** Tom Taylor is offering a FREE download of “In Memory of Todd Woods” through Jan 14 via Smashwords! (Use this coupon code CG39F to get it for FREE) **

Today, we have author Tom Taylor featured on the blog’s ‘Indie Saturday‘ for his debut coming-of-age novel “In Memory of Todd Woods” (Available at Amazon). Tom Taylor tackles suicide, love and friendship among a group of very real teens. (We read the sample on Amazon and liked it so much we had to invite him!)

Author Tom Taylor writes about ‘In Memory of Todd Woods’:

Coming-of-age stories tend to be very personal, don’t they? Which leads many readers to assume that the writer is simply cataloguing his or her own experiences. I brought this on myself a little harder, maybe, by setting my book In Memory of Todd Woods in a perfect replica of my own high school and hometown in Connecticut.

And sure, there’s a lot of me in my main character Bob. Like him I know maybe a little too much about Star Trek, and in high school I mooned over a girl or two, had zero idea what to do about it, and hid in the AV room with my friends, pretending not to care. Unlike Bob, though, I had no beautiful and unattainable Ellen Trumbull show up out of nowhere to suddenly upend my whole life, become my girlfriend, and drag me into the popular crowd.

To be honest, I really don’t know for sure where Ellen Trumbull came from. I like her and I understand her, but I’ve never really known anyone quite like her. On the one hand, she’s the It Girl, the Most-Popular-Girl-in-School Girl, the girl every guy would of course be in love with. And yes, she’s the girl every writer would want his fictional alter-ego to hook up with. But as much as Ellen’s role in the story might sound like obvious wish fulfillment on my part, it’s not that easy. As much as she seems to have it all together, she’s actually very haunted, and she really does have very good reasons for approaching Bob the way she does.

Some of those reasons might have to do with the recent suicide of her friend Todd Woods. Todd had been the Most-Popular-Guy-in-School Guy, and no one seems to know why a guy like that, with the world on a string, would ever want to take his own life. But Ellen and her friends know, and maybe she isn’t so much running to Bob as she is running from something else.

But, even if this amazing girl just lands in Bob’s lap, this is still high school, which means that nothing is easy. The trouble is that Bob’s best friend Pete is also one of those guys who’s in love with Ellen Trumbull. And yes, I do know what it’s like to be that guy. It’s not easy for Pete, seeing his best friend trot off with the girl of his dreams. He doesn’t know what they do together, but he can still torture himself by guessing.

This is the kind of thing that Bob and Pete never saw coming, and they are completely unequipped to deal with it, as is their close circle of friends. Martin may be an angry quasi-punk rock agitator, but that doesn’t keep him from going all doe-eyed for Maggie Smart. Not only does she possess the serene inner beauty that could calm his raging brain, but if Bob and Pete aren’t going to be his stable foundation anymore, he’s got to land somewhere. And Jen hates to see Bob and Pete growing apart and tries to help, but maybe tries too hard. I feel bad for Jen. Things get very tangled for her.

Of course, things get tangled for everybody. As things go from confusing to bad to unrecognizable, some of these characters begin to think that maybe they do know what happened to Todd Woods.

But it’s not all hopeless. I feel I’ve written a book about vibrant, intelligent young people meeting intense changes head on. Whatever they do to make it to the other side, they’ve come of age.

Tom Taylor was raised in Connecticut. He studied writing at Emerson College in Boston, and received his MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. He lives in Chicago with his wife and son. This is his first novel.

In Memory of Todd Woods by Tom Taylor is available at Amazon in Kindle format. You can also get his book at Smashwords, Barnes & Noble and iTunes.

More info also available at his Facebook, Website and Twitter!

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Do you want to be a featured ‘Indie Saturday’ author too? Go here for more info!

Read an embedded sample of “In Memory of Todd Woods” after the jump!

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Hey, Amazon UK Kindlers, you get your own special Kindle Daily Deal too!

And the new deal is…

‘The Boys from Brazil‘ by Ira Levin (Corsair) is now available at the specially discounted price of £0.99 on the UK Kindle site. *The US Kindle edition is priced at $9.75.

Book Description

The classic thriller of Dr. Josef Mengele’s nightmarish plot to restore the Third Reich, with an introduction by Chelsea Cain.

