Bargain and Free eBooks for Tuesday (5/6)

A Moments Indulgence is a collection of 10 short stories from all over the world. The title of the book has been inspired by Rabindranath Tagore’s poem by the same name.

In general, short stories are special. There is something comforting about sitting down curling up in a corner with a cup of coffee and a short story book in hand, as your mind indulges in a moment here and there from your busy life. There is a sense of familiar when you are able to finish a story, when you can skip a story, and then go back again. In today’s world obsessed with everything instant, short stories attempt to fit somewhere in your schedule and momentarily port you to a different world.

Indulge in a short but thrilling experience as these ten short stories take you into a world of suspense, adventure, anticipation, courage and hope.

The collection features a host of characters and conflicts that are diverse, and yet easy to relate to. Varied tones and elements have been used to craft the details of each story so that the stories are uncomplicated and entertaining.

Kiyoshi: A young girl living in the small town of Kituski, Japan, is getting married to a man who is as old as her father. The story delves into the emotions she experiences on her wedding day.

The House: Curiosity gets the better of two children who have just met, when forgetting where they needed to be, they decide to explore an old house that looks menacing and seems deserted.

Kofi and Ebele: In the deep jungles of the Benoue National Park in Cameroon, two brave souls endeavor to walk through the dense foliage. Cautiously, but with measured gait, they tread on hostile ground, looking and searching until they find what they are looking for. But will it be too late?

The Goddess of Kumortoli: Look at the magnificent and intense religious festival of West Bengal known as Durga Pujo, through the eyes of the idol maker Arpit Mondol as he puts the finishing touches to the Goddess who he calls ‘Ma.’

A Stranger in the City: What would you do if one day a stranger gets into your car and he tells you he has a bomb?

The Neighbor at #406: Irene May has just moved into a new house in Frittenden. Things start getting uncanny when she spots an elderly lady staring at her house.

Jackal’s Cave: In the pretty hill station of Kalimpong is a century old boarding school. Behind one of the girls cottages inside the school lies a dreaded cave of jackals. Four friends venture to explore it one afternoon and end up having an unforgettable experience.

The White Dove: A legendary boat in the Andaman Islands is famously known to be unsinkable. A young couple holidaying in the islands, discover more.

The Soothsayer: Devraj Basappa is a small boy with a big gift. He can see the future! However he has trouble making the people closest to him take him seriously. And then it all changes one night.

The Innocent: A man walks into an apartment where he finds a girl sleeping. He is convinced about what he needs to do, but will he really go through with it?

Little did, businessman and entrepreneur, Michael Rossi know that the telephone call he answered on that fateful Friday would be the catalyst for his death, and the subsequent recovery of his body from the waters of Sydney Harbour the following morning.

Recalled from leave to take on the case, Detective Chief Inspector Fitzjohn confronts the first of many puzzles; how Rossi spent the unaccountable hours before he died. This leads him on a paper-trail into a tangled web of deception, jealousy and greed that unravels the mystery surrounding Michael’s death.

Unaware of her nephew’s fate, Esme Timmons retires for the evening, unsuspecting of the events about to unfold; events that will, ultimately, expose a grim lie, buried deep in the past.

Jessi hung up the phone. That was the fifth time she tried calling home with no answer. She had just started eating lunch when she remembered she had forgotten to call home. It was something she would never forgive herself for.

It was something she would never forgive herself for…

It wasn’t until lunchtime that Jessi remembered to call home. No answer. She tried calling several times while she ate her lunch. Still no answer. She closed her eyes and rested her arms and head on her desk. She breathed deeply, wishing she had remembered to call earlier.

Until Forever is a story of a young family that is torn apart by the devastating effects of alcoholism. Can healing take place in a relationship when an unforgivable act is committed? Will Jessi’s pain and Mark’s guilt keep them apart forever, or will unforeseen circumstances bind them together?

No one bats an eyelid when a bag lady washes up on the shores of Sydney, minus five fingers and decked out in designer couture; nor is anyone too perturbed when socialite Beatrice Musgrave plunges to her death soon after. No one, that is, except ghostwriter and Merlot-lover Roxy Parker. She’s been writing Beattie’s ‘autobiography’ and has just stumbled on a secret that’s worth killing for.

With slick black hair, tortoise-shell glasses and a penchant for cheap plonk, Roxy Parker is a sassy new female detective … except she’s not strictly a detective. Rather, she’s a writer with a taste for the morbid and mysterious—and this time her little sideline may get her in way over her head …

Roxy is hired to ghostwrite the life story of department store heiress Beatrice Musgrave. Beatrice has promised Roxy a secret worth writing about, but before she gets the chance to tell all, the socialite is found ripped to shreds at the bottom of a cliff. The police say it’s suicide but Roxy knows better—there are too many people looking way too relieved.

