Archives for August 2011

Flyover Country Free from Amazon Kindle Store

August 31, 2011 by Michael Gallagher

Flyover Country by Daniel Koehler is free today from the Amazon Kindle store, and you can pick up your free copy by clicking here or typing in http://amzn.to/pcge6A into your computer’s web browser.

Here is the book’s description from the Amazon website:

In 1962, three intersecting crimes—a patricide, a bank robbery, and a kidnapping—lead to tragedy, secret-sharing, redemption, and a May/September romance in Flyover Country.

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Always the Baker, Never the Bride Free from Amazon Kindle Store

August 31, 2011 by Michael Gallagher

Always the Baker, Never the Bride by Sandra D. Bricker is free today from the Amazon Kindle store (was free for a brief period in January of this year), and has received an average user rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars based on 152 customer reviews. You can pick up your free copy by clicking here or typing in http://amzn.to/pi0X2S into your computer’s web browser.

Here is the book’s description from the Amazon website:

Thirty-six-year-old Emma Rae Travis has been baking specialty cakes and melt-in-your-mouth pastries at The Backstreet Bakery in historic Roswell, just outside of Atlanta, for the last six years. But here’s the rub about her job as a baker … Emma is diabetic. When she tastes her creations, it can only be in the most minute portions. Emma is considered an artisan for the stunning crème brulee wedding cake that won her the Passionate Palette Award last year, but she’s never even had one full slice of it. When Jackson Drake hears about this local baker who has won a prestigious award for her wedding cake artistry, he tells his assistant to be sure and include her in the pastry tastings scheduled at his new wedding destination hotel the following week. And for Jackson, that particular day has started out badly with two workmen trapped in a broken elevator and a delivery of several dozen 300-thread-count bed linens in the wrong size abandoned in the lobby. But when the arrogant baker he met a week prior in Roswell stumbles into the dining room with a platter of pastries and a bucketful of orders, he knows for certain: It’s going to be a really rotten day. Can these two ill-suited players master the high-wire act and make a go of their new business venture? Or will they take each other crashing downward, without a net? And will the surprise wedding at The Tanglewood be theirs?

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Check out my other blog, Bible Verse of the Day on your Kindle – 100% of the proceeds are donated to charity, with over $4,000 donated to The Nehemiah Center of Houston since 2010! You can check out the two-week free trial if you type in http://tinyurl.com/bvoftheday into your computer’s web browser and click on the “Subscribe now with 1-click” button on the right-hand side of the page.

I Shall Not Want Free from Amazon Kindle Store

August 31, 2011 by Michael Gallagher

I Shall Not Want by Debbie Viguie is free today from the Amazon Kindle store, and has received an average user rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars based on 8 customer reviews. You can pick up your free copy by clicking here or typing in http://amzn.to/pq47ii into your computer’s web browser.

Here is the book’s description from the Amazon website:

Charity work can be murder! It’s Thanksgiving and Joseph Tyler, one of the members of Cindy’s church, has organized a new charity that provides homeless people with rescue dogs to love and care for. But one by one, the homeless recipients are being murdered and their dogs stolen. Could an overly competitive millionaire with his prize-winning pooches and a grudge be behind the crimes? Or could it be someone much closer to Joseph who has something sinister to hide? Cindy and Jeremiah must rush to find a killer before he strikes again.

Coping With Breast Cancer Free from Amazon Kindle Store

August 31, 2011 by Michael Gallagher

Coping with Breast cancer: A Husband’s Perspective by Ricky Sides is free today from the Amazon Kindle store, and you can pick up your free copy by clicking here or typing in http://amzn.to/mVQ3HA into your computer’s web browser.

Here is the book’s description from the Amazon website:

In the mid-nineties, my wife was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, which had metastasized to her lymph nodes. The essay “Coping with Breast Cancer” details what happened in the wake of that diagnosis. We decided to release this composition in the hopes of helping other couples confronted with this terrible disease.

Here is a brief excerpt from Coping with Breast Cancer.

In the fall of 1994 we were living the good life. We’d just bought our dream house and moved in the previous July and were looking forward to our first holiday season in our new home. Only one thing placed a cloud over our lives at that point in time. My wife had a mysterious bloody discharge from one breast. She had also lost a considerable amount of weight and I was beginning to become concerned.

My wife was reluctant to agree to go to a doctor but finally I managed to elicit a promise from her that she would go to see a physician the day after Thanksgiving. That morning we got into our car for the drive to the doctor, never suspecting that our lives were about to be forever changed.

