The great Star League general, Aleksandr Kerensky. Colonel Archer Christifori, a man with a score to settle. Neilson Geist, on Christmas patrol. MechWarrior Joanna of Clan Jade Falcon. A Sandoval scion. An eleven-year-old girl. Northwind Highlanders. A prisoner of war. They all have two things in common.

A universe torn apart by unending warfare.

A mission to stand up against the darkness.

This compilation contains a selection of eighteen of 2004's best BattleTech fiction pieces, as well as an all new story about young Kerensky by Loren L. Coleman!

Includes stories by some of the most celebrated BattleTech authors: Randall N. Bills, Loren L. Coleman, Blaine Lee Pardoe, Robert Thurston, and Michael A. Stackpole, along with stories by new favorites such as Ilsa J. Bick, Jason M. Hardy, Kevin Killiany, Steven Mohan, Jr., Louisa M. Swann, and Phaedra M. Weldon!

My name is Faith Ghraves and I'm a detective in the small town of Eerie Valley, just outside of Los Angeles, California. A few months ago I started to see the spirits of the recently deceased. On one fateful night, I accidentally touched one and without knowing how sent the spirit to the afterlife. 

No one knows my secret because how would I tell them. 

Instead, I pretend to be just an average woman with a badge and gun. 

There are two cases my partner and I are working. The first is that of a child who's gone missing. The second involves dead strippers. The FBI is also involved. They believe the murders are the work of a twisted serial killer and they want to use me as bait. 

That means going undercover. As a stripper. The prospect is terrifying. Even more scary than seeing the dead. But I never was one to back down from a sucky situation. 

As we uncover more about each case, it becomes apparent nothing in this town is ordinary and the supernatural is everywhere. 

Werewolves, vampires, ghosts … they aren’t what you think.

After the death of her mother, Everly Boderleth has to go back to her spooky hometown, Shroudhaven, and she has a plan to get in and out as quick as possible.

Step one, clear out the family home and antique store.

Step two, watch her childhood sweetheart die violently at the hands of an indescribable, horrific creature.

Wait, what?

That wasn't part of the plan. But it was just a dream, wasn't it?

As the evidence mounts that what she saw was real, a broken heart is the least of her problems.

Everly thinks she's close to the truth, but nothing is as it seems.

What is really lurking in the dark?

Darkness Unknown is the first book in the Beshadowed series by S.A. Fenech. If you're looking for shifters with a twist, urban fantasy with a touch of horror, and a satisfying mystery, you'll love Beshadowed.

Ever since Stanley Lambchop was flattened by a bulletin board, every trip is an adventure!

The whole Lambchop family is off to see Mount Rushmore. But when Flat Stanley and his brother, Arthur, team up with a scrappy cowgirl named Calamity Jasper, their vacation turns into the Wild West experience of a lifetime. Pretty soon, they find themselves in a real tight spot—even for a flat boy like Stanley!

This unforgettable adventure features fun, fascinating facts about Mount Rushmore! And for parents and teachers, each Flat Stanley book is aligned to the Common Core State Standards, like multicultural adventure, plot and character development story elements, and compare and contrast! Don’t miss any of Flat Stanley’s worldwide adventures!

…And a world unlike anything you’ve ever imagined. A world where magic and machines exist side-by-side. Where cybernetics can replace organs or entire limbs with ease, and arcane spells can make the impossible happen. Where the Matrix has become an artificial world of its own, filled with all kinds of pleasure, treasure, and trouble. Where dwarves, elves, orks, and trolls walk alongside humans every day. Some work for megacorporations whose invisible tentacles wrap around every aspect of modern life. Others choose a much less legal career, doing whatever dirty work the corp executives need done—for a price.

WELCOME TO SHADOWRUN

Featuring fifteen new stories about the men and women who make their living in the shadows of the Sixth World, Spells and Chrome takes you into the dark and dirty streets of a bleak future. Whether risking their lives to execute a mission for an employer who might be planning to double-cross them anyway, or just doing whatever they need to do to survive another day, shadowrunners use everything they’ve got—cyberware, spells, or a very big gun—to get the job done.