And so she embarks on an investigation of her own. From the posh suburbs of inner-city Sydney to remote outback Australia, Roxy finds herself lured into a web of deceit where time has healed no wounds and no one is who they appear to be. One thing, however, is crystal clear: chasing headlines can be a deadly occupation. Roxy must also act fast—there’s a menacing stranger threatening her life, a handsome best friend growing increasingly impatient, and her mother is really starting to get on her nerves.

England, 1815

The eldest of three sisters, Lady Alexandra Chase has always done what was expected of her. But when the man she’s loved since her girlhood returns from a long spell abroad, she quite suddenly finds herself hoping the fine lord her brother has picked for her won’t propose. She decides that if he does, she’ll quite improperly turn him down–that is, until the man of her hopes and dreams informs her he has no intention of marrying her.

The last time Tristan Nesbitt saw Alexandra, he was a common man with no hope of ever wedding the daughter of a marquess. Seven years later, he’s now Lord Hawkridge, which should make him eminently suitable for the woman who long ago captured his heart. But a dreadful scandal has tarnished his name in England–a scandal so horrid that marrying Alexandra would ruin not only her flawless reputation but her whole family. For Alexandra’s own good, he must fight his relentless desires and stay far away…

A survival guide for writers from bestselling novelist William Elliot Hazelgrove. The novelist in Ernest Hemingways’ attic gives his philosophy and tips for surviving as a writer in America.

Getting your first novel published is one thing, but there are no classes for how to survive as a writer. Publishing does not offer much, but the school of hard knocks. Writers mostly keep to themselves and flame out or end up in some gutter without telling anyone of their journey. There are lots of books on how to get published and make a bestseller and how to sell books. But to survive as a writer in a society that doesn’t recognize writing as a viable way of life is very tricky. Most will not undertake it. Many will wait until retirement and then write their self-published novel after a creative writing class. It is all very safe and not who this book is for.

This book is for the writer or the author who must survive.

2067 was the year I died for the first time… It was painful. Had I known how often I’d be expected to die over the next several millennia, I might have made a stronger effort to stay dead. The year actually started off rather nice. I finished my PhD in high energy physics and was promoted to Lieutenant Commander in the United States Air Force. My first posting after the promotion was to the Lunar One Air Base where I worked with my father, Dr. Robert Kimbridge on “The Project.”

“The Project” was our name for a VASIMR Ion Drive interplanetary space craft that used Thorium LFTR reactors for both shielding and power. Capable of a sustained point one G of acceleration, our prototype was expected to make the Mars run in less than a week. By the end of November the ESX Arizona was ready for her first trial runs and I was her pilot. History has an odd way of repeating itself.

A broken heart.
A troubled past.
An unexpected romance that changes everything.

Will love and trust be enough to overcome the ultimate test?

Chase Walker used to be a good kid–charming, athletic, and with a bright future ahead, but that was before travesty struck his life, sinking him into deep despair. Caught up in a world of drugs and alcohol, he doesn’t notice time slipping away until he’s arrested for underage drinking one night.

Fed up with watching her son destroy his life, Chase’s mom relocates him to live in a small ranching community with his ex-military grandfather. Chase is far from happy about the situation until he meets, Nikki, the cute cheerleader who won’t give football players like him the time of day.

Chase enjoys a good challenge though and sets out to claim Nikki for his own. He soon discovers she’s more than a pretty face–she’s a balm to his troubled spirit also. But when tragedy strikes Nikki’s life too, suddenly Chase finds himself put to the ultimate test. Can he trust Nikki, and all that she’s taught him? Will it be enough?

WHEN THE DA HIMSELF SETS YOU UP, YOU KNOW YOU’RE GOING DOWN…

In Tony Dunbar’s books, New Orleans is The Big Sleazy squared. No one is safe, especially from their elected officials. Even if they are an elected official.

So what if Judge Hughes shared a few special moments with Sultana Patel—why is this a matter of public interest? “The stench from that courthouse fills the city,” roars D.A. Marcus Dementhe. “Those hypocritical men and women who wear the robes are filthy with deception.” And Dementhe has a zany plan to snare them.

Hughes, happily, has had the good sense to hire epicurean lawyer Tubby Dubonnet, whose laconic air is belied by his zeal to protect his clients. And what a web they’re ensnared in! But no matter how dire things get, Dunbar never loses his sense of humor:

The Rapture has begun, and seventeen-year-old Micah has been left behind. His mother tried to prepare him for the Apocalypse, but she disappeared without telling him about the family legacy, his legacy. And as civilization slips into chaos and the line between dreams and reality blurs, Micah must uncover his mother’s secret before the souls of humanity are lost forever.

