THE WORLD’S LUCKIEST E-BOOK goes on sale this week.

Bless My Kindle will load users’ precious e-readers with 101 of the most blessed symbols around, ensuring they are never lost, stolen or dropped in the bath (well, fingers crossed).

Experts have been working around the clock to deliver the very latest in cutting-edge charm technology. And thanks to its in-depth ‘Albatross to Yin-Yang’ encyclopedia of good luck, you will also learn why the four-leaf clover is so special, where touching wood comes from, and why beards were once thought to be blessed.

Available exclusively for the Amazon Kindle (and the many devices that offer Kindle apps) this remarkable e-book aims to bring you all the charms you need to keep your e-reader – and that treasured book collection – safe from harm.

All at a fraction of the cost of tiresome insurance.

So polish up the horseshoe, make a wish on that ladybird, and crack open the fortune cookie for this fascinating new e-book. And be lucky!

Assassin is the shocking account of writer Christopher Robbins as his life becomes entwined with that of the deadly Carlos Evertsz. Forced into a volatile friendship after accidentally insulting the killer, he later winds up on his notorious ‘hit list’.

It is the complete dossier of an agent licensed to murder and who doesn’t hesitate to list his record of shocking atrocities, brought to us by the journalist who knew him best.

Explaining himself as “a liquidator just doing his job”, Evertsz ricochets between the high life in London, Madrid and the island paradise of the Dominican Republic – and some of the world’s most horrific jails.

Told by the masterful Robbins, author of bestselling Vietnam War title The Ravens, we also meet Dr Manuel Sosa, a demonic intelligence chief with a taste of orgies, torture, blackmail, voodoo and murder.

A staggering story that is hard to believe were it not so carefully documented, Assassin is available now for Kindle, Kobo, iPad and iPhone, and from thousands of e-retailers worldwide.

New York Times bestseller Melissa Jo Peltier turns her attention to the brilliant, back-stabbing world of prime-time television in a wickedly funny new novel.

Peltier has worked in entertainment for more than 20 years, making the darkly funny Reality Boulevard a true insider’s view of Hollywood and some of America’s biggest shows.

In it, we see Oscar-winning producer Marty Maltzman and his staff out of a job – and out on the streets – when long-running docu-series Lights and Sirens is unexpectedly axed. But the Hollywood the team now faces is full of Kardashians and Real Housewives, and they need to survive in a world where it’s very hard to tell what’s true and what isn’t – both on and off screen.

Oscar and Emmy winning documentarian and veteran reality producer (Big Brother, Rescue 911) Arnold Shapiro called the novel “the best satirical look behind the scenes of reality television ever written”, adding: “It contains more truth than you would believe.”

Todd Milliner, producer of Grimm and Hot in Cleveland, said: “During her 20-plus years in the business, Melissa Jo Peltier had a front-row seat, watching it all unfold. In this novel, she puts her dry wit and storytelling ability to good use, pulling back the curtain to reveal what really goes on.”

Peltier is a double Emmy Award-winning writer and producer behind international hits such as TV’s Dog Whisperer, recent multi-festival indie feature White Irish Drinkers, and co-author of seven non-fiction books including five NYT bestsellers. In 1992, her multi-network simulcast Scared Silent hosted by Oprah Winfrey was hailed as television’s most watched documentary ever, and earned Ms. Peltier the coveted Humanitas Prize.

The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County became a global bestseller in the Seventies, hilariously skewering a self-obsessed age of  psycho-babble, meditation, zen jogging, pet psychiatry – and bucket-loads of organic granola.

Now, to mark 35 years since it was first published, the novel is going on sale in e-book form for the first time, with new artwork, bonus features, interviews and reviews from the time, plus a new preface by author Cyra McFadden.

Described by Newsweek as “one of the most delicious acts of cultural sabotage since Mark Twain” and author Lisa Alther as “the funniest book ever written”, it mercilessly satirises the inhabitants of Marin County, California in counter-culture-gripped 1976.

There are also bonus features, reviews and an interview with Cyra McFadden from the time, plus a look back at how the inhabitants of the San Francisco community reacted as their area – and habits – became the focus of world attention.

Published by Apostrophe Books, The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County is available to readers of Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, Nook, Kobo and other e-readers priced US $5.99 / UK £3.75 (RRP).

The satire documents Kate and Harvey Holroyd’s attempts to leave their ‘straight’ lives behind and join their fashionable neighbours in the fine art of staying ‘hip and loose’. In 52 week-by-week instalments, we see them try scream therapy, consciousness-raising sessions and a disastrous foray into having an open marriage.

Author Cyra McFadden said: “I’m delighted that The Serial is coming out as an e-book but don’t expect Marin to be as happy that it’s back.  Am I going to be scraping dried egg off the front of my house again, I wonder?”