Alive and hiding in South America, Mengele gathers a group of former colleagues for a sinister project — the creation of the Fourth Reich. Barry Kohler, a young investigative journalist, gets wind of the operation and informs famed Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman, but before he can relay the evidence, Kohler is killed…

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‘Matches & Matrimony (Become the heroine of Jane Austen’s most popular novels)‘ by Amazon Digital Svcs. is available on the Amazon Kindle site for $1.99! Just click here to download!

Game Description

Matches & Matrimony is an interactive novel where you take the starring role in Jane Austen’s realm as one of the Bennet sisters in search of a husband.

The narrative of the game comes from the combination of 3 popular books by Jane Austen: Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice. The choices that you make allow you to create your own unique storyline inside the world created from Miss Austen’s works. As you play, you will pick out your daily routine to improve your in-game characteristics, such as Wit and Sensibility, and then select your own path through the intersecting stories. Will you choose to pursue Mr. Bingley, whose good nature quickly endears him to your sister, Colonel Brandon, the heartbroken bachelor, or perhaps Mr. Darcy, the famous protagonist from Pride and Prejudice? In all there are 6 suitors to pursue and 9 endings to discover.

If you enjoy thought-provoking dialogue and meaningful game play, you will love creating your own storied romance in Matches & Matrimony.

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Be sure to check out Amazon’s Popular Kindle Games & Active Content page for a review of all the games available! And if you want to see the apps as a bestseller list, check out the Bestsellers in Kindle Games & Active Content!

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(If you don’t have a Kindle, don’t worry, you can still read the free books! Just download the Kindle for the PC, Kindle for the iPhone/iPod Touch, Kindle for the iPad, Kindle for BlackBerry or Kindle for Android!) And guess what, Kindle now supports library borrowing (US only)! (See Borrow Kindle Books from Your Local Library)

*Incidentally, for those curious about the latest Special Offers [** Note that you can now opt in on the Special offers on non-KSO Kindles!], the latest promo(s) are they get to “Buy One of 25 Award-Winning Books for $1“

Well, time to fill your Kindle with FREEBIES! p.s. For the bargain conscious – check out ALL my bargain posts HERE (I’ve been posting updated bargains per publisher)!

*If you want a direct Amazon link where you can see ALL the updated free books right now, be sure to bookmark this link! It will take you to a page that lists them in best-selling order*

‘ETF Trading and Investing Strategies (Collection)‘ by Tom Lydon, Leslie N. Masonson and Marvin N. Appel (FT Press) is available for FREE download on the Amazon US Kindle site. Just click here to download.

Book Description

A brand new collection of state-of-the-art insights into trading and investing…now in a convenient e-format, at a great price!

Breakthrough ETF trading and investing strategies: 3 eBooks packed with techniques for reducing your risks and costs—and supercharging your returns!

Three remarkable eBooks help you use the latest ETF strategies to cut your investing costs, control your risks, and improve your returns! In The ETF Trend Following Playbook, Tom Lydon helps you drive superior performance by combining proven trend following strategies, low-cost ETFs, and fully-proven technical analysis methods. You’ll discover how to quickly identify markets that are about to plummet, so you can get out of the way… and how to identify markets that are headed up, so you can capture all of their profits. In Buy—Don’t Hold, Leslie Masonson shows how to avoid the massive stock-market drops that destroy “buy and hold” investors, and offers specific, easy-to-use investing strategies for investors with each risk profile: conservative, moderate and aggressive. Finally, in Investing with Exchange Traded Funds Made Easy, Marvin Appel cuts through today’s ETF marketing hype, helping you choose the right ETFs from the hundreds now available. Drawing on objective data and proven, backtested strategies, Appel reveals what ETFs can and can’t do, and shows exactly how to use them to consistently beat the market.

From world-renowned investing experts including Tom Lydon, Les Masonson, and Marvin Appel.

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Check out the other freebies after the jump!

‘RESURRECTION‘ by Ken McClure is available for FREE download on the Amazon US Kindle site. Just click here to download.

Book Description

A half-dead man crashes his car at the Iraqi border. He is picked up by a British patrol and found to have suffered a rare reaction to the smallpox vaccine. But why are the Iraqis innoculating their population against a disease which has been wiped out for twenty years?

A young Iraqi student at the Institute of Molecular Science in Edinburgh, Scotland kills himself for no apparent reason. Nobody links these incidents until Adam Dewar, investigating the movement of smallpox virus fragments between UK research institutes, stumbles on the horrific possibility that the student had been under pressure from the Iraqis to reconstruct the virus. And with the continued presence of the Iraqi secret service in the city, Dewar can only conclude that they are waiting for someone else to finish the job.