In The Mastery of Love, don Miguel Ruiz illuminates the fear-based beliefs and assumptions that undermine love and lead to suffering and drama in our relationships. Using insightful stories to bring his message to life, Ruiz shows us how to heal our emotional wounds, recover the freedom and joy that are our birthright, and restore the spirit of playfulness that is vital to loving relationships.

The Mastery of Love includes:

• Why “domestication” and the “image of perfection” lead to self-rejection

• The war of control that slowly destroys most relationships

• Why we hunt for love in others, and how to capture the love inside us

• How to finally accept and forgive ourselves and others

“Happiness can only come from inside of you and is the result of your love. When you are aware that no one else can make you happy, and that happiness is the result of your love, this becomes the greatest mastery of the Toltec: the Mastery of Love.” — don Miguel Ruiz

__________________

About the Authors

Don Miguel Ruiz is the international bestselling author of The Four Agreements (a New York Times bestseller for over a decade), The Four Agreements Companion Book, The Mastery of Love, The Voice of Knowledge, The Circle of Fire, and The Fifth Agreement. The teachings of Ruiz are best known for transforming complex human issues into simple common sense — a talent that has earned him millions of fans and international acclaim.

Janet Mills is the founder and president of Amber-Allen publishing. She is also the coauthor, with don Miguel Ruiz, of six books in The Toltec Wisdom Series, creator of The Four Agreements for a Better Life online course, and editor of Deepak Chopra’s bestselling title, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. Her life’s mission is to publish books of enduring beauty, integrity, and wisdom, and to inspire others to fulfill their most cherished dreams.

The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined - every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute . . . and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.

If you want to make positive changes in your life and achieve your long-term goals, I can’t think of a better way to do it than to learn how to become more self-disciplined.

Science has figured out a lot of interesting aspects of self-discipline and willpower, but most of this knowledge is buried deep inside long and boring scientific papers.

If you’d like to benefit from these studies without actually reading them, this book is for you. I’ve done the job for you and researched the most useful and viable scientific findings that will help you improve your self-discipline.

Here are just a couple things you will learn from the book:

- what a bank robber with lemon juice on his face can teach you about self-control. The story will make you laugh out loud, but its implications will make you think twice about your ability to control your urges.

- how $50 chocolate bars can motivate you to keep going when faced with an overwhelming temptation to give in.

- why President Obama wears only gray and blue suits and what it has to do with self-control (it’s also a possible reason why the poor stay poor).

- why the popular way of visualization can actually prevent you from reaching your goals and destroy your self-control (and what to do instead).

- what dopamine is and why it’s crucial to understand its role to break your bad habits and form good ones.

- 5 practical ways to train your self-discipline. Discover some of the most important techniques to increase your self-control and become better at resisting instant gratification.

- why the status quo bias will threaten your goals and what to do to reduce its effect on your resolutions.

- why extreme diets help people achieve long-term results, and how to apply these findings in your own life.

- why and when indulging yourself can actually help you build your self-discipline. Yes, you can stuff yourself (from time to time) and still lose weight.

Instead of sharing with you the detailed "why" (with confusing and boring descriptions of studies), I will share with you the "how" – advice that will change your life if you decide to follow it.

You too can master the art of self-discipline and learn how to resist temptations. Your long term goals are worth it. Scroll up and buy the book now.

As a gift for buying my book, you'll get my another book, "Grit: How to Keep Going When You Want to Give Up."

Keywords:

Develop self discipline, willpower and self discipline, self-discipline, self control books, stress, reach your goals, self-control, achieve your goals, instant gratification, long term goals, goal setting success, goal setting books, how to reach your goals, how to achieve your goals, persistence, how not to give up, stick to a diet, stay motivated, build habits, delayed gratification, personal development

"As important a book on space as has ever been written." —Homer Hickam, Author of Rocket Boys

The dramatic inside story of the historic flights that launched SpaceX—and Elon Musk—from a shaky startup into the world's leading-edge rocket company

SpaceX has enjoyed a miraculous decade. Less than 20 years after its founding, it boasts the largest constellation of commercial satellites in orbit, has pioneered reusable rockets, and in 2020 became the first private company to launch human beings into orbit. Half a century after the space race it is private companies, led by SpaceX, standing alongside NASA pushing forward into the cosmos, and laying the foundation for our exploration of other worlds.