I sat in the waiting room while my wife saw her gynecologist. I saw her come back out just a few minutes after she had been escorted back to the examination room. She was pale and said that the doctor had told her we had to go to the hospital at once for a mammogram and that the doctor was calling ahead to get her worked in that day.

She broke down and cried on the drive to the hospital and expressed her sense of dread saying, “The doctor says she’s afraid it might be breast cancer.”

That was the first time I heard the words breast cancer in relation to my wife. They were the scariest words I’d ever heard in my life.

This is a 9,100 word essay, and not a full length book. The page count in 6 x 9 format is 37 pages.

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Love from Ashes Free from Amazon Kindle Store

August 30, 2011 by Michael Gallagher

Love From Ashes by Denise A. Agnew is free today from the Amazon Kindle store, and has received a perfect 5 out of 5 stars based on four customer reviews. You can pick up your free copy by clicking here or typing in http://amzn.to/ohkQVO into your computer’s web browser.

Here is the book’s description from the Amazon website:

During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, privileged Grace Wyne and Irish immigrant Nathaniel Dempsey desperately try to rescue love from the ashes.

Grace and Nate seek freedom and a new life in San Francisco, but society, her family, and forces of nature, wage war against them.

Nate is torn by the death of his family in Ireland, yet he finds Grace’s spirit is a balm for his soul. She joins a suffragette organization and, when she encounters scorn and violence, Nate vows to protect her.

She is determined to marry for love, and now is stunned by her feelings for a man far beneath her social status. There is more than one danger to face, for the earth is unstable and their forbidden love is a sure formula for disaster.

When the earth trembles and breaks apart, no one knows who will live to love again…or who will die.

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Sweetwater American Free from Amazon Kindle Store

August 30, 2011 by Michael Gallagher

Sweetwater American by Eileen Cruz Coleman is free today from the Amazon Kindle store, and has received a perfect 5 out of 5 stars based on three customer reviews. You can pick up your free copy by clicking here or typing in http://amzn.to/nbCHRp into your computer’s web browser.

Here is the book’s description from the Amazon website:

SWEETWATER AMERICAN is the story of an orphan who is sent to live in a cursed town in El Salvador with her godmother, a woman whom she has never met and who may hold the secret to breaking the town’s curse: no babies have been born alive in five years.

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Random Kindle Thoughts and Email Replies

August 30, 2011 by Michael Gallagher

Well, I’ll start off by saying I really don’t have a set agenda for this post – shocking, I know. However, I do have a few random thoughts, plus I thought I would answer a few questions I have received from several of you via email: my thought process is if several of you have the same question and took the time to write to me, that means a whole heck of a lot more of you have the same question and are looking for an answer.

I am, as usual, way behind on replying to email but if you would like to write to me you can send an email to kindle at gagler dot com (I type it that way in a small attempt to thwart the spammers).

To start off, while there was certainly a lot of damage due to Hurricane Irene and there is a lot of cleanup to do, I’m glad it wasn’t as bad as initially thought!

Many people are still without power to their homes. I’ve experienced that with a hurricane before, and I know it is a pain in the neck, but look at the bright side: your Kindle is an energy miser, and if you leave the wireless off or just turn it on periodically to download, say, this blog then turn it off again, it can last for over a week without a charge. Of course, your experience may vary depending upon hours of use, do you have the lighted cover drawing power from the Kindle, age of the battery, etc.

One thing you can use, and I have three of these in my house, is an emergency USB charger that runs on two “AA” size batteries. I have used these primarily with camping, and also during power outages, to power up my family’s Kindles, iPods, cell phones, and my antique MP3 player (I refuse to drink the Apple Kool-Aid although my family members have warmly embraced it). In other words, we have WAY too many devices in my family. You can get one like I have for $5.00, which includes shipping, if you click here or type in http://amzn.to/m6XQrd in to your computer’s web browser. I think this is one of my better “be prepared” investments.

Here’s to hoping there aren’t many more hurricanes this year, but we sure could use some rain here in Texas!

Kindle Book Lending

Several people have written me with problems about lending a Kindle book, specifically they never can have the book “returned” after the two-week period is over: the loaned book’s status on their Kindles show as still being on “loan” and the original purchaser is unable to read it. The emailers want to know how they can get the book back to their account again so they can read it.

I’ll be the first to say I haven’t loaned a Kindle book out, ever: my family shares the same account and we all read the same book at the same time on several occasions. I did, however, consult an expert (a fellow co-worker) who has experience with this, and here is what she told me she did to correct it on her Kindle and start reading the loaned book again:

Turn your Kindle’s wireless feature on by pressing the “Menu” key and selecting “Turn Wireless On” with the 5-way controller.
Click the “Home” button.
Next click the “Menu” button.
Select the “View Archived Items” button.
Scroll until you find the loaned book, then click the 5-way controller.

