Set after a bank begins implementing a new retail banking strategy, we follow Teresa García Ramírez de Arroyo, a director general in the Mexican government, who has received some disturbing news.A whistleblower has emailed Teresa with troubling news about a mistake in the loan default calculations and reserve ratios. The numbers do not add up.The book loosely uses the logic and financial analyses in A Typical McKinsey Engagement.Our business books are different.Most people learn business because they are forced to, for their careers or to earn a larger salary. Most business books are, consequently, boring and dense. They have little incentive to be interesting because they have a captive market. Many avoid a business career because the books are presented as a hurdle to be overcome. We wondered what would happen if we made business books interesting, so people chose to read them? Would we draw more people into business? Would we generate more enthusiasm and excitement for business at a younger age?This book teaches advanced business concepts through a compelling storyline. This new genre of our books is written not only for people already interested in business but also for people who may not realize they have an interest or talent for business. Clients always request gift ideas for their children, spouses, friends, and families to get them interested in business and critical thinking. In part, this is our response to those requests.We want you to learn advanced critical thinking without realizing you are learning. We hope you will enjoy it, too.We believe the more people who find business interesting and choose to learn business, the better it is for everyone. Businesses will have a larger pool of employees from whom to select and more of the right people will be choosing the discipline to improve humanity versus simply to make more money.Imagine the advantage your children will have if they learned critical thinking in high school, or even before high school? Imagine if you had that advantage? Imagine if you had learned strategy alongside science and math in high school? The possibilities would be endless. It all starts with the right books. And it’s never too late to start.If learning is engaging, it will stop being a chore.

    In fact, she is downright furious. Riley’s only visited Carver a handful of times. She barely knows her family that lives there and she has no desire to spend her senior year among the backward, simpleminded residents of Carver. Reluctantly though, her views begin to change, despite her encounters with Adrienne, a girl Riley quickly realizes is determined to make her life miserable, when she meets Alex Bettencourt. Alex is popular and gorgeous and Riley’s never seen brown eyes quite like his before. While Riley couldn’t be happier, she knows Jesse, her best friend in Carver, isn’t sure of her new relationship with Alex. She soon finds a balance between Alex and her friends though and life in Carver doesn’t seem so bad after all, even if her relationship with her mother is rocky at best. Just when Riley thinks she might be happy in Carver, a single decision changes it all, leaving her to find out who she really is and who matters most in her life before she loses everything.

     After her fiancé’s death, Brenna Keelin travels to England, stumbles up hidden stairs in a cathedral and comes out in 1871 Yorkshire. To keep from starving, she becomes a servant in a great estate. More than anything she wants to return to her modern life, especially in time for her sister's wedding, but falling in love has changed everything. Lord Garren Buntingford left Scotland to take over an earldom. He has a lot to learn about the subtleties of being an aristocrat—and a title he never wanted. He desires to return to his vast farm and family in Scotland until a beautiful housemaid is injured by a horse and he carries her back to the estate where she works in his arms. Brenna must hide the truth about where she is from and find her purpose for being sent through time before the stairs will open again. But soon discovers that her calling is to help Lord Garren marry an aristocratic wife. Her heart is torn between fulfilling her call and a desperate passion for a braw Scotsman that society says she can never have. Both must choose between the home they long for and a forbidden love, between duty and devotion, the upstairs and the downstairs, all under the roof of Dunstable Park House.

    Carol Shields' first novels, "Small Ceremonies" and "The Box Garden," each told from the viewpoint of a sister, published as one.

    One of the guys to the rest of the world. With that comes constant fights with her mom when it comes to wearing dresses and makeup. To her, it’s a waste of time. Time she would rather use at the skate park and hanging out with her best friend Spencer. Well, that was her outlook until she bumps into her longtime crush at a wedding. Now she’s made it her mission to get him to notice her before he graduates and moves out of state. No matter the cost. Even if it comes with dresses. Spencer Hendricks has spent the better part of his teenage years trying to ignore the growing crush on his best friend, Rylee. He can’t go there—won’t jeopardize their friendship. Everything seems to be going according to plan until his parents drop the bombshell of a divorce and Rylee asks him to help score the attention of one of the most popular seniors at school. Now he’s faced with the possibility of moving to another state mid-year and his best friend ditching him all at the same time. With their lives seemingly headed in different directions, will they lose what they have always known, or find something neither of them expected?

    

    And somehow, Keeley Shipley fit perfectly into their world. But when Keeley spends the summer in England, she comes home changed, haunted by a dark memory. As she and Nadio fall in love, they try to hide it from Noelle, who's jealously guarding a secret of her own. Slowly, a life-long friendship begins to crack under the crushing weight of past trauma, guarded secrets, jealousy, obsession . . . and an unexpected love that could destroy them.

