Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Organizing Your Kindle Books

One thing that has really bugged me about the Kindle vs real books is not having the back cover to reference. When I'm faced with a shelf full of books it's hard to make a choice just based on a cover (which is all you have with the Kindle). I miss the back of the book!  I finally came up with a trick to help me both sort my books a little (since the Fire doesn't have any real way to organize your books beyond alphabetical or author) and I thought I'd share it.


The Back of the Book
When I download a book it's because the description was good enough to make me want to read it. So now, after I purchase the book, I open it in the "Cloud Reader" (which opens the book in your browser. I click on the first word on the page and then add a note (the highlight/note option will pop up when you click on a word).  In the note I put the category of the book followed by a copy/paste of the description provided on Amazon.

Now, when I'm looking for something to read I can either do a search for a particular category I might be interested in. Or I can just scan the covers then open the book and read my note to "view the back cover" and see if it's something I'm in the mood for at that moment.

If you already have a huge collection of books you can easily update your books via "Manage My Kindle" on the Amazon website. Just load up the list of books. Click the plus sign next to the book and open the "book details" in a new tab, to get the book description. Then on the right hand side of the screen you'll see an "actions" dropdown. Select "read now" to open it in the "Cloud Reader". 

While you are at it, leave yourself a comment in your note about those books you've read and what you thought of them to help you remember later.

More FREE Kindle Books

Another list of Kindle Freebies for you this afternoon. As always be sure to double check the prices before you purchase and make sure it still says "Kindle Price: $0.00".  These are free even if you don't have an actual Kindle, you can purchase them and read them on any Kindle reader app (available for everything from your PC to your smart phone and then some).

Killing the Giants - "After a series of deadly explosions at two oil facilities, the ATF sends Sarah Perkins to investigate in this Dan Brown style chase from Louisiana to Canada to New York City. What Sarah finds is anything but accidental. When the witnesses are murdered and the evidence corrupted, she discovers that Caesar, a secret society from her past is at the helm and they're more sinister than ever! "


Vimana: A Science Fiction Thriller - "'Gods' fought a terrible war in our skies 15,000 years ago. They have returned to finish it.

Ancient texts refer to 'Gods' flying in craft called vimanas and waging war with what sound like nuclear weapons. These accounts are today classified as myth or legend.

What if they turned out to be real?

Vimana is an edge-of your seat sci-fi technothriller about a young college student who stumbles upon an ancient war between good and evil. A war that we thought was merely a part of our ancient myths and legends, but unknown to us, is still being waged everyday in our skies. As the forces of darkness conspire to unleash worldwide devastation to coincide with the End Times prophecies in 2012, he discovers his hidden destiny is to join the forces of light in bringing this war to a conclusion. At stake will be the continued existence of the human race."


Silent Kills - "The killer picks her up in a Manhattan night club. Another trendy victim of the latest downtown scene. Young. Fresh. Healthy. Perfect. The police find her body in a Bronx park. Pale as a ghost. Peaceful in death. Her life has been drained away. Slowly. Methodically. Brilliantly. . .

No One Survives What He Takes

NYPD profiler Lee Campbell has seen the gruesome handiwork of the most deranged criminal minds. But this is something new. Something unbelievably twisted. A blood-obsessed lunatic who chooses his victims with deadly, loving care--and forces Campbell to confront the demons in his own life. No matter who wins this game, there will be blood. . ."



