Free Nook books from Next Chapter [March 2023]
Reading books is a fundamental activity that enriches our lives in countless ways. From expanding our knowledge and understanding of the world to promoting empathy and emotional intelligence, books can have a profound impact on our personal and intellectual development. By immersing ourselves in the world of literature, we can explore new ideas, perspectives, and cultures, and broaden our horizons beyond the confines of our own experiences.
Moreover, reading books is a great way to relax and unwind from the stresses of daily life. Whether it's diving into a suspenseful thriller, escaping into a romantic novel, or exploring a fantasy world, books provide a respite from the demands of the outside world. They allow us to disconnect from our screens, slow down our thoughts, and enter a state of calm focus and concentration.
Finally, reading books is an essential skill for success in both academic and professional contexts. From improving our comprehension and critical thinking skills to expanding our vocabulary and communication abilities, the benefits of reading extend far beyond the pages of the book itself. By making reading a regular part of our lives, we can develop lifelong habits of learning, growth, and self-improvement.
On this page, we’ve listed some of our books that are available to download for Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The best part? All books on this page are completely free! We hope you enjoy the stories - and if you do, please take a moment to leave a review. It would mean a lot to us :)
Books featured on this page
The Swordswoman (The Swordswoman Book 1) by Malcolm Archibald
Symbiosis (Justice Keepers Saga Book 1) by R.S. Penney
A Matter of Latitude (Canary Islands Mysteries Book 1) by Isobel Blackthorn
The Pale-Eyed Mage (The Dark Amulet Book 1) by Jennifer Ealey
Academic Curveball (Braxton Campus Mysteries Book 1) by James J. Cudney
Elfrid's Hole (Jake Conley Book 1) by John Broughton
Death By Didgeridoo (Jamie Quinn Cozy Mysteries Book 1) by Barbara Venkataraman
The Murder (50-Plus Condo Book 1) by Janie Owens
A Mersey Killing (Mersey Murder Mysteries Book 1) by Brian L. Porter
Corpses Say The Darndest Things (Nod Blake Mysteries Book 1) by Doug Lamoreux
Made A Killing (Alex Warren Murder Mysteries Book 1) by Zach Abrams
The Swordswoman (The Swordswoman Book 1) by Malcolm Archibald
Book excerpt
With interwoven bracken shielding the dull glow of a peat fire flame, the crew of Wave Skimmer settled for the night. Melcorka pushed Defender to the side of her cut-heather bed and pondered over the day's events. She had killed men and had seen men and women slaughtered. She had felt the power of Defender and experienced her weakness the second the sword left her hand. She felt responsible for the death of Oengus.
'It was no fault of yours.' Bearnas lay beside her. She rolled closer and spoke quietly. 'You are confused. You don't know who you are or how you feel.'
Melcorka nodded. 'One minute I was a warrior with no fear, and the next I was only me, a girl from Dachaigh who had never seen the mainland yet, alone fought the Northmen.'
'You are both,' Bearnas said, 'and you are neither. Your life experience is on the island. That life made you fit and healthy, able to face all the weather that the wind and sea can carry, able to climb sheer rock-faces for birds' eggs and swim against even the strongest wave or tide. By hunting, you have developed sharper eyesight and more acute hearing than most warriors. In body, you are as fit as you need to be.'
'I did not realise that,' Melcorka said.
Symbiosis (Justice Keepers Saga Book 1) by R.S. Penney
Book excerpt
“What do you have for me, Jeannie?”
The forensics lab was a narrow room with a long steel table in the middle, green tiles on all four walls and fluorescent lights in the ceiling. Jean Simmons sat at a counter along the wall, staring into her computer monitor.
Tall and skinny as a post, she wore a white lab coat over her pantsuit, her brown hair pulled into a ponytail. “Oh, I've got plenty,” she said, nodding to him. “But I can't say you're gonna believe any of it, Detective.”
Harry Carlson strode into the room.
A tall man in a black suit and white shirt, he slipped hands into the pockets of his jacket. His square-jawed, dark-skinned face was marked by a small scar on the cheek, and his black hair was cut short. “Go on.”
Jean sniffed.
She wrinkled her nose as she stared into the computer screen, white light reflected on her face. “We've been going over the haul from the Penworth building,” she explained. “Some of it…well, I'd have to show you.”
