Today's Daily Deals include women's fiction, romance, a memoir of Tokyo, fantasy and a crafts book for kids.
Here's today's Kindle Daily Deal, available for $1.99!
The Best of Us: A Novel, by Sarah Pekkanen.
An all-expense-paid week at a luxury villa in Jamaica-it's the invitation of a lifetime for a group of old college friends. All four women are desperate not just for a reunion, but for an escape: Tina is drowning under the demands of mothering four young children. Allie is shattered by the news that a genetic illness runs in her family. Savannah is carrying the secret of her husband's infidelity. And, finally, there's Pauline, who spares no expense to throw her wealthy husband an unforgettable thirty-fifth birthday celebration, hoping it will gloss over the cracks already splitting apart their new marriage.
Languid hours on a private beach, gourmet dinners, and late nights of drinking kick off an idyllic week for the women and their husbands. But as a powerful hurricane bears down on the island, turmoil swirls inside the villa, forcing each of the women to reevaluate everything she knows about her friends-and herself.
Guest Review of "Best of Us" By Jennifer Weiner
![Jennifer Weiner]()
![]()
Old college friends, reuniting to celebrate a birthday of the geeky guy down the hall who's now a billionaire. A gorgeous villa in a tropical paradise. A weekend getaway where the private jet whisks you off to the private beach, and a private chef prepares gourmet feasts. Add a trunk-load of secrets, old resentments, clandestine kisses - not to mention enough booze to float a cruise ship - and you've got the ingredients for a beach read with humor and heart.
Fifteen years ago, Tina, Allie and Savannah were friends at the University of Virginia, and Dwight Glass, "thin and awkward as a praying mantis," was their brainy, socially awkward friend.
Now Dwight's made a fortune from the dot-com he founded, is married to pretty Pauline, who does volunteer work and has turned trying to get pregnant into a full-time job. Tina Antonelli is a stay-at-home mom, happily married, if a little overwhelmed by the mechanics of managing four children: "the enormous jumble of dirty laundry on the basement floor, the egg-encrusted dishes littering the kitchen sink, the new stain on the rug, which already resembled a Rorschach test." Allie Reed, Tina's best friend from college, a girl who read to the blind, "loaned out her class notes to anyone who asked…smiled at everyone she passed on the street," and dragged Dwight into some semblance of a social life, is a social worker. She works part-time, enjoys her two daughters…and if she and her architect husband "had sex a bit less often these days, if all of their activities seemed to revolve around the girls - well, wasn't that to be expected when you had young kids?"
Savannah McGrivey, a glamorous real-estate agent with a gym-toned body and a flashy wardrobe, has it all - except for a husband. After putting Gary through medical school, he's dumped her for a nurse. "She'd been so proud when he could officially add the initials M.D. after his name, feeling as though it was their shared triumph. How ironic that an anesthesiologist had caused her the most pain she'd ever felt in her entire life." When an Internet date goes disastrously bad, Savannah decides to join her friends and their spouses in Jamaica, without telling them that Gary's jumped ship.
These women might have been cardboard-thin clichés - the burdened mother, the good girl, the cougar, the trophy wife. But with Pekkanen's sharp eye for detail, and her generosity toward her flawed-but-trying cast of characters, the ladies of The Best of Us emerge as full-bodied and believable, with more dimensions than you'd expect. Pauline's arc, in particular, is surprising and heartbreaking, as Pekkanen peels back the layers to show why social-climbing Pauline is so obsessed with security, financial and otherwise, and to show us the depths of Dwight's love. The dialogue will ring true to any reader who's ever wondered about the road not taken, or found herself in the breakdown lane of the road she did take. "Want to know the first thought that pops into my mind almost every morning after opening my eyes?" Tina asks. "I start anticipating being able to go to bed at night. I'm just so tired all the time.
You won't always like the women - Tina can be a martyr, Savannah can be a handful, and Pauline's high-handed tone with her staff will grate on anyone who's ever toiled in the service sector - but watching them reveal their true selves during a long weekend in Paradise is a wonderful escape, and a chance to vacation vicariously. You may not spend your spring break flying in a private jet, or get a chance to vacation with your BFFs in a posh villa that sits on a bluff overlooking a white-sand beach, enjoying jaunts on helicopters or a chartered catamaran (or, in Savannah's case, the attention of the catamaran's hunky first mate)…but The Best of Us is surely the next best thing.
357 pages, with a 3.9-star rating from 164 reviews
Here's today's Daily Romance Deal, available for $0.99!