Painted Truth (Alix Thorssen Mysteries) - "Set in Jackson Hole where the Old West merges with upscale art galleries and adrenaline adventures, this second mystery featuring Alix Thorssen (after The Bluejay Shaman) finds the art dealer on her home-ground but without the comforts of home. Her partnership and gallery with sexy Paolo Segundo are at a crossroads. When another gallery on the town square burns, revealing the body of a famous artist, Alix is drawn into the investigation as an appraiser of the lost paintings. Ray Tantro was a has-been at 30 but was on the verge of a comeback. The death is ruled a suicide but Alix has her doubts. Why are the police so quick to dismiss foul play? The investigation makes her confront her own contradictions as an art lover, turning everything she knows upside down. A second murder rocks the resort town. Alix must examine her ethics and indeed her way of life to find the truth, and justice. But not without a very high price. "


Head Over Heels - "Thirty-something teacher and professional shopper Grace has a passion for shoes. In fact they were responsible for her meeting her partner, Mark, when she speared his foot with one of her dangerously sharp heels whilst running for a train.

Mark is the other passion in her life, or so she thinks.... When he suggests they try for a baby - but is reluctant to tie the knot on their very long-term engagement - the cracks in her champagne lifestyle start to appear. As Mark becomes ever more controlling, Grace begins to see her blond and sexy boss, Tom, in a different light. A conventionally one-man woman who doesn't 'do' affairs, she suddenly finds herself in the midst of the sort of tangled lifestyle she has only read about in the celeb pages. Throw in the added complications of an untimely pregnancy, a case of mistaken identity and some pretty zany friends and Grace's life is thrown into turmoil. Retail therapy and even the comfort of her vast shoe collection can't help her out of this dilemma....."


Blood Money - "Nick Ceratto, a young, cracker jack litigator looking for a partnership in the prestigious Philadelphia law firm of Maglio, Silvio, and Levin discovers his firm's dark seceret for increasing it's bottom line while preparing a medical malpractice case for trial.The partners are setting up major cases by seriously injuring and even murdering their clients to produce huge jury awards. When the firm discovers he knows, Nick's only hope is to stay one step ahead of the hitman long enough to intentionally lose his case and expose the firm's corruption. As his mission careens towards an explosive climax, the only question left, is whose lives will be sacrificed along the way."


A Real Piece of Work (The Dakota Stevens Mysteries) - "At the close of a case in Key West, PI Dakota Stevens and his associate Svetlana Krüsh return to New York, where the city is in the grips of its worst blizzard since 1888. When an art dealer stumbles in from the storm and hires them to find a stolen painting, they think it's just another case, but in no time they're neck-deep in a world of unstable artists, seductive gallery owners, mysterious collectors, deadly henchmen and a stunning femme fatale.

This is A Real Piece of Work.

In a thrill-ride of a mystery that leads from Manhattan to the Catskills to Washington, D.C., what begins as the simple recovery of a painting soon reveals an international art scam and a chilling secret hidden for decades.

Dakota Stevens is a former FBI agent with experience in the field and the lab, a modern PI who combines the wit and grit of Marlowe and Spenser with the sleuthing skills of Sherlock Holmes. However, Dakota's "Watson" is anything but. A Ukrainian-American chess champion with runway legs, predator eyes, and fluency in seven languages, Svetlana Krüsh is much more than a sexy sidekick, bringing worldly sophistication and a razor-sharp mind to their cases."

Today's FREE Kindle Books

Here are a handful of books you can grab for free right now on Amazon for your Kindle (or Kindle app - available for pretty much any device). As always, be sure to check the price before you purchase as they can change at any time. Make sure it says "Kindle Price: $0.00"


Erased - "They trained Sara Murphy to kill. They programmed her to forget everything. She was supposed to be the perfect patsy, until something went wrong…

When Sara wakes up on the roof of a Union Square department store with a sniper rifle in her arms and the body of a political activist in the street below, she can’t even remember how she got there. A mysterious stranger calls and instructs her to turn herself in. He warns that her life has been erased and she’ll never see her family again if she doesn’t cooperate. Sara is terrified, and in a desperate attempt to sort out her past and prove her innocence, she goes on the run.

Sara quickly finds herself one of America’s most wanted criminals. The police and the FBI are convinced she’s a known terrorist. The black ops team that framed her is out to kill her before she can expose them. Her only hope lies in rookie FBI agent Brandy Jackson. Unfortunately, Brandy and her partner have every reason to believe Sara is the real killer and they’re being pressured from above to close the case as quickly as possible.

