By S. Celi / Genre: Science Fiction, Young Adult / Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (27 reviews)
What if everything you knew turned out to be a lie?
Charlotte Walker knows how to live under the rule of The Party. She has managed for 18 years. She helps out her drunken mother and keeps life going at a familiar, steady pace. She doesn’t ask questions, even though she has many of them in her heart.
By Rebecca Forster / Genre: Mystery & Thrillers / Rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars (745 reviews)
When sixteen-year-old Hannah Sheraton is arrested for the murder of her stepgrandfather, the chief justice of the California Supreme court, her distraught mother turns to her old college roommate, Josie Baylor-Bates, for help. Josie, once a hot-shot criminal defense attorney, left the fast track behind for a small practice in Hermosa Beach, California. But Hannah Sheraton intrigues her and, when the girl is charged as an adult, Josie cannot turn her back. But the deeper she digs the more Josie realizes that politics, the law and family relationships create a combustible and dangerous situation. When the horrible truth is uncovered it can save Hannah Sheraton or destroy them both.
Phoenix Pick’s free eBook for December is L. Neil Smith’s The Venus Belt. The Coupon code for December (good from now through December 31) is 9991305 and the book is available in their online catalogue at www.PPickings.com or click here to enter the coupon code and download.
Book Description
More than a 150,000 women have been kidnapped without a trace or any ransom demand in the ‘normal’ world run by the Federalists and the bureaucracy. But that is not the only problem, because the freedom loving population in the ‘alternate’ reality of the North American Confederacy are facing their own crises.
People are disappearing across the Probability Broach, including Win Bear’s closest friend, Featherstone-Haugh (who heads the Confederacy), and even Win’s wife and assistant.
Ill (and deadly) winds are blowing and threatening to destroy the Probability Broach as we know it. Win Bear, keeping one step ahead of lethal assassins and fighting incredible odds, must solve multiple apparantly disparate cases that all seem to lead to the end of freedom.
“Custerology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer”, by Michael A. Elliott, is the free eBook of the month from University of Chicago Press. Get it from here.
Book Description
On a hot summer day in 1876, George Armstrong Custer led the Seventh Cavalry to the most famous defeat in U.S. military history. Outnumbered and exhausted, the Seventh Cavalry lost more than half of its 400 men, and every soldier under Custer’s direct command was killed.
It’s easy to understand why this tremendous defeat shocked the American public at the time. But with Custerology, Michael A. Elliott tackles the far more complicated question of why the battle still haunts the American imagination today. Weaving vivid historical accounts of Custer at Little Bighorn with contemporary commemorations that range from battle reenactments to the unfinished Crazy Horse memorial, Elliott reveals a Custer and a West whose legacies are still vigorously contested. He takes readers to each of the important places of Custer’s life, from his Civil War home in Michigan to the site of his famous demise, and introduces us to Native American activists, Park Service rangers, and devoted history buffs along the way. Elliott shows how Custer and the Indian Wars continue to be both a powerful symbol of America’s bloody past and a crucial key to understanding the nation’s multicultural present.
By Charles River Editors / Genre: Religion & Spirituality, History / Rating: –
In the years leading up to 2012, there has been much interest in the Maya calendar. Largely, this is because the calendar will complete its 5,200-year cycle on December 21, 2012, and this auspicious event has been misinterpreted as signaling the end of the world. For the Maya, the endings of calendar period of all lengths (cycles ranged from 20 days to centuries in length) were very important and required various types of rituals and offerings to be properly recognized. Often, the best acceptable “offering” was human blood, and Maya elites engaged in autosacrificial bloodletting to appease the deity presiding over the transition in question. Combined with the detailed Maya knowledge of astronomy, the calendar system functioned as a way for Maya priests and elites to know which particular god in their crowded pantheon was ruling at a particular moment. The Maya believed that each interval of time, embedded in units like the day, the night, the solar year, the k’atun (20 year cycle), the lunar cycle, and Venus’s cycle, was governed by a certain deity. Such knowledge was considered vital in Maya cosmology and allowed the elites to maintain and consolidate power, effect political change, and lend religious veracity to monumental building projects. The blending of technologies and religion extended to writing for the Maya, who used a writing system to codify and standardize religio-political beliefs.
Religions of the World: The Religion of the Maya examines the history and evolution of the Mayan religion, including its main tenets, the similarities it shares with other religions and the differences that make it unique. Along with pictures of important figures and places, you’ll learn about the Maya religion like never before.
Free as of 11/30/2012 for Kindle. Click here to find out if this book is still FREE.
By John Michael Hileman / Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Romance / Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
Life for Jake Paris is stable and ordinary–until a mysterious old woman pays him a visit and he begins to have encounters with unruly children everywhere he goes—children only he can see.
When Jake’s estranged sister, Holly, finds herself the target of a national serial killer who has chosen her son as his next victim, Jake begins to wonder if there is a connection. Could these children be the ghosts of the killer’s victims?
As the kidnapper’s plan unfolds, Jake uncovers a startling secret about the unseen children that will change his life forever–and Holly discovers just how far she is willing to go to save her son. Unseen is a riveting story of rescue, restoration, and romance that will leave you thinking long after the last page has been turned.
Free as of 11/06/2012 for Kindle. Click here to find out if this book is still FREE.
By Ellen Gable / Genre: Drama, Romance / Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
Caroline Martin’s life has finally taken a turn for the better. After years of hard work, she has met a virtuous and wealthy man whose love seems to promise the kind of life realized only within the comforting novels she keeps on her night table. Tragedy, however, will teach Caroline of the complexity with which God Himself authors the lives of those who turn towards Him.
Free as of 11/06/2012 for Kindle. Click here to find out if this book is still FREE.
By Addison Towne / Genre: Action & Adventure, Comic Fiction / Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Suburban Task Force is a humor filled, high octane, action-comedy. It follows Jade Lydell, who at thirty one finds herself living the surreal life of a married suburbanite. Her simple, and now materialistic days are busy with shopping, drinking and playing with couples that live the same high-end lifestyle.
It takes a home invasion scare and a co-workers brutal mugging to wake Jade from her suburban slumber. The adventure begins when she and her two best friends forgo an uplifting spa retreat for an intense tactical, gun and self defense weekend, all without their husbands’ knowledge.
Free as of 11/06/2012 for Kindle. Click here to find out if this book is still FREE.
By Jeanette Levellie / Genre: Humor / Rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars
What do drive-by diaper stores and God have in common? When is blabbing an acceptable habit? Why should you beware of moths and slugs?
In her entertaining, uplifting style, award-winning author and humorist Jeanette Levellie weaves 72 amusing stories with affirming biblical truths that will help you:
* Laugh when you find cow patties in your field instead of daisies
* Discover the bottomless heart of God
* Grow in your acceptance of yourself and others
Free as of 11/06/2012 for Kindle. Click here to find out if this book is still FREE.
By Nancy Pitts / Genre: History, Romance / Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars
Taking its title from a poem newlywed Daphne sent her soldier husband during World War II, When You Come Home tells of their young love in the heartland at the brink of war, and of the crushing uncertainty and fear as they find themselves a world apart. And when the poem comes back to Daphne – blood-stained by Raymond’s mortal wounds – When You Come Home shares the extraordinary event that restores the grieving young widow’s faith in the transcendent power of love.
Free as of 11/06/2012 for Kindle. Click here to find out if this book is still FREE.