Apostrophe Books founder and bestselling writer Martyn Forrester said: “I was thrilled when Cyra McFadden agreed to let us republish The Serial. It’s an iconic book, one of my all-time favourites. Tom Cervenak creating a new piece of artwork just for this edition was the icing on the cake.”

Read the Pacific Sun’s front-page feature about the re-release of this iconic book.

VAMPIRE thriller Blood Prophecy: The Fated Three has gone on sale, with legions of e-reader owners sinking their teeth into the supernatural novel.

The three-part e-book sees 17-year-old Selene Giovanni’s dull and lonely world change dramatically when a new student starts at her school. It turns out there is a lot more to the mysterious Gregori than meets the eye, and together they are plunged into a world of danger, excitement and vampires, as a centuries-old prophecy begins to come true.

Blood Prophecy: The Fated Three is the work of young British author TL Spencer. Her teen-focused novel saw off stiff competition from seven other titles to win the third round of our Fiction Fast-Track new writing competition.

Spencer, who began writing after being diagnosed with epilepsy aged 11, said: “As a first-time writer, it’s absolutely amazing to be published. Because I was ill when I began writing this novel, the achievement for me is even greater. A novel about magic and love, I hope it will entertain and enthral everyone who reads it.”

The book, which is also sold in an enhanced edition with video, is available now to readers of Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, Nook, Kobo and many other devices, priced US $5.99 / GB £3.75 / EU €4.65 (RRP).

For more details about the e-book, visit www.apostrophebooks.com/bloodprophecy.

FINGERLESS GLOVES, the prize-winning novel from New Yorker Nick Orsini, went on sale to e-book readers around the world today.

The story, which won the prestigious Fiction Fast-Track new writing competition earlier this year, charts the most difficult night in 25-year-old Anton Duchamp’s life.

When his best friend James Squire is mysteriously rushed to hospital, Anton begins a night-long journey that takes him from shady, marijuana-smoke-filled apartments to ex-girlfriends’ bedrooms, and eventually back to his childhood home.

As the night unfolds, so do new revelations about Anton’s recreational drug use and his past failures. And as Friday night drags into Saturday morning, he learns of James’s deteriorating health. In a universe that has seemingly left him without a specific function, it takes a single night for Anton to realize that no one will ever hand him a meaning or a purpose.

Fingerless Gloves, which is published by London-based ApostropheBooks.com, is about best friends and the mistakes we never knew we were making. It is a story about remembering – by any means necessary.

It is available for e-readers from retailers including Amazon, Apple iBookstore and Kobo this week.

ApostropheBooks.com founder and bestselling author Martyn Forrester said: “Sometimes we see a piece of writing that makes this whole quest of ours worthwhile. We set up ApostropheBooks.com partly because traditional publishers could no longer afford to find and invest in new writers, and our faith was vindicated when Nick Orsini’s Fingerless Gloves hit our desks.

“Nick writes with a unique, distinctive voice and we expect great things of him. Comparisons are already being made with Brett Easton Ellis. You will be hearing a lot more of him and fellow ApostropheBooks.com novelist Robert Ford in the years to come.”

Twenty-six-year-old Orsini runs adorkablelife.com, a collection of poetry and has in his time worked in post-production, had a job as a limousine dispatcher and been a New York ad man. His first novel, Two Wrongs Make a Vice, was shipped to 40 countries around the world and all 50 US states.

He said: “I hope my new readers will take away the immediacy of Fingerless Gloves. I want this ebook to make people realize that growing up is not a switch we can turn on and off, but rather a process that’s often forged out of our most trying and difficult moments.

“I’ve had such an amazing amount of support from my family in New Jersey and my friends across the United States and abroad. From my first interviews to my small tours, they always told me that the best stories are the ones that we aren’t quite finished working through. They encouraged me when I couldn’t encourage myself. This is for each and every one of them.”

Below, Nick Orsini reads an extract from Fingerless Gloves:

THE HEART-WRENCHING true story of how legendary TV reporter Michael Nicholson smuggled an orphan out of war-ravaged Sarajevo is being released as an ebook to mark 20 years since her rescue.

Natasha’s Story, which went on to become the award-winning film Welcome to Sarajevo, tells how Nicholson resolved to bring nine-year-old Natasha home to England while reporting the horrors of the Bosnian War.

Forging her name into his passport, he faced the ordeal of getting them both out of the country in one piece – and then protecting Natasha from the press as she settled into her new home.

The gripping first-hand account is both an indictment of the horror and futility of the war and a tribute to one girl’s courage as she began a new life in England, 1,000 miles from her native land.

