money
22. Rise and Collapse of a Casino Economy
23. The Stock Market and Equity Value Crash
24. The Consumer Credit Crisis (Credit Cards and Beyond)
25. The Collapse of Savings and Retirement Funds
26. The Overbuilt Economy and the Resulting Collapse of Consumer Demand
27. New Waves of Business Bankruptcies
28. The Stagnant Stock Market of the 2010s
29. Collapse of Bond Markets
30. Private Sector Layoffs
31. The Shrinking Tax Base
32. Public Bankruptcies and Bailouts
33. Public Sector Layoffs
34. Deflation
35. The National Debt Crisis
36. The Money-Printing Crisis
37. Climate Change And the Failure of Human Ecologies
38. Domestic Polarization Around Religion, Ethnicity, Culture, and Politics
39. The Safety Net Insolvency Crisis
40. Breakdown of Political Civility
41. Failure of Political Support For a Responsible Tax Policy
42. Lack of Victim Nations or Populations On Which U.S. or Other Dominant Nations Can Impose Economic or Political Will
43. U.S. Military & Diplomatic Weakness, Declining Nuclear Security, and the Proliferation Of Non-State Terrorist Agency
44. Inefficacies and Spiraling Costs of Private and Public Sector Bailouts and Rescues

Part Two: Personal Prescriptions for a Financial Crisis That Seems Like It Will Never End

1. Changing Your Borrowing Habits
2. Stop Giving 100%: We’ll Do Just Fine with a 75 Per Cent Economy
3. What Do You Really Need to Enjoy Life?
4. A Top Ten List of Basic Needs
5. Home Maintenance and Energy Costs
6. Consider Renting a Home
7. Geographical Cures
8. Reduce Your Economic Radius
9. Thinking Through Tax Implications To Get the Most out of What You Spend
10. Harvesting Cash from What You Don’t Need
11. Renting Out Part or All of Your Home
12. Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow
13. Leadership Must Lead: Expect the Best, Not the Most, from Government

Important Note: This post is dated Thursday, January 26, 2012, and the titles mentioned here may remain free only until midnight PST tonight.

4.2 stars – 4 Reviews

SHADONNA RICHARDS, R.N. is the author of more than 250 articles & inspirational stories, former newspaper columnist, and a registered nurse. Her work has appeared in the Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, MetroToronto Edition, Word Magazine and the Scarborough Mirror with a combined readership of 2 million readers. She also has a BA in Psychology and lives in Canada with her husband and son.

Important Note: This post is dated Tuesday, January 24, 2012, and the titles mentioned here may remain free only until midnight PST tonight.

by Shadonna Richards

5.0 stars – 2 Reviews

Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.

A gift book filled with more than 365 happy thoughts to empower you and get you through each day.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.

Jayden Morgan has no memory of her haunted past. All she wants is a normal life. But when she goes to stay by her estranged grandmother in the small spirit-town of Beckford, strange things begin to happen:

1. She meets and falls irrevocably in love with Trey, a gorgeous stranger, unaware that he’s a ghost;

2. She learns the mystery of the town’s haunted high school may have a deadly connection to her missing memory; and

3. Trey tells her he’d been sent to watch over her…but can she really trust him?

(This is a sponsored post.)

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As one of New York’s top sex therapists, Dr. Morgan Snow sees everything from the abused to the depraved. The Butterfield Institute is the sanctuary where she tries to heal these battered souls.

The Scarlet Society is a secret club of twelve powerful and sexually adventurous women. But when a photograph of the body of one of the men they’re recruited to dominate — strapped to a gurney, the number 1 inked on the sole of his foot — is sent to the New York Times, they are shocked and frightened. Unable to cope with the tragedy, the women turn to Dr. Morgan Snow. But what starts out as grief counseling quickly becomes a murder investigation, with any one of the twelve women a potential suspect.

The case leads Detective Noah Jordan — a man with whom Morgan has shared a brief, intense connection — to her office. He fears the number on the man’s foot hints that the killings have just begun. With her hands tied by her professional duty, Morgan is dangerously close to the demons in her own mind — and the flesh-and-blood killer.

“A twisting, intense psychological thriller.”–Bestselling author Scott Nicholson, Liquid Fear

Even a genius can be played for a pawn by a cunning and deadly manipulator.
Lauren James is a former psychiatrist, still reeling from her husband’s suicide and the subsequent miscarriage that swept away her tidy life the year before. On the anniversary of his death, she opens what she hopes to be a “Welcome to Mensa” envelope and pulls out a threatening puzzle along with the identical suicide note she had burned the previous year. Unraveling the twisted clues, Lauren embarks on a harrowing journey drawn in by a child’s neglected grave, a professor from the island of St. Croix, and a U.S. Supreme Court nominee. When Lauren discovers the reason behind her husband’s shocking death, she must struggle with her deepest convictions and whether killing is acceptable if it saves more lives.

This book is also in the INDIE BOOK BLOWOUT – for only 99¢!

You can also visit my website at BrendaWallace.com to enter an extra contest to win a Kindle Fire or $200 Amazon Gift Card. No purchase necessary for either contest.