And then smallpox breaks out on the Muirhouse Estate, one of the poorest and most densely populated areas in Edinburgh. The priority is to contain the virus, but with the death toll rising, riots breaking out on the estate and the iraqis still waiting, Dewar is in a race against time to discover the source of the disease and prevent it falling into the hands of a hostile nation. A nation that would only be too willing to hold the world to ransom.

Ken McClure is the internationally bestselling author of over twenty medical thrillers such as The Lazarus Strain, The Gulf Conspiracy, White Death and Dust to Dust. His books have been translated into twenty-three languages and he has earned a reputation for the accuracy of his predicitions. McClure’s work is informed by his background as an award-winning research scientist with the UK’s Medical Research Council.

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‘American Dreamer‘ by Theresa Weir is available for FREE download on the Amazon US Kindle site. Just click here to download.

Book Description

Striking out on her own for the first time, Lark Leopold comes face-to-face with the steamy glare was of an impossibly rugged and handsome farmer.

Nathan Senatra’s life is a mess and he doesn’t have time for Lark’s silly, bureaucratic, animal research. His wife has left him and taken almost everything he has. When her body is found in the pond behind his house, Nathan is the prime suspect. But are the cops focusing on the wrong person while a killer stalks the small community of Elizabeth, Iowa? Or is Nathan really capable of murder?

This book was originally published in 1997, and is typical of romances written in that time period. It contains the dangerous Alpha male paired with the naive female who instinctively trusts him even though outwardly he seems to be everything she should avoid. We have high drama and exaggerated reactions, we have tender love, and, like all good stories, a bit of truth.

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And once again, there’s a gazillion of free indies out on Amazon. Just click backwards/forwards from this link Here’s just a sampling of what’s out there that I picked out as interesting for me (and will probably be free for a short time only)…

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Enjoy the freebies!

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I like this new promo by Amazon! We get a special Kindle Daily Deal!

FYI, Amazon has matched the Nook Deal for today! To Defy a King (William Marshal) by Elizabeth Chadwick also $1.99 for US Kindle.

And the new deal is…

Deadly Currents (An RM Outdoor Adventures Mystery) by Beth Groundwater (Midnight Ink) is now available at the specially discounted price of $0.99 on the US Kindle site.

Book Description

A new series from award-winning author Beth Groundwater

The Arkansas River, heart and soul of Salida, Colorado, fuels the small town’s economy and thrums in the blood of river ranger Mandy Tanner. When a whitewater rafting accident occurs, she deftly executes a rescue, but a man dies anyway. Turns out, it wasn’t the rapids that killed him—he was murdered. Tom King was a rich land developer with bitter business rivals, who cheated on his wife, refused to support his kayak-obsessed son, and infuriated environmentalists.

Mandy’s world is upended again when tragedy strikes closer to home. Suspicious that the most recent death is connected to Tom King’s murder, Mandy goes on an emotionally turbulent quest for the truth—and ends up in dangerous waters.

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I’ve decided to just post the only ones I like from Amazon’s Daily FREE paid app from Amazon’s Appstore for Android. Anyway, we’ve got a really good one for today, it’s “Splashtop Remote Desktop” by Splashtop Inc. for FREE today only. Get it and save $4.99! Plus, it’s a really useful app!

Product Description

You’re out and about with your Android device and you suddenly realize that you need to access a file sitting on your home computer. You’re stuck, right? Not if you have Splashtop Remote Desktop, an app that brings your entire computer to your phone or tablet.

Note: If you have an Android 3.x tablet, it is recommended that you download Splashtop Remote Desktop HD. This version features enhanced performance and is optimized specifically for Android 3.x/Tegra-based tablets.
Complete Virtual Access

With this app, you can control your home computer from your Android device via Wi-Fi or a 3G/4G connection. Get Splashtop Remote Desktop and you can view your desktop, use your regular Web browser with your plug-ins and bookmarks, and access all your important PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and Outlook files.

So head on to the Amazon Appstore now and start browsing! Here’s a helpful link where you can browse through all the FREE android apps right now (after you’ve downloaded Splashtop Remote Desktop of course!)

P.S. Take note of these download restrictions for now:

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Hey, Amazon UK Kindlers, you get your own special Kindle Daily Deal too!