Bought up to date with new material and never-before-seen photographs, Natasha’s Story is being released as an ebook for the first time, alongside two other books by Michael Nicholson.

His gripping autobiography, A Measure of Danger, is a vivid account of the 18 war zones he has braved in his career with Britain’s prestigious ITN, where he was one the world’s most travelled foreign correspondents.

The new ebook edition has been updated to include the Gulf Wars – his reporting of which led to Nicholson being awarded the OBE – and his return to the Falklands in 2012. It can be downloaded now from more than 100 ebook retailers around the world, including Amazon and Apple’s iBookstore.

Also going digital is his novel Pilgrims Rest, the story of Mary, a Welsh widow who resolves to forge a new life with her children in 1870s South Africa after her husband is killed in a battle with English miners.

However, after overcoming a dangerous journey beset by deadly animals and hostile warriors, all is not as they had hoped in the village of Pilgrims Rest. Conflict has come to South Africa and Mary, Huw, Ianto, William and baby Tom are right in the middle of it.

The Michael Nicholson trio have been published by Apostrophe Books, a young company dedicated to bringing bestsellers from the recent past into the digital world, as well as uncovering the writing talent of tomorrow.

Nicholson said: “I’d always thought that my printed books would remain, resting quietly and unseen on my bookshelves. Then, hey presto, the genius of e-editions, the press of a button and the promise of a whole new generation of readers. Forgive the ego trip but I shall now buy myself the magic box and read my own stories all over again.”

Apostrophe Books founder and bestselling author Martyn Forrester added: “Michael Nicholson is one of the world’s most decorated foreign correspondents, an absolute legend. I’ve been gripped by his books over the years so it was an immense honour that he chose Apostrophe as his ebook publisher.

“The first three ebooks we’re bringing out were all bestsellers, and Michael has added thousands of words of unique and fascinating bonus material to Natasha’s Story and A Measure Of Danger, and dozens of photos that have never before been seen.”

JOHN LAVAN HAS long been one of the internet’s most prominent poets, with hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. Now, his poignant, funny and heartbreaking poetry has been turned into an e-book, with the launch of Familial: Selected Poems.

More than 100 exceptional pieces of work have been hand-picked by the Yorkshireman across a variety of subjects. These range from love poetry to poems of place – and even poems about poems. Many are inspired by family relationships, particularly the bond John has with his first son, Andrew, who has Down’s Syndrome.

Familial: Selected Poems is published by Apostrophe Books, which harnessed the agility of e-publishing by having the book on sale less than eight weeks after founder Martyn Forrester first fell in love with John’s remarkable poetry via Twitter.

The elegantly-designed book is available to download now for e-readers including the iPad and Kindle, and is priced from £2.99 / $5.99. It can be bought via Amazon, iTunes and many others.

John Lavan is a high-profile blogger with thousands of visits a day to his blog realpoems.org and to his Twitter accounts @Toltecjohn, @SufiJohn, @VVG_John and @S_Spearejohn.

He said: “Using words is such a gift for both readers and writers. I like my poems to move people and help them see the world differently – and always with a smile.”

In the video below, John reads An Eden Conception, one of the poems from the new collection:

SUE MARGOLIS‘S hilarious novel Neurotica is now available to Kindle, iPad and Kobo readers. It is the third chick-lit classic to go digital with Apostrophe Books.

Hailed by People as “Bridget Jones’s Diary for the matrimonial set”, it tells the story of Anna Shapiro, a sex-starved journalist on a mission to find some fun after the ordeal of hypochondriac husband Dan. So she spends the next few weeks committing adultery for the pure joy of it – with uproarious results.

The Mail on Sunday called it “a tremendously funny, colourful and gripping read” while Woman’s Own said it was “a lusty laugh-out-loud tale about adultery”.

The new digital edition of Neurotica comes hot on the high-heels of two other Sue Margolis bestsellers: Apocalipstick and Sisteria.

THE INCREDIBLE true story of the daring US pilots who flew in the secret war in Laos is told today as The Ravens goes digital for the first time.

Christopher Robbins‘s meticulously-researched work – hailed by Tom Clancy as “a book of outstanding integrity” – reveals the brutal truth about the men who served in the Vietnam War’s most dangerous unit.

Flying without uniforms or ID in planes that were officially off the books of the US Air Force, the Ravens undertook near-suicidal missions to protect Laos’s Hmong people from the troops invading their country. Alongside the pilots were the shadowy officials of the CIA, who provided support via Air America – the airline they covertly ran.

Honest, humorous and often heart-wrenching, this is the story of a band of courageous men fighting against enormous odds.

The Ravens is the second book to be published by Apostrophe Books after the bestselling biography The Test of Courage: Michel Thomas.