If you followed the above, the Amazon server should re-send your book back to you and you can read it to your heart’s content on your Kindle.

Internet Connectivity and Adult Titles

Here’s an email I received a few weeks ago, the theme of which I receive about twice per month:

I subscribe to your Free Kindle Books blog. For some reason your click-links are consistently failures, as the kindle says “failed to connect” and some addresses also fail on my computer. Thus, the info on organizing collections is unavailable, and I’d like it. After all, I pay you for it. Also, I’d appreciate it if some category of “adult” books existed, those written for adult minds, with subjects not merely mystery and romance. Thanks, John

I’ll tackle the easy one first – the post I had on organizing Collections was originally written in September 2010, and is consistently one of the most popular posts (in terms of page views) on the blog each month. This post is rather long and is about the “Collections” feature, and is broken up into two parts. The first section is for the experienced Kindlers who already know about Collections and want to transfer them over to their new K3; the second is a general review of what a collection is and how to establish them on your new Kindle – which might be handy to those of you who have upgraded from your K1 to either a new K3 or the many used K2’s that are on the market. You can see this post if you click here or type in http://bit.ly/fDZSA9 into your computer’s web browser.

Concerning the fact your Kindle can not connect to some Internet addresses is beyond my control: I experience the same thing from time-to-time on my Kindle, and after a brief waiting period I try again and the Internet address shows up. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and most of the time my connection speed is super slow as compared to my cable or office connection. Considering the Internet connectivity is free, who am I to complain?

The intermittent Internet connectivity is one of the reasons why I put an actual web address you can type into your computer’s web browser to most things in case the link that says “click here” fails to work. When the blog posts are released for publication, the URL listed works. Amazon does, however, move pages around from time-to-time.

As far as the “adult” titles, I am assuming John is talking about the erotica or similar titles Amazon also has for free: I’ve discussed this a few times before. While I may post about a free hot and steamy romance (my Dad calls them “lust in the dust” books), I’ve drawn the line at books offered for free in Amazon’s “Erotica” category or books listed on the Kindle site where the book’s description basically indicate there is a lot of sex, etc. in the content: people under 18 I personally know read this blog, and I am sure there are many more. As a parent I think kids have enough pornography thrown at them each and every day, and I certainly don’t want a stranger / blog poster throwing it in my kids’ faces so I will return the favor by not doing the same to your children.

Am I a prude? The people who actually know me and are reading this will laugh out loud at that comment as I’m not: I’m a parent who is trying to set a great example for my kids and shelter them while they are young, and I feel pretty strong about it. There’s enough free material out there without lowering standards. Will this stand make the subscriber base decrease for the blog? I hope not but, at the end of the day the number of subscribers are not my motivation for blogging.

Kindle Screen Typeset

Here’s a question I received from Sheri W.:

I really like the dark print on my Kindle, but I get frustrated when the print gets really light. For instance, this happens when I connect to the amazon website, or actually any other website, or when a particular part of a book wants to put emphasis in a certain section. I’ve seen it on blogs, newspapers, eBooks, searching the web, etc. Is there any way that I can get all the print darkened so that if parts are too light to read, I could modify it and make it dark like I like it? I’ve had my Kindle since December, and haven’t been able to find a solution on my own. I would appreciate any insight you have about this. Thanks.

The short answer is no, you can’t make part of the text on the screen lighter or darker. A longer reply is that would be a nice feature to have,as I have noticed, for example, some inconsistencies in various books from one paragraph to the next where the font will be a little lighter, or a different font altogether. Part of me wants to push CTRL-A like I am on a computer so I can change it all.

While I said the short answer is no, if anyone reading this post knows of a way to change that function please let me know: send me an email to kindle at gagler dot com, and if the method works I will send it out to the larger group.

That’s about all the time I have for now, and congratulations if you read this far!

Regards,

Michael

Want to have this blog sent wirelessly to your Kindle vs. reading it on your computer? Try out the free two-week subscription! Click here for the Amazon page for Free Kindle Books Plus a Few Other Tips.

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18 Free Books Today in Amazon Kindle Store

August 30, 2011 by Michael Gallagher

Amazon has released 18 books for free this morning in a variety of genres: having a separate post would overwhelm not only me but your Kindles as well as your email inbox so here they are, in no particular order:

Demonsouled by Jonathan Moeller – click here or type in http://amzn.to/qFiMy7 into your computer’s web browser.