Send Me No Flowers, by Trish Jensen.
When she was known as an overweight kid from a "loony" family, he often rescued her from bullies. Now she's come back home all grownup and gorgeous, and he's the one who will need rescuing.
Sheriff Rob Townsend of Daredevil, South Carolina remembers Jenny Creighton as the girl mean kids called "Jumbo Jenny." He was compelled to protect her on more than one occasion, a brand of heroic kindness Jenny never forgot. Jenny's returned to the small town to claim an inheritance and open a flower shop. On the inside, however, she's still the chubby girl who doesn't want anyone to remember her humiliating past.
Rob has turned into a hunk with a painful history of his own-one that makes him the biggest heartbreaker south of the Mason-Dixon line. When he becomes her best customer-buying flowers as goodbye gifts for a growing line-up of ex-girlfriends-the women in Daredevil begin to run from Jenny and her kiss-goodbye bouquets. How can she build a business when all the single gals in town are scared to see her on their doorsteps? And what are the secrets behind her childhood hero's love-'em-and-leave-'em lifestyle?
Trish Jensen is the bestselling author of more than a dozen novels. Visit her at www.TrishJensen.com
162 pages, with a 4.2-star rating from 24 reviews
Here's today's Daily Non-Fiction Deal, available for $1.99!
Tune In [URL=Tokyo:The]Tokyo:The Gaijin Diaries[/URL], by Tim Anderson.
Everyone wants to escape their boring, stagnant lives full of inertia and regret. But so few people actually have the bravery to run - run away from everything and selflessly seek out personal fulfillment on the other side of the world where they don't understand anything and won't be expected to. The world is full of cowards. Tim Anderson was pushing thirty and working a string of dead-end jobs when he made the spontaneous decision to pack his bags and move to Japan. It was a gutsy move, especially for a tall, white, gay Southerner who didn't speak a lick of Japanese. But his life desperately needed a shot of adrenaline, and what better way to get one than to leave behind his boyfriend, his cat, and his Siouxsie and the Banshees box set to move to "a tiny, overcrowded island heaving with clever, sensibly proportioned people who make him look fat"? In Tokyo, Tim became a "gaijin," an outsider whose stumbling progression through Japanese culture is minutely chronicled in these sixteen hilarious stories. Despite the steep learning curve and the seemingly constant humiliation, the gaijin from North Carolina gradually begins to find his way. Whether playing drums on the fly in an otherwise all-Japanese noise band or attempting to keep his English classroom clean when it's invaded by an older female student with a dirty mind, Tim comes to realize that living a meaningful life is about expecting the unexpected...right when he least expects it.
294 pages, with a 4.9-star rating from 174 reviews
Here's today's Daily Science Fiction/Fantasy Deal, available for $1.99!
The Sentinel Mage, by Emily Gee.
"Dark and compelling. Emily Gee is a storyteller to watch." -- Nalini Singh, New York Times best-selling author
In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage's blood in his veins. But Prince Harkeld has a bounty on his head--and assassins at his heels.
Her magic may be the only thing that can save a prince--and the Seven Kingdoms. In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage's blood in his veins. But Prince Harkeld has a bounty on his head--and assassins at his heels. Innis is a gifted shapeshifter. Now she must do the forbidden: become a man. She must stand at Prince Harkeld's side as his armsman, protecting and deceiving him. But the deserts of Masse are more dangerous than the assassins hunting the prince. The curse has woken deadly creatures, and the magic Prince Harkeld loathes may be the only thing standing between him and death.
"Her haunting prose reads like Hans Christian Andersen for twenty-first century adults." -- Mindy Klasky, author of The Glasswrights series
Books in the Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy:
1. The Sentinel Mage
2. The Fire Prince
3. The Blood Curse
512 pages, with a 3.8-star rating from 23 reviews
Here's today's Daily Youth Deal, available for $1.99!
Loom Magic Xtreme!: 25 Spectacular, Never-Before-Seen Designs for Rainbows of Fun, by John McCann.
From the authors of the instant bestseller Loom Magic! comes a second amazing project book with twenty-five totally new and extreme designs! Rainbow Looms are taking the world by storm, with devotees of all ages accessorizing their wrists, backpacks, and rooms with fun and creative projects.
These super imaginative, out-of-this-world projects will take your rubber band loom projects to the next level. Here are kid-tested step-by-step instructions and bright color photographs to show you how to make the coolest rubber band projects out there, including:
Twisty headband
Bouquet of flowers
Octopus
Decorated ponytail holder
Fashion jewelry stand
Glow-in-the-dark stars
Zipper decoration
Hockey stick
Bloodshot eyeballs
Black bat
And many more!
