Mel Odom is a prolific writer with more than 140 books to his name. He’s best known for his science-fiction and fantasy novels, although he’s also written nonfiction about computer gaming. Mel’s fiction works also span game-related fiction, movie novelizations, horror, young adult, juvenile, action-adventure and comics. He also teaches undergraduate writing courses at the University of Oklahoma.

melOne of Mel’s best known fantasy novels is The Rover (2001), which won the Alex Award, an American Library Association prize given to novels written for adults that would also appeal to young readers.

Mel tops today’s Buffet with Deployed, Book 1 of his new military fiction thriller series “Called To Serve.”

As usual, each book listed here has gone FREE within the past 24 hours (except for the “Kindle Daily Deals” on page 3). Warning: Kindle book promotions can end without notice, so before downloading click the link “See Kindle price at Amazon” to verify that the book is still free. (Prices and availability may differ outside USA.)

Deployed (Called to Serve)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Author: Mel Odom
Deployed (Called to Serve)

Lance Corporal Bekah Shaw joined the United States Marine reserves to help support herself and her son when her ex-husband, Billy Roy, decided they were no longer his responsibility. But when her team is activated and sent to Somalia on a peacekeeping mission, Bekah struggles with being separated from her son and vows to return safely.

Once a successful Somalian businessman, Rageh Daud has lost everything. Determined to seek revenge on the terrorists who killed his wife and son, he teams up with a group of thieves, killers, and others displaced by war. Despite his better judgment, Daud becomes the protector of a young orphaned boy—who becomes a pawn between the warring factions.

To defeat the terrorists and bring peace to the region, Bekah and her team must convince Daud that they are on the same side.


Hurricane Season

Mystery > Cozy
Author: Michaela Thompson
Hurricane Season

The 1950s fairly leap off the page in this classic cozy mystery set in northern Florida in the Eisenhower era, complete with Johnny Ray on the jukebox and a Womanless Wedding—this one interrupted by an explosion at a moonshine still. Lily Trulock, owner of Trulock’s Grocery & Marine Supply, leads a pretty quiet life until a stranger comes to town. The new guy’s not what he appears, but then, some of St. Elmo’s residents aren’t either.

Before she can say, “down the hatch,” Lily’s at the center of a vicious murder and a no-holds-barred bootlegging war—and a nasty storm’s on the way. This is a vibrant, atmospheric, powerful novel—as filled with energy, mystery, and motion as a hurricane.

Hurricane Season is as much a richly-detailed, spot-on historical as a mystery, widely praised by masters of the genre and reviewers alike for its pitch-perfect period feel and fine, spare writing.

The DASH Diet for Beginners

Health, Fitness & Dieting
Author: John Chatham
The DASH Diet for Beginners: Essentials to Get Started

The DASH diet is an easy and sustainable tool for creating a healthful lifestyle. Based on research by the National Institutes of Health, and chosen by U.S. News & World Report as its number-one choice in Best Diets Overall, Best Diets for Healthy Eating, and Best Diabetes Diets, the DASH diet rises above the noise of the gimmicky weight-loss plans.Created as a way for people with high blood pressure to enjoy the foods they love while working to reduce or correct their hypertension, the DASH diet uses healthful food choices, along with more nutritious ways to prepare favorite dishes, to allow people to eat a varied, delicious, and balanced diet.And although it wasn’t created as a weight-loss diet, the DASH diet often does result in weight loss, which is a huge benefit to those who have diabetes or high blood pressure, or are at high risk of developing either disease.

In The DASH Diet for Beginners, best-selling health and nutrition author John Chatham provides a straightforward approach to losing weight, reducing hypertension, and improving overall cardiovascular health. More than just a brief overview of the DASH diet, The DASH Diet for Beginners compiles everything you need to know to get started on a healthful new lifestyle.

Doesn’t She Look Natural?

Women’s Fiction > Domestic Life
Author: Angela Hunt
Doesn't She Look Natural? (The Fairlawn Series)

Meet Jennifer Graham, the no-nonsense chief of staff for a Virginia senator who quits her job after a divorce and finds herself an unemployed single mom. Forced to live with her mother until she can find work on Capitol Hill that does not involve her gregarious ex-husband, her efforts are stymied until she learns that she has inherited a funeral home in picturesque Mt. Dora. Jennifer journeys to the small Florida town with her two sons and her mother, never dreaming that within a mortuary she will discover she has inherited a rewarding career that teaches her far more about life than death.

Maternal Harbor

Women’s Fiction > Contemporary Women
Author: Marie F Martin
Maternal Harbor

Teagan O’Riley was pregnant and alone when she met three single mothers at an OB clinic. A few weeks later, two of them are dead and the third is close on Teagan’s heels, intent on a campaign of twisted murder and insanity. Teagan cannot risk entrusting the three infants to the police with her finger prints all over one crime scene and her foot print smeared into blood at another. She flees with the babies to a wilderness cabin belonging to her lost love’s grandmother, but is even this remote location safe?