The Price of Liberty by Keir Graff – click here or type in http://amzn.to/qJQend

Growth Poems by Karin Cox – click here or type in http://amzn.to/oSaE67

Plain Jane: Brunettes Beware by Cristyn West – click here or type in http://amzn.to/npKbjY

Touched by Angels by Peggy Webb – click here or type in http://amzn.to/qr7yme

Spying in High Heels by Gemma Halliday – click here or type in http://amzn.to/mXyzo5

The Current Rate of Exchange by Jacqueline T. Lynch – click here or type in http://amzn.to/pWlUjl

The Gift of Illusion: A Paranormal Thriller by Richard Brown – click here or type in http://amzn.to/qsF0y1

The Converging by George Straatman – click here or type in http://amzn.to/oQTFmq

Escaping Entry by Benedict Martin – click here or type in http://amzn.to/nV6250

Garden of Darkness by Anne Frasier – click here or type in http://amzn.to/pVRLiO

Sleep Tight by Anne Frasier – click here or type in http://amzn.to/p9qVdb

Pale Immortal by Anne Frasier – click here or type in http://amzn.to/qmu0qH

Regression by Kathy Bell – click here or type in http://amzn.to/oSBi37

Staked by Sandra Edwards – click here or type in http://amzn.to/qYXupH

People of the Tiger by Wayne Edward Clarke – click here or type in http://amzn.to/q5Lh9E

33 A.D. (Bachiyr, Book 1) by David McAfee – click here or type in http://amzn.to/px5Ta9

Dinosauria – Part I: Garden by J. Rock and Austin Alander – click here or type in http://amzn.to/racATG

Looking for more or a reliable source of free books for your Kindle? Click here for my “Free Kindle Books and How to Find Them” book (updated April 2011).

The Murder at the Vicarage Free from Amazon Kindle Store

August 29, 2011 by Michael Gallagher

The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie is free today from the Amazon Kindle store, and has received an average user rating of 4 out of 5 stars based on 32 customer reviews. You can pick up your free copy by clicking here or typing in http://amzn.to/oppP1s into your computer’s web browser.

Here is the book’s description from the Amazon website:

James Saxon delivers a memorable and absolutely masterful performance of Christie’s first Miss Marple mystery. When the wildly unpopular Colonel Protheroe is found murdered in the vicar’s study, it seems that everyone—his unhappy wife, his daughter, a visiting artist, an embittered poacher, the vicar—has a motive in a mystery that confounds the authorities, consumes the village and can only be untangled by observations and deductions of our heroine: the elderly gossip-cum-sleuth Miss Marple. Saxon’s artful and enthusiastic portrayal of a host of characters—male and female, guilty and innocent, young and old—will delight Christie fans, mystery lovers and anyone lucky enough to listen.

Looking for more or a reliable source of free books for your Kindle? Click here for my “Free Kindle Books and How to Find Them” book (updated April 2011).

Love’s Magic Free from Amazon Kindle Store

August 29, 2011 by Michael Gallagher

Love’s Magic by Traci E. Hall is free today from the Amazon Kindle store, and has received an average user rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars based on six customer reviews. You can pick up your free copy by clicking here or typing in http://amzn.to/ppfvyF into your computer’s web browser.

Here is the book’s description from the Amazon website:

While her sisters are tall and beautiful, Celestia Montehue is the misfit in a royal family—petite, with one green and one blue eye. The only thing she has in common with her ancestors is her magical healing ability. Fearing no one will ever accept her, she vows never to marry. Meanwhile, Nicholas Le Blanc, a haunted man, was trained as a knight but his childhood has convinced him he is a bastard. He is captured while on crusade and eventually forced to kill for his freedom. An arranged marriage between the two does not bode happiness, nor does Celestia’s new home—a broken-down keep haunted by the ghost of Nicholas’ mother. Soon a curse is set upon them, and they must decide if their love will save them or, ultimately, doom them.

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Archives for August 2011

Flyover Country Free from Amazon Kindle Store

Always the Baker, Never the Bride Free from Amazon Kindle Store

I Shall Not Want Free from Amazon Kindle Store

Coping With Breast Cancer Free from Amazon Kindle Store

Love from Ashes Free from Amazon Kindle Store

Sweetwater American Free from Amazon Kindle Store

Random Kindle Thoughts and Email Replies

18 Free Books Today in Amazon Kindle Store

The Murder at the Vicarage Free from Amazon Kindle Store

Love’s Magic Free from Amazon Kindle Store

About Free Kindle Books and Tips

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