128 pages, with a 3.9-star rating from 25 reviews
Happy Reading!
Betsy
Here's today's Kindle Daily Deal, available for $1.99!
The Best of Us: A Novel, by Sarah Pekkanen.An all-expense-paid week at a luxury villa in Jamaica-it's the invitation of a lifetime for a group of old college friends. All four women are desperate not just for a reunion, but for an escape: Tina is drowning under the demands of mothering four young children. Allie is shattered by the news that a genetic illness runs in her family. Savannah is carrying the secret of her husband's infidelity. And, finally, there's Pauline, who spares no expense to throw her wealthy husband an unforgettable thirty-fifth birthday celebration, hoping it will gloss over the cracks already splitting apart their new marriage.
Languid hours on a private beach, gourmet dinners, and late nights of drinking kick off an idyllic week for the women and their husbands. But as a powerful hurricane bears down on the island, turmoil swirls inside the villa, forcing each of the women to reevaluate everything she knows about her friends-and herself.
Guest Review of "Best of Us" By Jennifer Weiner
Fifteen years ago, Tina, Allie and Savannah were friends at the University of Virginia, and Dwight Glass, "thin and awkward as a praying mantis," was their brainy, socially awkward friend.
Now Dwight's made a fortune from the dot-com he founded, is married to pretty Pauline, who does volunteer work and has turned trying to get pregnant into a full-time job. Tina Antonelli is a stay-at-home mom, happily married, if a little overwhelmed by the mechanics of managing four children: "the enormous jumble of dirty laundry on the basement floor, the egg-encrusted dishes littering the kitchen sink, the new stain on the rug, which already resembled a Rorschach test." Allie Reed, Tina's best friend from college, a girl who read to the blind, "loaned out her class notes to anyone who asked…smiled at everyone she passed on the street," and dragged Dwight into some semblance of a social life, is a social worker. She works part-time, enjoys her two daughters…and if she and her architect husband "had sex a bit less often these days, if all of their activities seemed to revolve around the girls - well, wasn't that to be expected when you had young kids?"
Savannah McGrivey, a glamorous real-estate agent with a gym-toned body and a flashy wardrobe, has it all - except for a husband. After putting Gary through medical school, he's dumped her for a nurse. "She'd been so proud when he could officially add the initials M.D. after his name, feeling as though it was their shared triumph. How ironic that an anesthesiologist had caused her the most pain she'd ever felt in her entire life." When an Internet date goes disastrously bad, Savannah decides to join her friends and their spouses in Jamaica, without telling them that Gary's jumped ship.
These women might have been cardboard-thin clichés - the burdened mother, the good girl, the cougar, the trophy wife. But with Pekkanen's sharp eye for detail, and her generosity toward her flawed-but-trying cast of characters, the ladies of The Best of Us emerge as full-bodied and believable, with more dimensions than you'd expect. Pauline's arc, in particular, is surprising and heartbreaking, as Pekkanen peels back the layers to show why social-climbing Pauline is so obsessed with security, financial and otherwise, and to show us the depths of Dwight's love. The dialogue will ring true to any reader who's ever wondered about the road not taken, or found herself in the breakdown lane of the road she did take. "Want to know the first thought that pops into my mind almost every morning after opening my eyes?" Tina asks. "I start anticipating being able to go to bed at night. I'm just so tired all the time.
You won't always like the women - Tina can be a martyr, Savannah can be a handful, and Pauline's high-handed tone with her staff will grate on anyone who's ever toiled in the service sector - but watching them reveal their true selves during a long weekend in Paradise is a wonderful escape, and a chance to vacation vicariously. You may not spend your spring break flying in a private jet, or get a chance to vacation with your BFFs in a posh villa that sits on a bluff overlooking a white-sand beach, enjoying jaunts on helicopters or a chartered catamaran (or, in Savannah's case, the attention of the catamaran's hunky first mate)…but The Best of Us is surely the next best thing.
357 pages, with a 3.9-star rating from 164 reviews
Here's today's Daily Romance Deal, available for $0.99!
Send Me No Flowers, by Trish Jensen.When she was known as an overweight kid from a "loony" family, he often rescued her from bullies. Now she's come back home all grownup and gorgeous, and he's the one who will need rescuing.