A Matter of Latitude (Canary Islands Mysteries Book 1) by Isobel Blackthorn
Book excerpt
Hunger gnaws at my guts. I take a sip of water and eat half a protein bar from my meagre rations. It makes little difference. My shoulder vies with the throbbing in my calf, a competition of pain. The impact of the collision and the terror in the aftermath are stuck on replay in my head. It's a jolt, a wake-up call. I've got too close and they don't like it. Another part of me smiles in grim satisfaction. It'll all be worth it if I can get out of here alive.
At least the dog has gone. About mid-morning, I watched the scruffy, brown-haired beast head off up the track and disappear. Although he could be still out there, but he won't smell me on the wind; there's a light north-easterly blowing off the land.
I need to head outside, not least to relieve my bladder. First, I need some sort of weapon. Risking the noise, I hurl one of the crates at the wall. The impact loosens the nails' grip. Feeling the joints wobble, I put my good leg inside to hold the crate still and yank at a plank with my good arm, wrenching it free, leaving two rusty nails protruding from one end. Weapon in hand I ease open the door and step outside.
The ocean is still heavy after the storm, the tide high, waves crashing on the basalt reef, sending up fountains of spume. To the west, where the rock pools at the bottom of the cliff make for entertaining scrambling at low tide, the ocean thrashes. To the east the coastline arcs around a cliff. Facing the cliff and sheltered somewhat by the reef is a small beach of black sand.
The Pale-Eyed Mage (The Dark Amulet Book 1) by Jennifer Ealey
Book excerpt
During his lessons the next afternoon, as Jayhan dragged his way through a tedious page of arithmetic - his tutor was not a gifted educator - he thought about crows’ eyes and the village children’s taunts turning to fear. He pondered their reactions, surprised that just looking at them had turned the tables. He was just wondering whether they would have reacted in the same way if his father had not been there, when he was taken to task for having added every pair of numbers when he should have been subtracting.
He was brought abruptly back to the present by Eloquin demanding, “So, are you clear now on what you have to do?”
Guessing and hoping it was what she had said at start of the harangue, Jayhan nodded. “Yes Ma’am,” and began the page of arithmetic all over again, this time subtracting. He was up to the fifth question when suddenly the image of a well-dressed middle aged woman swam into his mind; a woman with eyes like his. Where had that come from?
As he struggled his way down the column of subtraction problems, the woman’s face stayed in his mind. Perhaps he seen her portrait somewhere? Maybe. But where?
Academic Curveball (Braxton Campus Mysteries Book 1) by James J. Cudney
Book excerpt
After hanging up with Nana D, I scheduled a time for dinner with Eleanor after the big baseball game. She usually took off Saturday nights, so there was at least one weekend evening as an option for potential dates. Unfortunately, the guy she'd hoped would ask her out this Saturday failed to extend an offer, which meant she was looking for company. I spent the rest of the night reading through the Dark Reality materials I'd collected from Abby's, so I could get Derek off my back on Abby's research before diving into anything else.
I chatted with Emma before bed, then caught up on some much-needed rest. When I awoke on Friday, I concentrated on reading all the pages of Abby's grade book, which clarified how the late professor documented student records. While the prior semesters had been well organized, as evidenced by Abby's weekly notes, the current semester was mostly empty. The lack of content didn't seem to add up properly at first, but I theorized if she'd been more focused on connecting with Derek for season two of Dark Reality, Abby might have let her normal standards slip.
I flipped to the current semester to check the grades and learned the other pitcher, Jordan Ballantine, had earned a 'B+' on the first exam. I turned a few more pages and came across an 'A+' for Carla Grey, wondering if she were related to the ruthless county judge whom I'd crossed paths with once before. I located Striker's page and at first thought he had zero entries, but when I looked closer, he had an 'F' that was partially erased or smudged. I held it up to the light by my bedside table and saw the definite markings of a failing grade. While an 'F' didn't look good for Striker playing in the upcoming game, the fact that it was partially erased made me worry this was why Abby had been killed.
Elfrid's Hole (Jake Conley Book 1) by John Broughton
Book excerpt
Thornton-le-Dale, North Yorkshire, May 2019
Jake walked away from his new lodgings, situated in the picturesque village of Ebberston, back to the main road, where he proceeded to the hamlet of Thornton-le-Dale. His idea was to indulge his hobby and explore the Church of St Mary the Virgin before Evensong. He turned into Hagg Side Lane and surveyed the pleasing form of the twelfth-century Norman church. Towering over the building was a large conifer, and when he approached, he was amazed to find a gravestone half-consumed by the tree trunk. How many decades before it disappeared inside the tree completely?