But before it became one of the most powerful players in the aerospace industry, SpaceX was a fledgling startup, scrambling to develop a single workable rocket before the money ran dry. The engineering challenge was immense; numerous other private companies had failed similar attempts. And even if SpaceX succeeded, they would then have to compete for government contracts with titans such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, who had tens of thousands of employees and tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. SpaceX had fewer than 200 employees and the relative pittance of $100 million in the bank.

In Liftoff, Eric Berger, senior space editor at Ars Technica, takes readers inside the wild early days that made SpaceX. Focusing on the company’s first four launches of the Falcon 1 rocket, he charts the bumpy journey from scrappy underdog to aerospace pioneer. We travel from company headquarters in El Segundo, to the isolated Texas ranchland where they performed engine tests, to Kwajalein, the tiny atoll in the Pacific where SpaceX launched the Falcon 1. Berger has reported on SpaceX for more than a decade, enjoying unparalleled journalistic access to the company’s inner workings. Liftoff is the culmination of these efforts, drawing upon exclusive interviews with dozens of former and current engineers, designers, mechanics, and executives, including Elon Musk. The enigmatic Musk, who founded the company with the dream of one day settling Mars, is the fuel that propels the book, with his daring vision for the future of space.

Filled with never-before-told stories of SpaceX’s turbulent beginning, Liftoff is a saga of cosmic proportions.

“The ultimate takedown.” – New York Times Book Review

Award-winning New York Times reporters Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang unveil the tech story of our times in a riveting, behind-the-scenes exposé that offers the definitive account of Facebook’s fall from grace. 

Once one of Silicon Valley’s greatest success stories, Facebook has been under constant fire for the past five years, roiled by controversies and crises. It turns out that while the tech giant was connecting the world, they were also mishandling users’ data, spreading fake news, and amplifying dangerous, polarizing hate speech.

The company, many said, had simply lost its way. But the truth is far more complex. Leadership decisions enabled, and then attempted to deflect attention from, the crises. Time after time, Facebook’s engineers were instructed to create tools that encouraged people to spend as much time on the platform as possible, even as those same tools boosted inflammatory rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and partisan filter bubbles. And while consumers and lawmakers focused their outrage on privacy breaches and misinformation, Facebook solidified its role as the world’s most voracious data-mining machine, posting record profits, and shoring up its dominance via aggressive lobbying efforts.

Drawing on their unrivaled sources, Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang take readers inside the complex court politics, alliances and rivalries within the company to shine a light on the fatal cracks in the architecture of the tech behemoth. Their explosive, exclusive reporting led them to a shocking conclusion: The missteps of the last five years were not an anomaly but an inevitability—this is how Facebook was built to perform. In a period of great upheaval, growth has remained the one constant under the leadership of Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. Both have been held up as archetypes of uniquely 21st century executives—he the tech “boy genius” turned billionaire, she the ultimate woman in business, an inspiration to millions through her books and speeches. But sealed off in tight circles of advisers and hobbled by their own ambition and hubris, each has stood by as their technology is coopted by hate-mongers, criminals and corrupt political regimes across the globe, with devastating consequences. In An Ugly Truth, they are at last held accountable. 

Money—investing, personal finance, and business decisions—is typically taught as a math-based field, where data and formulas tell us exactly what to do. But in the real world people don’t make financial decisions on a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together.

In The Psychology of Money, award-winning author Morgan Housel shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life’s most important topics.

"Remarkable debut.... [a] nearly flawless tale of loss, perseverance and redemption."—Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

Set in 1920s Mississippi, this debut Southern novel weaves a beautiful and harrowing story of two teenage girls cast in an unlikely partnership through murder—perfect for readers of Where the Crawdads Sing and If the Creek Don't Rise.

Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her hard life on the swamp and her harsh father. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. And she knows there will be a price to pay with her father.

Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family from the whims and demands of some particularly callous locals is an ongoing struggle. She forms a plan to go north, to pack up the secrets she's holding about her life in the South and hang them on the line for all to see in Ohio.

As the two girls are drawn deeper into a dangerous world of bootleggers and moral corruption, they must come to terms with the complexities of their tenuous bond and a hidden past that links them in ways that could cost them their lives.

