Bargain and Free eBooks for Wednesday (6/25)

This is a story about murder, University and not playing by the rules.

A lonely university freshman, Alex Longley, is befriended by an enigmatic and mysterious group of friends who introduce him to a unique new way of life that is above the rules. However, as events unravel and things spiral out of control, everything Alex thought he knew begins to seem uncertain.

The book that made Jackie Collins one of America’s favorite authors sweeps you from the sophisticated playgrounds of Europe to the glittering gambling palaces of Las Vegas.

It plunges you into the reckless, dangerous world of the Santangelo crime family. It introduces you to Gino Santangelo, the street kid who makes it all the way to the top.

And then brings you Lucky—his sensual, stunningly beautiful, and passionate daughter; a woman who dares to win her father’s empire for herself; a woman unafraid of taking… CHANCES.

Death and Friendship.
Love and Gaming.
Mind and Machine.
The Meaning of Life.
High School Graduation.
The End of the World.
That Kind of Stuff.

If you press them, anyone who games will admit to some variation on the idea of how they’d love to be the hero for real, just once. Just for one day. But right now, I’m on an empty street five hundred kilometers from home, barely able to walk. I’m soaked and shivering, wearing someone else’s clothes, and with way too many memories of almost dying rattling around in my head. And right here, right now, all I can think about is what I’d say if anybody asked me how much I want to be a hero…

I try to focus. I need to bring the previous days into some sort of relief that will let me sum things up.

“Me and some friends of mine, we got caught up in something. We thought we were beta-playing a game. An online tactical simulation, but the game turned out to be… you know what, that doesn’t matter. But none of it was our fault, and now we have something this guy Lincoln wants. A piece of tech. I want to give it back to him, but I can’t trust him to leave things alone after that.”

“What kind of tech?”

“A Soviet-era mobile weapons platform, whose heuristic on-board systems developed advanced artificial intelligence capability while it sat forgotten in a bunker in Smolensk.” Saying it sounds just about as ridiculous as I expect it to.

“I didn’t think you wrote fiction.” Connor tries and fails to laugh. It’s like he has some sort of esophageal deformity that routes all intent to guffaw straight from his lungs to his nose.

“Not fiction. This is the truth…”

Think about the worst moment in your life. A moment that changed irrevocably everything you’ve ever known. Would you take that moment back?

What if that moment offers you a different life, allows you to do things you would never do otherwise? Meet people you would never know?

Think again.

That one moment transforms the lives of a dozen people, each keeping a secret they can never expose. A single thread ties them together. Inextricably and forever. Cut it, and someone dies.

Now, would you take that moment back?

Why waste time on Earth, when you have 24 times more time in the NET?Life was good in the NET ”” the Earth-size virtual world”” until hackers opened a forbidden door and something alien sneaked in” …

Welcome to the NET – an Earth-like virtual-world, where you surf in person and every Earth hour is a full NET day. A place where you can spend long hours preparing for a test, and lose only a few Earth minutes; or own a magnificent NET-estate, and entertain friends from all over Earth for a weekend – each of you would lose only a couple of Earth hours!

But strange phenomena begin to occur in the NET: Surfers suffer memory loss; NET facilities are attacked; and a hacker is kidnapped to a mysterious site named Hell!

Will Babel, the NET security unit, realize the real danger? Can fifteen-year-old Troy Bentley and his bio-computer and best friend, Flint, save the NET?

This portrait of a gumball entrepreneur’s life in 1950s America is a slice or retail business history and a funny freelance memoir all rolled into one.

When James Nelson decides to move his family out West to California in 1952, he takes the leap into entrepreneurship by buying a slew of gumball machines. The ad guaranteed quick profits and easy money, but comic frustrations were what he got. Savvy modern readers will laugh at Nelson’s charming naiveté while millennial freelancers will identify with his determination to keep on after endless setbacks. The gumball machine is an iconic symbol of 1950s Americana, and while the story chronicles Nelson’s foibles with gumball entrepreneurship, it’s the funny characters he meets along the way that are the true stars of this funny memoir. His larger-than-life descriptions of the characters of San Francisco and Sonoma county paint historic California as a fun scene—even for a man who makes his living one grubby penny at a time.

Several generations after the collapse of civilization, an isolated city is fighting to survive. Food is scarce, resources limited, and the population is dwindling alarmingly fast. Twenty-year old Cooper, marked since birth by his bright red hair, is selected to embark on a journey of a lifetime to bring hope and prosperity to his city.

Prepared as best as he can for the unknown, he sets out with little idea of what he will find. Along the way he forages for food, battles sickness and the swift current of a river, and finds an unlikely companion – an immediately faithful dog he names Lupe. The duo follow the great river south until they find themselves invited into a thriving village. Cooper knows he must learn all he can and use this knowledge to save his own city before it’s too late.

His love was the wind in my sails…

Everything in Samantha Conners’ life seemed to be in a holding pattern. Her sailboat racing season had fallen through, and she was stuck in a dead end job that barely covered the bills. If it wasn’t for the fact that her sister and niece were depending on her, she would have never been out on the water the day the billionaire’s boat ran her over.

Robbie Saunders is convinced that he is the screw-up younger brother of billionaire Jack Saunders. One of his biggest rules was to never go out drunk on the water, but with the impending death of his father, he took the boat out after drinking to try and gain some clarity. Instead, he ran over Sam and barely managed to save her from drowning.