He walked around the exterior, noting grotesque carved heads with their unsettling features and appreciated the well-tended graveyard until he came to the back of the building. There, on the north wall, he found something that reminded him of the main reason for his presence in this area. Set in the stonework was a stone depicting what he imagined to be a Viking sword. His flesh prickled as his imagination began to churn. This was clearly a re-utilised stone, most likely from a grave-slab. But whose sword did it represent? Where was he buried? What was this man’s story? Jake tried to calm his fervid imagination. King Aldfrith died in 705 AD, so this sword post-dated him by more than a century since Viking raids in the area didn’t begin until the ninth century. Nonetheless, the long, narrow slab had set his nerves on edge, and he began to wonder about the soundness of his psychologist’s advice to visit the area, given his present mental state.
The south door of the edifice had a wonderful calming effect on him. The scrolled ironwork of the door dated from the late Saxon period and contained a dove carrying an olive branch in its beak. Jake photographed the ornate work and racked his memory. He had seen similar Saxon ironwork on another Saxon door in Yorkshire. Ay, that was it! Nearer York, closer to home, at St Helen’s church in Stillingfleet. He pulled out a notebook and jotted down his thoughts on this church’s exterior.
Death By Didgeridoo (Jamie Quinn Cozy Mysteries Book 1) by Barbara Venkataraman
Book excerpt
Exactly one week later, I was having dinner with Grace at my favorite birthday restaurant, Le Bonne Crepe, in Fort Lauderdale. Except that it wasn't my birthday. We'd picked it because it's next-door to Grace's office on upscale Las Olas Boulevard. (I mentioned that she works for a big securities firm, right?) Also, I knew she had bad news for me and I felt that I deserved a treat, like a prisoner's last meal.
"How about Crêpe Suzette?" Grace said. "When they light it on fire, it's like dinner and a show. Not to mention it's scrumptious." Grace always got excited about dessert.
"Are you kidding?" I said. "That's the reason I come here. I love Grand Marnier. Crêpe Suzette is an after-dinner drink disguised as dessert."
"Vanilla ice cream on the side?"
"Do you really have to ask?"
She laughed. "Just testing you. So, should we get to work now?"
"You're ruining my dessert buzz, Gracie!" I said, throwing up my hands.
"Okay, okay, sorry James, it can wait…"
After we had eaten every bite, licked our fingers and the forks, we sat back in our upholstered chairs and sipped our coffee, soaking up the cozy ambience of the French Bistro.
The Murder (50-Plus Condo Book 1) by Janie Owens
Book excerpt
“Again? I don’t understand why she doesn’t throw that jerk out,” Tia said. “I wouldn’t put up with that behavior for one minute.”
“Maybe she’s partly to blame,” Olivia suggested. “After all, it takes two to tango, as they say.”
“Tango with me once like that and I’d dance him into jail,” Eneida said.
“Another round,” Rachel called out to the barmaid, waving her glass in the air.
The girls were drinking iced tea, their beverage of choice. The clubhouse in the condo was a great place for the girls to hang out, get caught up on the latest in their lives, and then not have to worry about driving home. Rachel didn’t drink, except for maybe one glass of wine at a party, but that was a rare occasion. Even though the bar was conveniently located mere feet away, her friends didn’t drink either because they had to work the next day.
Rachel added three packets of sugar to her tea and picked up a complimentary cookie offered by the bar from a plate, then took another one. “If he lays a hand on her again, I’m calling the police, although, it looked like she’d thrown her fair share of punches. Maybe they both need to go to jail.”
Tia picked up her glass. “They both probably should have gone to see a doctor.”
“Spoken like a doctor,” Olivia said.
A Mersey Killing (Mersey Murder Mysteries Book 1) by Brian L. Porter
Book excerpt
MERSEYSIDE POLICE HEADQUARTERS, 1999
On the sixth day after the discovery of the remains, Ross sat alone at his desk in his small but functional office at police headquarters. The painstaking task of removing the remains from the abandoned dock had taken almost two days to achieve, and the inspector now awaited the results of the post-mortem on the unfortunate soul whose last resting place had gone unmarked and unrecognized for God knows how many years. After six years as a Detective Inspector, Ross had to admit to himself that this could turn out to be his most baffling case to date. As a rule, most murders tended to follow a similar pattern. Either through love, jealousy, hatred or for financial reasons, one individual would one day snap and instigate the death of another. In the majority of cases, the body would be found sooner rather than later, and certainly not years later, as in the current case.