And the new deal is…

‘Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality‘ by Manjit Kumar (Icon Books) is now available at the specially discounted price of £0.99 on the UK Kindle site. *The US Kindle edition is priced at $13.49.

Book Description

The first popular book to tell the story of the dramatic history of Quantum Theory.

Without quantum theory the world we live in would not exist. Yet for sixty years most physicists accepted that quantum theory denied the very existence of reality itself. This bizarre state of affairs led the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann to describe quantum theory as ‘that mysterious, confusing discipline which none of us really understands but which we know how to use’. And use it we have. Without the quantum none of our computers, televisions or washing machines would work. Quantum theory drives the modern world. But despite the unprecedented success of quantum theory and the widespread fascination with quantum-inspired ideas, the origins of the quantum revolution remain largely unknown.

“Quantum” will be the first popular book to tell the story of the dramatic history of quantum theory. In doing so it will show how the golden age of physics ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century. “Quantum” is not just the story of an era of scientific creativity unparalleled since the end of the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century.

It is as much the story of the complex lives and personalities of the brilliant men behind quantum theory, whose work spanned a rich period of history, ranging from the late nineteenth century to the twentieth century and beyond.

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Hey, Amazon UK Kindlers, you get your own special Christmas Kindle Promo the rest of the world isn’t privy to!

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If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by RSS Or by Email.

(If you don’t have a Kindle, don’t worry, you can still read the free books! Just download the Kindle for the PC, Kindle for the iPhone/iPod Touch, Kindle for the iPad, Kindle for BlackBerry or Kindle for Android!) And guess what, Kindle now supports library borrowing (US only)! (See Borrow Kindle Books from Your Local Library)

*Incidentally, for those curious about the latest Special Offers [** Note that you can now opt in on the Special offers on non-KSO Kindles!], the latest promo(s) are they get to “Buy One of 25 Award-Winning Books for $1“

Well, time to fill your Kindle with FREEBIES! p.s. For the bargain conscious – check out ALL my bargain posts HERE (I’ve been posting updated bargains per publisher)!

*If you want a direct Amazon link where you can see ALL the updated free books right now, be sure to bookmark this link! It will take you to a page that lists them in best-selling order*

‘Hotel Sinn‘ by Lauren Pilla (Secret Cravings Publishing) is available for FREE download on the All Romance eBooks site (The Amazon US Kindle edition is priced at $3.99). Just click here to download.

Book Description

Hotel Sinn. She attended in hopes of reuniting with the dangerously sexy man who’d invited her. However, Anastasia would soon find out that having a one night stand would turn into something permanent in more ways then one.

Victore, a vampire, was sent out by the master to complete a task for the one hundred years ritual. But when he set eyes upon Anastasia, she had intrigued him and he was unable to resist temptation. After a night of pleasure Victore hid Anastasia in his suite only to be betrayed by a fellow vampire.

Now Victore and Anastasia are trapped, in an inescapable place, where anything can happen.

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Check out the other freebies after the jump!

And once again, there’s a gazillion of free indies out on Amazon. Just click backwards/forwards from this link Here’s just a sampling of what’s out there that I picked out as interesting for me (and will probably be free for a short time only)…

*
Enjoy the freebies!

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by RSS Or by Email.

I like this new promo by Amazon! We get a special Kindle Daily Deal!

FYI, Amazon has matched the Nook Deal for today! Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half with America’s Cheapest Family: Includes So Many Innovative Strategies You Won’t Have to Cut Coupons by Steve Economides and Annette Economides also $3.40 for US Kindle.

And the new deal is…

The Yellow House: A Novel by Patricia Falvey (Center Street) is now available at the specially discounted price of $2.99 on the US Kindle site.

Book Description

THE YELLOW HOUSE delves into the passion and politics of Northern Ireland at the beginning of the 20th Century. Eileen O’Neill’s family is torn apart by religious intolerance and secrets from the past. Determined to reclaim her ancestral home and reunite her family, Eileen begins working at the local mill, saving her money and holding fast to her dream. As war is declared on a local and global scale, Eileen cannot separate the politics from the very personal impact the conflict has had on her own life.

She is soon torn between two men, each drawing her to one extreme. One is a charismatic and passionate political activist determined to win Irish independence from Great Britain at any cost, who appeals to her warrior’s soul. The other is the wealthy and handsome black sheep of the pacifist family who owns the mill where she works, and whose persistent attention becomes impossible for her to ignore.

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