As the evidence mounts, Sara even begins to question her own memories. What if she’s not the dedicated mother and hardworking attorney she thinks she is?

What if she really is the killer? "



Vampires, Ghosts, and God (Five Novel Box Set) - "Five novels by bestselling author, Aiden James

The Vampires’ Last Lover:

Txema Ybarra is the most unenviable nineteen-year-old girl alive. Born with an unusual ‘twin teardrop’ birthmark on her neck, Txema is caught in the middle of a vampire war after all the other bearers of the birthmark are murdered. The race is on to save her blood, and her very life, for the survival of Les Amantes de Vampire. Otherwise, Txema will be the last one…the vampires’ last lover.

Cades Cove:

Buried deep in a Smoky Mountain ravine lies a terrible secret. David Hobbs, vacationing with his wife Miriam, inadvertently stumbles upon a small cloth ‘keepsake’ bag and a broken human tooth. David ignores her pleas to hand the items over to a park ranger, which opens a doorway closed for nearly a hundred years and unleashes hell on earth…..or at least hell in David and Miriam's world.

Plague of Coins:

William Barrow carries a dark secret. A very dark secret. An archivist for the Smithsonian Institute and also a part-time operative for the CIA, no one would ever suspect the handsome ‘thirty-ish’ William is in fact the most reviled human being to ever walk the earth. His infectious warmth and sense of humor make such an assertion especially hard to believe. But long ago, William Barrow had another name…one that is synonymous with shame and betrayal: Judas Iscariot.

The Forgotten Eden:

Hidden within rural Alabama lies an unseen world feared for centuries by the residents of Carlsdale. Jack Kenney is the only person to ever survive a visit to this place long enough to tell about it. Held captive by the FBI in connection to a murder, Jack leads Agent Peter McNamee on an extraordinary roller-coaster ride involving a mystical and deadly realm within America's Deep South.

Deadly Night:

When Country singer Candi Starr is found dead in Nashville's esteemed West End, it proves to be just the beginning of a murder spree involving anyone close to the music superstar. Candi’s friend, ghost hunter and psychic Fiona Alea, and her handsome rock n' roll husband, Jimmy, soon find themselves on a roller-coaster thrill ride to learn the chilling truth behind Nashville’s darkest secret."


Pentecost. An ARKANE Thriller. - "A power kept secret for 2000 years. A brotherhood broken by murder. A woman who stands to lose everything.

Forged in the fire and blood of martyrs, the Pentecost stones have been handed down through generations of Keepers who kept their power and locations secret.

Until now.

The Keepers are being murdered, the stones stolen by those who would use them for evil in a world transformed by religious fundamentalism. Oxford University psychologist Morgan Sierra is forced into the search when her sister and niece are held hostage. She is helped by Jake Timber from the mysterious ARKANE, a British government agency specializing in paranormal and religious experience.

From ancient Christian sites in Spain, Italy and Israel to the far reaches of Iran and Tunisia, Morgan and Jake must track down the stones through the myths of the early church in a race against time before a new Pentecost is summoned, this time powered by the fire of evil."


A Death of Honor - "The novel takes place in an alternate future where a crumbling United States is one of the few nations left to have fended off Soviet domination. It tells the story of seven days in the life of D.A. Payne, a bioengineer who finds the naked corpse of a woman in his apartment and is compelled to investigate her murder. As he digs deeper into the woman's identity and the cause of her death, he learns things about himself and his world that will conspire to change his life forever."



Daughters (A historical family saga) - "From the one room dwellings of a tiny village near Jerusalem to the elegant town houses of Georgetown; from a world steeped in ancient traditions to a world of independent women comes this multi-layered novel of the lives, loves, secrets and strivings of three generations of Palestinian Christian women.