While the two had been childhood sweethearts, time and distance had made them into different people. When fate crashed them back together, Robbie finds the fiery young woman to be the person he needs to give him motivation and direction. For Sam, Robbie is growing into the man she always knew he could be. A love blossoms and grows.

But what fate can give, it can also take away. A storm during the biggest freshwater sailing race of Sam’s career changes everything. Will Sam and Robbie find a way to overcome the storm, or will the two only have memories of freshwater kisses?

FOR THE LAST HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS, A TERRIBLE SECRET HAS BEEN KEPT FROM THE WORLD.

NOW IT’S ABOUT TO BE REVEALED… IN THE MOST SHOCKING WAY POSSIBLE.

AND ALL THAT STANDS IN THE WAY IS A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL.

After her mother is murdered trying to protect her, young Sarah Baxter ends up in the care of an unlikely hero; a new and inexperienced social worker with problems of her own. Yet when Christine Rose discovers something very special about Sarah, she also learns a terrifying secret that few would ever dream possible.

But it’s more than just possible…it’s imminent.

For over a century, in countries around the globe, a dark and meticulous plan has been set. But now an immensely powerful group must find and eliminate Sarah, the one person who can change the outcome. With unlimited resources and the unwitting support of a powerful government, they will stop at nothing to see their plan through. A strike at the very heart of faith itself.

From New York City, to the Vatican, to the hidden Nazi bunkers of Argentina, Christine must dig deep within herself and find the strength to keep Sarah alive.

Because if Sarah doesn’t survive…no one will.

Once upon a time, when giant creatures roamed the surface of the earth, a small dinosaur called Dido was playing in the forest, not far away from the place his parents lived….

STEP INTO DIDO’S WORLD!

Dido, the little dinosaur, dreams of flying and all day long he gazes at the sky, where the flying dinosaurs roam. One day, while walking in the forest, Dido finds a wounded flying dinosaur and, despite the fact that his parents are poor and have a limited amount of food, he decides to feed his new friend. Dido saves the flying dinosaur, but the healing has its costs. The food supplies are scarce and Dido must find a way to feed his family.

Will Dido find food in his dangerous and long journey?

Will the wounded dinosaur gratify Dido for his good deeds?

ROME. The mere mention of the name instills images of grandeur. The mighty empire was a guiding light for the civilized world for a thousand years. Was that by chance or careful design?

A psychiatric patient named Hastelloy has the answer. He believes he was there for it all: Caesar, legions, gladiators. According to his tale even the great gods Jupiter, Vesta and the advent of Christianity were not immune to his influence. Is he crazy or is it still crazy to ignore him?

Meanwhile, an NSA agent closes in on the location of his abducted partner and answers to the age old question – are we alone in the universe? To gain enlightenment he will have to face specters from his own past to safeguard himself, his family, and possibly the entire planet. The stakes have never been higher for him or his clandestine agency.

Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Jesus Christ. You may know the names and dates, but not the why or how. This gripping thriller will challenge everything you thought you knew about the most dynamic era in human history and draw into question if there will be a future. Once again, the Origins of all will be revealed.

Sometimes, it takes more than love to mend a shattered heart.

After eight years of being tossed around from one home to another, never forming any meaningful friendships or bonds with her foster families, Claire’s caseworker gives her an ultimatum: Behave or your next home will be a halfway house.

When fifteen-year-old Claire arrives at the home of Jackie Knight and meets Jackie’s fifteen-year-old son, tattooed guitarist Chris, she fears she’ll be seeing the inside of that halfway house soon. But Chris isn’t like any other guy Claire has ever encountered and he soon gains her trust through his music and unwavering patience.

Claire has finally found her forever home and she and Chris soon find themselves falling in love.

But Chris’s dreams of musical stardom and Claire’s need for a stable home soon put their love in jeopardy. Chris struggles deeply with his plans for the future, entirely reluctant to leave Claire behind; until Claire does something that may break their love — and the only home she’s comes to know — forever.

Eighteen-year-old Ethan Jones lives in Newhome, a town built upon the decaying ruins of post-apocalyptic Melbourne, ruins haunted by the ferocious Skel, a nomadic tribe of degenerate savages.

The Skel are ramping up their attacks on Newhome’s foraging teams and infesting Melbourne’s ruins in ever greater numbers. Is this part of a larger plan that could spell the town’s doom?

Meanwhile, the last thing Ethan expects when he and his companions rescue a two-car convoy from the Skel is a Japanese teenage girl with an outlandish dress-sense, who after they take her back to Newhome, goes to great lengths to ingratiate herself into his life. But is it in gratitude for saving her life or is she seeking something more?

And what a quandry she places him in, for he knows the rules, that no man is permitted to be alone with an unmarried woman. But how can he drive such a gentle soul away when she touchs his heart so deeply, even though she clearly carries the pain of a broken heart.

At the same time, Newhome’s police force, the Custodians, are suspicious of Ethan’s foraging team’s successes and are pulling out the stops to find out which member of his team has the illegal mutant ability that gives them an edge over the other teams. Should these peacekeepers discover Ethan is the mutant they seek, they will haul him away and dissect him like a frog.