Of course, identifying the victim helped, and again was usually achieved fairly quickly even when no identification was present on the body. Only in rare cases did it take a length of time for the police with all their modern resources to identify a murder victim. This time, however, things were very different. In the case of the skeletal remains which even now, Dr. Nugent and his assistant, Lees were carrying out an autopsy of sorts on, there was no hope of fingerprint identification and the few items of trace evidence found in the vicinity after the removal of the body had provided little if any hints that would put a name to the victim, and without a name for the deceased, any hope of finding the killer would prove minimal.
Corpses Say The Darndest Things (Nod Blake Mysteries Book 1) by Doug Lamoreux
Book excerpt
It was after 3 am when I got back to my apartment. My head was aching from the tumble I'd taken the previous morning wrapping up Willie Banks, the faux police officer, and it was full to overflowing from the X-rated scene it had just witnessed at Delp's palatial mansion. Between sips of gin, it occurred that vultures made a cleaner living than I did. I went to bed and didn't sleep.
The morning took me to AC's, a friend who developed all my film for me, then to my office to examine in detail the results. I sat looking at the photos of Katherine Delp and Nicholas Nikitin, whoever he was, and was, I must say, impressed. Not with my photography, that was only passable, but with the gymnastics on display in the pictures. Nikitin looked like the captain of the copulating team ready for the Olympics in Moscow, while Katherine did a fine job representing thirty-something ministers’ wives everywhere. I was whistling, wondering at the physics involved in a particularly interesting shot, when a sledge hammer hit me in the back of the head. That's what it felt like. A pain smacked the tender part of my skull so severely I had to hunch my shoulders. It was followed by a flash of heat that raced around to my face. I felt the flush. I nearly cried out. I did drop the pictures onto my desk. My vision blurred. Though it lasted only seconds, it seemed longer and scared the living hell out of me. I thought I was going blind. When it cleared, through tears, I looked the office round grateful to see it was still there. I didn't know if I was crying owing to an acute physical problem, the pain, or just good old-fashioned fear. As I wiped them on my sleeve, my eyes fell on the photos that I'd dropped. You wouldn't believe it. I didn't. The top picture had changed.
I mean just that. The picture I had been looking at had undergone a complete change. It was the same setting, angle, distance but the guy, Nikitin, was gone from the image. Katherine Delp remained in the photograph, alone, surrounded by a bright blue, pulsating aura as if she were a character in that Star Trek movie they were making. I know it sounds idiotic. Had it not been for the pain in my head, I would have laughed. But that's what I saw. Then things got really stupid. Katherine looked up. No, that's not it. The image of Katherine, glowing with this otherworldly blue outline, looked out of the photograph, staring right at me, and cried, “Help me!”
Made A Killing (Alex Warren Murder Mysteries Book 1) by Zach Abrams
Book excerpt
Once they were back out in the car, Alex and Sandra compared notes.
“The moment she told us about Scott visiting twice every Monday and at no other times, I knew there was something fishy,” Sandra said. “I think he must have come by in the morning, collected the key to lock away money or photos or something and then come back to replace the key in the afternoon.”
“Yes, I think you're absolutely right. Now what we need to do is find out where the key fits.”
“Perhaps it's a safe or it could be for premises or for a safe deposit box. It will be tricky finding out what it's for and where it is,” Sandra continued.
“No, it's better than that,” Alex corrected. “I recognise the type. It's used for bank safe deposit boxes, but only of a certain sort. Often there are two keys required to open a box. Nearly all banks now keep both keys for the boxes in a tamper proof container and you have to prove your identity every time you access the box. There's only a few left with a system where the owner keeps one key and has free access. That ought to make it easier to trace.”
Alex started the car. “Let's get back and see whether there's been any other developments,” and with that he guided the car back through the gateway.
Before long they had collected McAvoy, the box of photos, the ME's report and the newly arrived scene of crime documentation and were on their way to their office in the regional police headquarters.
Before starting with the photos, they pored over the reports, first making copies so each could work with their own version.
Alex read the detailed ME report but found little more than Sandra had already précised for him. The two reports from scene of crime were more illuminating.
There you go: Next Chapter’s best free books for Nook, as of 03/2023. We hope you enjoy the work of our authors - and if you do, please leave a comment below, or a review in Goodreads or your favorite store!
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