Miriam Mishwe is born into a world that hasn’t changed for centuries – rural Palestine in the last years of the 19th century. She marries a man chosen by her family but the world she sees as unchangeable is on the verge of upheaval.

Nadia is Miriam’s daughter. Sent to a local British school, she adopts many modern ideas but is not ready to renounce her heritage. It is Nadia’s child, Nijmeh, who looks to the west and calls herself by her English name, Star, when she goes to live in America. There she faces problems unknown in her childhood world of brooding hills and desert and brilliant skies.

Daughters is an unforgettable novel about courage, love and hope; and about two worlds – one ancient, one modern – and the extraordinary women who bridge them."











Storms In Teacups - "ALEX is a journalist who has always dreamed of working for a glossy women’s magazine. Instead, she finds herself working for Dublin’s most notorious tabloid newspaper, rewriting press releases and covering for her colleague Jodie, a well-connected neurotic who still hasn’t figured out how to use an apostrophe
.
ROSE thinks that she has life sorted. She loves her job as a teacher in a disadvantaged school, and has just moved in with her gorgeous actor boyfriend, Daniel. The only clouds on her horizon are a headmaster with a passion for new-age team-building and a stack of envelopes that she refuses to open but can’t quite bring herself to throw out.

SHANNON feels like she’s stagnating. When she graduated at the top of her class from drama college everyone thought it would be just a matter of time until she got her big break. Instead, she pays the bills with parts in small plays and some low rent television shows. Now she’s in her thirties, is it time she gives up on her dreams and get a proper job?

When a scandal shakes up the lives of all three women, will they manage to stay true to their dreams? Or will the betrayal of one man change their plans for good?"




The Little Known - "When twelve-year-old Knot Crews, an African American boy growing up in the segregated south Georgia town of Statenville, discovers a bag of bank-robbed cash in an alley, he is nearly overcome with happiness and terror. All that money—a hundred thousand dollars—could be the ticket to everything he’s ever wanted, but he knows he can’t spend it, not only because his conscience won’t let him, but for fear of being caught. He decides to do what he can for his needy neighbors, both black and white, and begins mailing them hundred dollar bills anonymously, but it irks Knot daily to discover that most of them squander it and don’t use the money as he had intended, and that the money doesn’t change their lives for the better. It turns out that the weight of Knot’s world can’t be lifted by cold hard cash alone. Set during the turbulent 1960’s, The Little Known is a coming-of-age story full of hope and forgiveness. "



14 Love Letter Lane (Book one of the Celebrating Love Trilogy) - "Three friends who have known each other since grade school work at Revive, a local coffee shop just off the boardwalk in the seaside town of Lexington. Andrea, Darcy and Ginny are more than ready to meet the men of their dreams. The trouble is, they can’t seem to find them.

Andrea receives a love letter from a secret admirer. Ginny meets a man who just moved to town and sweeps her off her feet. Darcy has the dress and the red leather boots ready and waiting for a fabulous Valentine’s Day, if she can only find a date!

Join these three caring friends as they travel the oftentimes choppy waters of love. As always, a happy ending is guaranteed."




Beyond Nostalgia - "Born with blue in his collar instead of his veins, best-selling author Dean Cassidy chronicles his soul-scarring rise from New York's darkest alleys to a place high atop the literary world.

As difficult and unlikely as such a climb is, there's yet another force working against Dean. He’s forever haunted by treasured memories of his long-lost teenage soul-mate. Theresa! Theresa! Theresa! She just won't go away!

Despite all Dean’s hang-ups and mental baggage, he eventually does marry another woman. And for twenty years his wife, Maddy Frances, remains so giving (and forgiving) she deserves to be canonized a living saint. Even after she finds Dean unconscious at a botched suicide attempt--a time-faded photograph of Theresa clenched in his hands—her love never wavers. But is Maddy’s loyalty enough to keep them together? Or will a force far stronger than fate alone change everything? "