Here’s the set-up:

• There are many plot twists and turns in this masterfully written book chronicling the life of a mercenary named Fezariu. Fezariu’s Epiphany is a fantasy work on a grand scale in which you enter an imaginatively drawn world filled with many lands and spanning great periods of time.— Jason Sullivan – Different Outcomes and author of The Dark Yergall
• When a reader that normally does not like fantasy novels set in world with unknown names falls in love with a book from that genre, then you know the author did a spectacular job of bringing their story to life for all to enjoy. I am that reader that does not normally like fantasy novels and for one to have me sit down and read it from cover to cover says a lot about the book and the author. I highly recommend this book to readers of all genres.– Talina Perkins – Bookin’ It Reviews/Night Owl Review
• Jessamine is the saddest character in the book and her self sacrificing behavior is as misguided as it is laudable. You can almost smell the filth and corruption that permeates Clarendon, a true cesspool of a city. This is a story of how a boy grows into being a man and accepting his faults and redeeming his failures. I recommend it.– William Bentrim – Azure Dwarf and author of The Adventures of Hardy Belch

12-year-old Fezariu thought his mother died when he was little, but when his beloved stepfather dies the boy discovers she is alive and well – and working at the most famous brothel in all of Elenchera. When she cruelly rejects him it’s more than he can bear, and he runs away to join a band of ruthless soldiers for hire. The Merelax Mercenaries will fight for anyone who can pay them, no matter the justice of the cause.

Fezariu grows up among the soldiers and becomes one of them. He thinks his time with the mercenaries has hardened him. But a campaign in his old home town pushes him too far, and he discovers what really happened to his mother. Maybe there are some things money shouldn’t buy… and maybe it’s time Fezariu took his revenge.

“Is It Just Me? or Is Everyone a Little Nuts!” offers a laugh out loud look at parenting, marriage, aging and small town living from an suburban point of view.

Written in short chapters, Coltman retells everyday life events, conversations and stories infused with her skewed sense of humor. These small snippets of life are moments in which anyone can identify and laugh at themselves as well. Middle age can be boring, but Coltman allows the naughty into her life from time to time, like her adult Scout Troop, “Cougar Scouts” Troop 69, or conversations between her middle aged self and her seventeen year old self that will leave you rolling ( and remembering!) A great quick read!!

I’ve probably spent more time fighting copyright infringements than writing books over the last six years. In one case, I went as far as a two and a half year fight in Federal court. But the bulk of my time has been wasted sending DMCA notices to sites that take down one infringement only to put up another.

After years of frustration I had given up even trying, but when copyright infringements began appearing above my own pages in Google search following their 2011 Panda update, fighting infringements took on a new urgency.

In this guide, I describe the tools and techniques that finally had an impact on the hundreds of thousands on infringements on my work indexed by Google and the other search engines. The main weapon in this fight is Google’s new DMCA Dashboard, a must-use first stop for anybody fighting online copyright infringement. I describe how to efficiently use DMCA Dashboard to clean up Google search results, and when it’s important to deal directly with website owners.

One person filing DMCA complaints and cease and desist orders won’t have any impact on the business model of copyright infringement. But if tens of thousands of authors and publishers start standing up for their rights and explaining to readers how copyright infringements are damaging their ability to continue creating new works, it will have an impact.

I am a pro-Internet author. I have been publishing online since 1995, I publish eBooks without DRM, and I give away large amounts of my work on my website. And I sincerely believe that if we fail to stop the culture of copyright infringement, the Internet of the future will contain nothing but opinions, product reviews and propaganda. Copyright protection is what allows authors and publishers to earn a living. If we don’t stand up for our rights, we will lose them.

David Chance can see messages in the sea of words around him, messages that warn him of future events.

Words are everywhere– on labels, magazines, sign posts, t-shirts– everywhere. And as much as David Chance would like to hide from them, he can’t. Words keep leaping off objects around him, forming messages in his mind. But how is this possible? Has his brain suddenly taken an evolutionary leap forward, or are the mysterious messages proof of divine intervention?

Driven to answer a question he’d long ago abandoned, and stalked by the killer he’s trying to stop, David risks everything to follow the messages to a dirty bomb set to go off in the heart of Boston. But can he trust the author of the messages to protect him from a terrorist who seems to know his every move.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.

Here’s the set-up:

Porter, Oklahoma, holds a dark secret-and troublesome dreams plague Tulsa Police Detective, Kenny Elliot, who grew up in the small town. When a bizarre murder catapults Elliot into his past, he’s brought face-to-face with the fabric of his nightmares. A shiny necklace dangles from the rearview mirror of the vehicle where Lagayle Zimmerman, the victim, is discovered. Nine years earlier, in Porter, a similar necklace swung from the mirror of a Mustang that harbored the mutilated bodies of Elliot’s friends, Jonathan Alexander (Johnnie Boy), and Marcia Barnes. Most of the town believed Elliot killed his classmates, but no arrest was ever made. Risking his job and his sanity, Elliot digs into his past to solve the murders and expose the truth.

• “Avey’s debut has much to recommend it. The pace and fine plotting will grab your attention. The twists and turns will catch you by surprise.” — The Tulsa World.
• “Avey draws his characters convincingly. Full of surprises, Twisted Perception, may be accurately called a page turner.” — The Daily Oklahoman.
• “Twisted Perception is a promising mystery debut, filled with twists and turns you won’t see coming.” — William Bernhardt, author of Hate Crime
• “This is a wonderful book, full of twists and turns and surprises.” — Crimespree Magazine
• “Bob Avey has written a terrific mystery filled with engaging characters and a taut storyline that will have you wondering who done it until the very end.” — Spinetingler Magazine

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Legends of Tsalagee