Off Limits

Romance > New Adult & College
Author: Sawyer Bennett
Off Limits

Two years ago, Emily Burnham had an epiphany about the shallowness of her life. And she made it her mission to become a different person…a better woman. Out from under the controlling thumb of her mother, Emily is tasting the real world for the first time. And she likes it.

Nixon Caldwell has served his time in the Marine Corps, surviving two brutal tours in Afghanistan. He is back home, surrounded by what he likes best…isolation. It’s certainly the easiest way to avoid confrontation of the consuming guilt that is weighing him down.

When an accident brings Emily and Nix together, he soon learns he is not the master of his own fate. Struggling with his own pain, Nix tries to guard himself against Emily’s charms. He wants her in his bed, but he doesn’t want her in his heart.

Death Will Get you Sober

Mystery > Hard-Boiled
Author: Elizabeth Zelvin
Death Will Get you Sober (A Bruce Kohler Mystery) (#1, The Bruce Kohler Series)

On Christmas Day, Bruce Kohler wakes up in detox on the Bowery in New York City. He realizes it’s time to change his life, but how can he stay sober without dying of boredom? Then homeless alcoholics begin to turn up dead, and one of these is Bruce’s friend Godfrey, a cynical aristocrat with a trust fund and some secrets.

Two old friends give Bruce a second chance and agree to help him with his investigation: his best friend, Jimmy, a computer genius and history buff who’s been in AA for years, and Jimmy’s girl friend Barbara, a counselor who sometimes crosses the line between helping and codependency.

The Outlaw Preacher

 Christian Living > Faith
Author: John Andrews
The Outlaw Preacher

Ride from darkness to light with the legendary “Nine Ball” and the notorious Doomsayers outlaw motorcycle club. High speed violence and evil relentlessly pursues his soul from the gates of Folsom prison to the wild streets of Southern California. Hang on tight as this outlaw biker struggles to break free from his life as a violent marauder to answer the call of God. Journey with this death defying evangelist through desolation and pain to the mountaintops of blessing.

Idiots in the Machine

Humor > Satire
Author: Edward Savio
Idiots in the Machine (10th Anniversary Edition)

Filled with an unforgettable array of characters, this deliciously dark and comic novel chronicles the life of an eccentric near-genius who is dragged into the media spotlight by the ultimate trendsetter–a beautiful, charismatic, yet emotionally bankrupt young woman–on an adventure that takes him from the depths of anonymity to the roof of America’s tallest building.


Creating Breakthrough Products: Revealing the Secrets that Drive Global Innovation

Management & Leadership > Production & Operations
Author: Jonathan Cagan, Craig M. Vogel
Creating Breakthrough Products: Revealing the Secrets that Drive Global Innovation (2nd Edition)

The authors have thoroughly updated this classic book, adding new chapters on service design and global innovation, plus new insights, best practices, and case studies from both U.S. and global companies. This edition compares revolutionary (Apple-style) and evolutionary (Disney-style) approaches to innovation, helping decision-makers choose between them, and make either one work.

More coverage of Value Opportunity Analysis and ethnography, as well as new case studies ranging from Navistar’s latest long-haul truck to P&G’s reinvention of Herbal Essence. Throughout, readers will find up-to-date insights into identifying Product Opportunity Gaps that can lead to enormous success; navigating the “Fuzzy Front End” of product development; and leveraging contributions from diverse product teams — while staying relentlessly focused on customers’ values and lifestyles, from strategy through execution.

Cloak

Fantasy > Paranormal & Urban
Author: James Gough
Cloak

Thirteen-year-old bubble boy Will Tuttle lives a boring, friendless life trapped in a sterile Bronxville mansion, suffering from mysterious allergies no doctor can explain. Fed up with his pointless existence he breaks free of his bubble to explore New York City, not expecting to return alive. Along the way, Will discovers that his myriad allergies have a single, bizarre source.

Suddenly Will is a target. When he’s chased through Central Park by a cloaked assailant, a misfit team of bodyguards shows up to keep Will Tuttle alive. . . . And teach him how to blend into a society that isn’t supposed to exist.

Photo Composition Mastery

Arts & Photography > Photography > Reference
Author: Dan Eitreim
Photo Composition Mastery! (On Target Photo Training)

Artstic composition is where the rubber meets the road…it’s the difference between a snapshot and a photograph you would be proud to hang on the wall. Between the text, sample photos and training exercises – this easy to understand volume will have you comfortable with all the photo composition concepts and shooting better photos in no time.

The Mousetrap

History > World > Jewish > Holocaust
Author: Ruth Hanka Eigner
The Mousetrap

Ruth Hanka Eigner (1926 – 2010), who eventually immigrated to the United States and converted to Judaism, was one of many Germans living in the Czechoslovak Republic (Hitler’s Sudetenland) for nearly a millenium. She tells the harrowing true story of her experiences as a young Bohemian woman in the years after the Second World War ended. She tells of the understandable brutality with which she and her family and friends were treated after the Germans lost the war.

She also tells the story of a mother-daughter relationship that, because of the terrible times in which they lived, threatened to kill them both.

… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks and the Kindle Daily Deal here on page 2

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