Daily Archives: June 22, 2016

The June Big Library Read: A Murder in Time

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murder_in_timeOverdrive is bringing us the next title in its global book club. The event, known as The Big Library Read features one title that library patrons participating in the event can borrow (at the same time without holds or waiting lists).

This month’s title is A Murder in Time: A Novel (Kendra Donovan Mysteries) by Julie McElwain.

From the description:

When brilliant FBI agent Kendra Donovan stumbles back in time and finds herself in a 19th century English castle under threat from a vicious serial killer, she scrambles to solve the case before it takes her life―200 years before she was even born.

Beautiful and brilliant, Kendra Donovan is a rising star at the FBI. Yet her path to professional success hits a speed bump during a disastrous raid where half her team is murdered, a mole in the FBI is uncovered and she herself is severely wounded. As soon as she recovers, she goes rogue and travels to England to assassinate the man responsible for the deaths of her teammates.

While fleeing from an unexpected assassin herself, Kendra escapes into a stairwell that promises sanctuary but when she stumbles out again, she is in the same place – Aldrich Castle – but in a different time: 1815, to be exact.

Mistaken for a lady’s maid hired to help with weekend guests, Kendra is forced to quickly adapt to the time period until she can figure out how she got there; and, more importantly, how to get back home. However, after the body of a young girl is found on the extensive grounds of the county estate, she starts to feel there’s some purpose to her bizarre circumstances. Stripped of her twenty-first century tools, Kendra must use her wits alone in order to unmask a cunning madman.

The book is available from as part of the  Big Library Read event  from June 23rd to July 7th, 2016. Note that before and after those dates, regular checkout and hold rules apply. You can find more information, including interviews with the author, a sample of the book, a discussion page and a search tool to find a participating library at BigLibraryRead.com.

The last Big Library Read was in March and featured the book, American Sniper.

A Murder in Time is also available as an ebook at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, iTunes and Google Books.

Daily Links and Deals: Colouring Books and the Future of E Ink Devices

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daily_links_1Today. adult coloring books are huge right now. But what do you do with them on an e-reader? Also, a look at the upcoming presidential race in terms of the digital divide, new Dropbox features, the best and worst of encrypted messaging apps and more. In deals, Hoover Linx Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner and sales on Bose car audio products.

Daily Links for Wednesday, June 22, 2016:

Will the Next President Fix the Digital Divide? (Pacific Standard) How are the current candidates proposing to help solve our digital problems?

The Online Community That’s Turning Old Video Games Into an Archaeological Dig (Motherboard) This one of the exciting sides of gaming culture.

Dropbox rolls out new collaboration features across mobile, desktop (ZD Net) There are a lot of new features, including some changes to the free tier. Some people are not going to be happy with the changes.

The Best and Worst Encrypted Messaging Apps (Gizmodo) As encryption is rapidly becoming an essential element of our digital lifestyle, we are all going to be looking at these more carefully in the future.

Colouring Books and the Future of E Ink Devices (Tech Meets Books) Does the idea of coloring books on an e-reader sound like an oxymoron to you?

Deals of the Day:

Amazon’s selection of Kindle Daily Deals includes The Healer’s War: A Fantasy Novel of Vietnam by Elizabeth A Scarborough and The Promised One (Cherokee Mists Book 1) by Win and Meredith Blevins, each $1.99.

In Today’s Deals, a Hoover Linx Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner and sales on Bose car audio products.

The Barnes and Noble Nook Daily Find is No Room for Error: A Lexi Carmichael Mystery, Book Seven by Julie Moffett for 99 cents. The Romance Daily Find is Something True by Karelia Stetz-Waters for $1.99.

Kobo’s Daily Deal is Life Among Giants A Novel by Bill Roorbach for $1.99. The Extra Daily Deal is The King of Pain A novel with stories by Seth Kaufman for $2.99.

iTunes’ Weekly Bestsellers Under $4 includes You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life by Eleanor Roosevelt for $1.99.

Google is having a Paranormal Romance Sale.

(A note on Daily Deals: All prices current at the time of posting and subject to change. Most items marked Daily Deals are good for only the day posted.

Many large promotions have discount pricing that is set by the publisher. This usually means that titles can be found at a discount price across most platforms (with iTunes sometimes being the exception). If you have a favorite retailer you like to patronize, check the title on that website. There is a good chance that they will be matching the sale price.)

Daily Links are interesting links I discover as I go about my online day. The frequency and number of links posted depend upon the daily news. I also post other, different links of interest on Twitter, Facebook, and on the Google Plus eBook Evangelist Page.

Amazon announces new Kindle

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new_kindleIf you had looked at the Kindle product page over the last few days, you might have noticed that the basic Kindle was sold out. That tends to be somewhat unusual as they are generally consistently in stock. So maybe, combined with the rumors of a new device, it is really not that much of a surprise that today, Amazon announced an all-new Kindle with some pretty nifty features.

  • The new Kindle comes in both black and white. We haven’t had a white Kindle here in the US for a while.
  • The new device is slightly smaller and lighter than the previous model. It also has a slightly more rounded design
  • The new Kindle has 4GB of storage and twice the memory of the old one (it now has 512MB).
  • The device is Bluetooth enabled. This is an added accessibility feature that readers who are visually impaired can use the VoiceView feature to navigate and read the on-screen content without the need for an adaptor. Hopefully, we will also see more Bluetooth compatible feature in the future – I want a foot switch for page turns so I can read and eat pizza! 🙂
  • Over the coming weeks, Amazon will be adding an Export Notes feature.  This will enable users to export their notes to a PDF file that can be printed out or exported to a spreadsheet.

Best of all, the price for the new Kindle is still $79.99 (with special offers, $89.99 without special offers). The new Kindle is available for pre-order now and is also being offered for 5 monthly payments of $16.00 payment plan. The e-reader will ship within the next few weeks.

Unlike the Kindle Paperwhite, the new Kindle does not have a built in light. Amazon also announced that the Paperwhite would also be available in white.