Seven years ago, Mia Briscoe was at a college frat rave with her best friend, Serena, when a fire broke out. Everyone was accounted for except Serena, who was never seen nor heard from again. Now an investigative journalist covering the political scene in New York City, Mia discovers old photos taken the night of Serena’s disappearance and begins to uncover a sinister string of events going all the way back to that disastrous party. Working with Sherlock, the secrets begin to unravel. But some very powerful—and very dangerous—people will do anything to keep them from learning the truth.

CIA Operative Olivia Hildebrandt is a team leader on a mission in Iran to exfiltrate a betrayed undercover operative. She’s nearly killed by an exploding grenade and saved by a team member. But by the time Olivia is released from Walter Reed Hospital, that team member and a critical flash drive he was carrying have disappeared. When Olivia is attacked on her first night home, Savich suspects that the strike is a direct result of the compromised mission and the missing team member and flash drive. But what intelligence was at stake and who betrayed them?

Over 1 million copies sold

In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people.

For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.

Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited—"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek.

There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.

And as they explore the top of the world, Drizzt is on a journey of his own—both spiritual and physical. He wants to introduce his daughter Brie to Grandmaster Kane and the practices that have been so central to his beliefs. But, having only recently come back from true transcendence, the drow ranger is no longer sure what his beliefs mean anymore. He is on a path to determining the future, not just for his family, but perhaps the entire northlands of the Realms themselves.

Two different roads. On one, Jarlaxle and Zaknefein are on a quest to find pieces that could offer salvation to Menzoberranzan. On the other, Drizzt seeks answers that could offer salvation to not just his soul, but all souls.

And no matter the outcome of either journey, the Realms will never be the same again.

“It’s Slaughter’s prodigious gifts of characterization that make her stand out among thriller writers.” – WASHINGTON POST

Recommended by Washington Post • theSkimm • GMA.com • Popsugar • Bustle • Atlanta Journal-Constitution • Augusta Chronicle • Sun-Sentinel • Mystery and Suspense Magazine • and more!

He saw what you did. He knows who you are…

From the New York Times bestselling author of Pieces of Her and The Silent Wife, an electrifying standalone thriller.

AN ORDINARY LIFE…

Leigh Collier has worked hard to build what looks like a normal life. She’s an up-and-coming defense attorney at a prestigious law firm in Atlanta, would do anything for her sixteen-year-old daughter Maddy, and is managing to successfully coparent through a pandemic after an amicable separation from her husband Walter.

HIDES A DEVASTATING PAST...

But Leigh’s ordinary life masks a childhood no one should have to endure … a childhood tarnished by secrets, broken by betrayal, and ultimately destroyed by a brutal act of violence.

BUT NOW THE PAST IS CATCHING UP…

On a Sunday night at her daughter’s school play, she gets a call from one of the firm's partners who wants Leigh to come on board to defend a wealthy man accused of multiple counts of rape. Though wary of the case, it becomes apparent she doesn't have much choice if she wants to keep her job. They're scheduled to go to trial in one week. When she meets the accused face-to-face, she realizes that it’s no coincidence that he’s specifically asked for her to represent him. She knows him. And he knows her. More to the point, he may know what happened over twenty years ago, and why Leigh has spent two decades avoiding her past.  

AND TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

Suddenly she has a lot more to lose than this case. The only person who can help is her younger, estranged sister Callie—the last person Leigh would ever want to drag into this after all they’ve been through. But with the life-shattering truth in danger of being revealed, she has no choice...

“A high-stakes thriller . . . Her heroines are believable, flawed and courageous.” –OYINKAN BRAITHWAITE

‘The final double twist is well worth waiting for’ My Weekly

‘Hooks you in to the drama straight away and does not let you go, even on the last page’ The Sun

Beth and Tom Hardcastle are the envy of their neighbourhood – they have the perfect marriage, the perfect house, the perfect family.

When the police knock on their door one evening, Beth panics. Tom should be back from work by now – what if he’s crashed his car? She fears the worst.

But the worst is beyond imagining.

As the interrogation begins, Beth will find herself questioning everything she believed about her husband.

___________

***** READERS ARE GRIPPED BY THE SERIAL KILLER’S WIFE...*****

‘400 pages gone in the blink of an eye!’