Caledonia has been kept a secret her entire life, raised in isolation by two very troubled people. Despite her parents’ disturbing fits, Cal is perfectly content, living at one with the nature that surrounds her, and finding adventure inside the pages of her beloved books. When an awful tragedy tears her away from her remote cabin in the woods, nothing she’s ever read has prepared her for a world that she knows very little about.

Girls and motorcycles are what bad-boy Calvin’s life is all about. Brought up in a raucous party house by his biker brother, he’s free to do as he pleases, going through the motions on his final days of high school. Aimless, Cal stopped thinking about his future a long time ago.

Attacked by a gang of thugs while running an errand for his brother, Cal is in serious trouble until a fierce girl appears out of nowhere to intervene. She chases off three grown men, sparing Cal a brutal beating before disappearing into the night like a spirit. He can’t stop thinking about his mysterious rescuer, and when she turns out to be the weird new girl at school who goes out of her way to avoid him, he can’t contain his curiosity.

He’s never met anyone like her before, and the more he learns about the unusual girl who shares his nickname, the more he wants to know. Cal can’t help falling for Cal, but can he keep her from falling victim to a dangerous enemy from her parents’ tragic past?

In the village of Castle Farthing a mean-spirited, spiteful, curmudgeonly old man is found drugged and strangled in the kitchen of his cottage, with no obvious clues to the perpetrator of the crime.

DI Falconer and Acting DS Carmichael are summoned from the police headquarters in the nearby town of Market Darley and begin to uncover a web of grudges against the old man and a sea of familial connections between those who knew him.

As the heat of July continues relentlessly, tempers flare, disturbing the usual rural calm of the village, and the normally imperturbable Harry Falconer. Faced with a crime with no obvious prime suspect and the idiosyncrasies of his new partner,Carmichael, he feels that he is gradually losing his grip on the case as the body count rises.

Undecided whether he has one or two murderers to bring to justice, only a moment of serendipity will show him how events actually unfolded, and allow him to close his File on Castle Farthing, still smarting from the hideous twist with which events finally came to a head.

200 years ago, the Brothers Grimm unleashed their stories upon the world. Literally.

Now the characters of the Grimms’ stories walk among us. With every day that passes, they grow more evil. They are the Corrupted, and only a hero can stop them.

For 18-year-old Alice Goodenough, that means taking precious time off from her summer vacation. In addition to volunteering at the local library, Alice must stop the Corrupted who are now actively hunting her down. With the help of her magic pen and her trusty rabbit friend, the world has suddenly gotten a lot more complex. The Corrupted are everywhere, and only Alice can see them for what they truly are.

An avant garde update of a classic Greek tragedy.

Akley’s new novel is a deeply ambitious project, 700-plus pages of experimental prose filled with allusions to the Bible, the Beatles, Marx, Nietzsche, Johnny Cash and the cool jazz of Miles Davis, but readers who stick with it will be amply rewarded. Although labyrinthine, it is also gratifying. Akley’s previous work includes a number of award-winning children’s books, but this project is decidedly adult. Lazarus is a contemporary version of the Oedipus trilogy, Sophocles’ timeless epic about the benighted family of a man who kills his father and marries his mother. However, the novel is less a retelling than a refraction. Akley shines his ancient source through a prism and watches the colors spin and dance on a white wall, jumping between generations and growing family trees whose limbs are sometimes chopped with surprising speed, he delivers a tale as engrossing as it is complex.

These are dark times in the land of Fallada, and I fear that they will only continue to grow darker. Only the return of those we’ve lost will even the score.

It will begin with first line of the prophecy, which foretells of a red sun over the desert sky…

–Adrah, Queen of the Fae

On the outside, seventeen year-old Selena McKinley is like any other teenage girl. Yet Selena has always felt as if she doesn’t belong and is counting the days to graduation and her freedom from the small town that makes her feel so out of place, when the arrival of a stranger turns her world upside down. Selena will learn just how different she is and the truth of where she comes from.

A lost princess, they call her, the catalyst for a war involving a world that Selena was taken from as a child. An evil queen obsessed with her own beauty with a plan to enslave the human race.…the notion seems so silly, yet Selena knows in her heart that it is true. Then there is Titus, the shape shifter whose blue eyes and claims of destiny hold her heart captive. Can Selena find the strength to do what she must while following her heart?

This fascinating, educational book for kids contains many colorful images and interesting facts about mythological and real Dragons. Kids will learn about the lives of different reptiles to understand their habits and behavior.