Sheriff Rob Townsend of Daredevil, South Carolina remembers Jenny Creighton as the girl mean kids called "Jumbo Jenny." He was compelled to protect her on more than one occasion, a brand of heroic kindness Jenny never forgot. Jenny's returned to the small town to claim an inheritance and open a flower shop. On the inside, however, she's still the chubby girl who doesn't want anyone to remember her humiliating past.
Rob has turned into a hunk with a painful history of his own-one that makes him the biggest heartbreaker south of the Mason-Dixon line. When he becomes her best customer-buying flowers as goodbye gifts for a growing line-up of ex-girlfriends-the women in Daredevil begin to run from Jenny and her kiss-goodbye bouquets. How can she build a business when all the single gals in town are scared to see her on their doorsteps? And what are the secrets behind her childhood hero's love-'em-and-leave-'em lifestyle?
Trish Jensen is the bestselling author of more than a dozen novels. Visit her at www.TrishJensen.com
162 pages, with a 4.2-star rating from 24 reviews
Here's today's Daily Non-Fiction Deal, available for $1.99!
Tune In [URL=Tokyo:The]Tokyo:The Gaijin Diaries[/URL], by Tim Anderson.Everyone wants to escape their boring, stagnant lives full of inertia and regret. But so few people actually have the bravery to run - run away from everything and selflessly seek out personal fulfillment on the other side of the world where they don't understand anything and won't be expected to. The world is full of cowards. Tim Anderson was pushing thirty and working a string of dead-end jobs when he made the spontaneous decision to pack his bags and move to Japan. It was a gutsy move, especially for a tall, white, gay Southerner who didn't speak a lick of Japanese. But his life desperately needed a shot of adrenaline, and what better way to get one than to leave behind his boyfriend, his cat, and his Siouxsie and the Banshees box set to move to "a tiny, overcrowded island heaving with clever, sensibly proportioned people who make him look fat"? In Tokyo, Tim became a "gaijin," an outsider whose stumbling progression through Japanese culture is minutely chronicled in these sixteen hilarious stories. Despite the steep learning curve and the seemingly constant humiliation, the gaijin from North Carolina gradually begins to find his way. Whether playing drums on the fly in an otherwise all-Japanese noise band or attempting to keep his English classroom clean when it's invaded by an older female student with a dirty mind, Tim comes to realize that living a meaningful life is about expecting the unexpected...right when he least expects it.
294 pages, with a 4.9-star rating from 174 reviews
Here's today's Daily Science Fiction/Fantasy Deal, available for $1.99!
The Sentinel Mage, by Emily Gee."Dark and compelling. Emily Gee is a storyteller to watch." -- Nalini Singh, New York Times best-selling author
In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage's blood in his veins. But Prince Harkeld has a bounty on his head--and assassins at his heels.
Her magic may be the only thing that can save a prince--and the Seven Kingdoms. In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage's blood in his veins. But Prince Harkeld has a bounty on his head--and assassins at his heels. Innis is a gifted shapeshifter. Now she must do the forbidden: become a man. She must stand at Prince Harkeld's side as his armsman, protecting and deceiving him. But the deserts of Masse are more dangerous than the assassins hunting the prince. The curse has woken deadly creatures, and the magic Prince Harkeld loathes may be the only thing standing between him and death.
"Her haunting prose reads like Hans Christian Andersen for twenty-first century adults." -- Mindy Klasky, author of The Glasswrights series
Books in the Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy:
1. The Sentinel Mage
2. The Fire Prince
3. The Blood Curse
512 pages, with a 3.8-star rating from 23 reviews
Here's today's Daily Youth Deal, available for $1.99!
Loom Magic Xtreme!: 25 Spectacular, Never-Before-Seen Designs for Rainbows of Fun, by John McCann.From the authors of the instant bestseller Loom Magic! comes a second amazing project book with twenty-five totally new and extreme designs! Rainbow Looms are taking the world by storm, with devotees of all ages accessorizing their wrists, backpacks, and rooms with fun and creative projects.
These super imaginative, out-of-this-world projects will take your rubber band loom projects to the next level. Here are kid-tested step-by-step instructions and bright color photographs to show you how to make the coolest rubber band projects out there, including:
Twisty headband
Bouquet of flowers
Octopus
Decorated ponytail holder
Fashion jewelry stand
Glow-in-the-dark stars
Zipper decoration
Hockey stick
Bloodshot eyeballs
Black bat
And many more!
128 pages, with a 3.9-star rating from 25 reviews
Happy Reading!
Betsy