‘Fast-paced and chilling’

‘From start to finish this is a page turner – I could barely catch my breath’

‘This book blew me away’

‘Plenty of suspense, twists and turns – and an ending I did not predict!’

‘This is one hell of a thriller’

‘What a belting good story’

‘Such an addictive read’

‘Twists and turns – even on the last page’

‘Once I picked it up I didn’t put it down. Read in one sitting!’

‘Addictive! A page turner that you can not put down’

‘Convincing and clever writing, I gobbled this up at speed’

“The devil never tries to make people do the wrong thing by scaring them. He does it by tempting them.”

Lady Merritt Sterling, a strong-willed beauty who runs a shipping company, knows London society is dying to catch her in a scandal. So far, she’s been too smart to provide them with one. But then she meets Keir MacRae, a rough-and-rugged Scottish whisky distiller, and all her sensible plans vanish like smoke. They couldn’t be more different, but their attraction is powerful, raw and irresistible.

From the moment Keir MacRae arrives in London, he has two goals. One: don’t fall in love with the dazzling Lady Merritt Sterling. Two: avoid being killed.

So far, neither of those is going well.

Keir doesn’t know why someone wants him dead until fate reveals the secret of his mysterious past. His world is thrown into upheaval, and the only one he trusts is Merritt.

Their passion blazes with an intensity Merritt has never known before, making her long for the one thing she can’t have from Keir MacRae: forever. As danger draws closer, she’ll do whatever it takes to save the man she loves . . . even knowing he might be the devil in disguise.

Seven years ago, Mia Briscoe was at a college frat rave with her best friend, Serena, when a fire broke out. Everyone was accounted for except Serena, who was never seen nor heard from again. Now an investigative journalist covering the political scene in New York City, Mia discovers old photos taken the night of Serena’s disappearance and begins to uncover a sinister string of events going all the way back to that disastrous party. Working with Sherlock, the secrets begin to unravel. But some very powerful—and very dangerous—people will do anything to keep them from learning the truth.

CIA Operative Olivia Hildebrandt is a team leader on a mission in Iran to exfiltrate a betrayed undercover operative. She’s nearly killed by an exploding grenade and saved by a team member. But by the time Olivia is released from Walter Reed Hospital, that team member and a critical flash drive he was carrying have disappeared. When Olivia is attacked on her first night home, Savich suspects that the strike is a direct result of the compromised mission and the missing team member and flash drive. But what intelligence was at stake and who betrayed them?

Vanalis is frozen over an unknown hand. The mysterious “snow” that blocks mana and a new species of Fiend throw Alus and the others for a loop! What’s more, the Fiends begin doing something completely unprecedented...working together! Will they be able to accomplish Lettie’s long-cherished goal? What will Alus and the others see in this intensely cold land as they take on a battle never before experienced by humankind? This is the climax of the Vanalis reclamation arc!

Edith Grossman's definitive English translation of the Spanish masterpiece, in an expanded P.S. edition

Widely regarded as one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the adventures of the self-created knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain. You haven't experienced Don Quixote in English until you've read this masterful translation.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

“James Rollins knows adventure.”
—Chicago Sun Times

A sensational early work from “one of the most inventive storytellers writing today” (Lincoln Child)—the third pulse-pounding adventure novel from perennial New York Times bestselling thrill-master James Rollins—Deep Fathom is an extraordinary story of desperate survival and mysterious discoveries. The acclaimed creator of Sigma Force seamlessly combines action, science, lore, and breathtaking suspense in this classic tale of a lost civilization and a wondrous journey to a beguiling world beneath the sea. Part Michael Crichton, part Douglas Preston, part Indiana Jones, yet completely, exhilaratingly Rollins, Deep Fathom is an undersea roller coaster ride that never slows down from the first page through the explosive climax.

• Vital information about grantsmanship in today's ever-changing economic and social climate
• In-depth interviews with funders, nonprofit leaders, and policy makers about the grants process
• A new chapter on how to diversify funding and think "outside the box" when grants are scarce
• Concrete suggestions for developing each section of a proposal
• Hands-on exercises that let you practice what you learn
• A detailed description of important websites for grant seekers
• Strategies for developing and presenting programs that are likely to receive grants