    Anna Lawrence, nineteen and inspired by Lord Byron’s poems, is determined to seek a life of travel and adventure. Both decide to flee society. They meet when Giles rescues Anna from her first escapade. Anna is resolute in demonstrating her independence but, somehow, she always ends up in trouble. His own pleasures forgotten, Giles rescues her from one potential disaster after another. He knows he cannot live without her, but he meets an unexpected obstacle, for Anna has a secret that means she can never be more than a friend to the man she has come to love with all her heart... Is there any way for their love to prevail? Beth Elliott was born in Lancashire, but fell in love with books during many childhood visits to her Welsh grandparents, whose bookshelves were always well stocked. Her greatest discovery was the novels of Jane Austen, which have fascinated her ever since. Having first taught languages in various countries across the globe, Beth eventually decided to write her own novels. Her previous books The Wild Card, In All Honour and April and May were also published by Robert Hale and you can learn more about her on her website: www.bethelliott.webs.com.

    No, she's not a vampire, werewolf, or some super hero. But she can use her whole brain to function. Lindsay knows everything about everything. She has a perfect, photographic memory, and she has mastered every single sport under the sun. She graduated high school when she was seven. Yah, seven.But now, Lindsay's mom is forcing her back into high school so she can live a normal teenage life. Too bad the only thing that Lindsay can't do is fit in.

    In fact, for years he’s had a lousy social life because of a problem he has with his anger—a force he calls “the venom.” Ever since he was eight years old and bit off a piece of a classmate’s nose, he’s been something of a loner.But all that is about to change when he goes out with his one friend, Randall, to meet some of Randall’s crew hanging out at Riverside Park. Because in addition to meeting his kindred spirit, Casey—who has his own problems with his own kind of venom—Locke meets the spikey blue fairy-haircut Goth girl of his dreams. And if their relationship is going to work, he knows he has to rid himself of the venom once and for all.Interspersed with comic book adventures of the fantasy anti-hero alter-ego Locke has invented for himself, Venomous is a fast-paced, funny, and ferocious read about one teenage boy’s struggle with his inner demons.

    Her PR firm has a roster of A-list clients, including the sexy and unpredictable Simon O'Neal. But Simon, who's just been through a turbulent divorce, won't cooperate, so she drops him—and he retaliates by taking the rest of her clients with him. Desperate to save her company, Gail makes a deal with Simon. What he wants is custody of his son, but that's going to require a whole new image. He needs to marry some squeaky-clean girl like Gail, who'll drag him off to some small, obscure place like Whiskey Creek…WHEN SNOW FALLSAfter growing up in cheap motels, moving from town to town with her sister and mother, Cheyenne Christensen is grateful to be on her own. She's grateful, too, for the friends she found once her family settled in California. But she's troubled by the mystery of her earliest memories, most of which feature a smiling blonde woman. A woman who isn't her mother. She’s determined to find answers—but things get even more complicated when she lands right in the arms of Dylan Amos, oldest and baddest of the hell-raising Amos brothers. He's exactly the kind of guy she's sworn to avoid. But…maybe there's more to Dylan than she thought. Maybe letting him go would be a bigger mistake.WHEN SUMMER COMESOne day, Callie Vanetta receives devastating news. She needs a liver transplant. But her doctors warn that, in her case, the chances of finding a compatible donor aren't good. Determined to spend whatever time she has left on her own terms, she keeps the diagnosis to herself and moves out to her late grandparents' farm. One night, a stranger comes knocking at her door. He's an attractive and mysterious drifter by the name of Levi McCloud, and he offers to trade work for shelter. Callie figures she doesn't have anything to lose. He needs a temporary place to stay; she needs an extra pair of hands. Then she realizes she does have something to lose—her heart. And…you're invited to a wedding in Whiskey Creek in this special bonus novella, WHEN WE TOUCH! Whiskey Creek—a town you’ll love! Find out why…

    But when she meets the enigmatic Atticus Smith, she begins to question her very identity - maybe she wasn't born to be bad after all.

    Someone is sending her anonymous notes, and each one reveals more about a mystery that changes her life forever.Stead’s debut novel, First Light, is a dazzling tale of science, secrets, and adventure at the top of the world. While on a research expedition with his family, Peter discovers a hidden world beneath the arctic ice of Greenland, and meets Thea, a bold explorer.

    Though they hide it from themselves, their thoughts and memories reveal the spiteful, long-buried motivations behind seemingly innocent actions. The masks finally drop during an eight-course meal on a celebratory trip to Copenhagen, revealing undisguised fear and loathing. Shocking secrets are unearthed as the balance of power subtly shifts from one to the other. Brilliantly observed, this is female bonding at its worst, manipulative, and psychotic, exposing the dependency and deceit behind the compassionate and affectionate facade.

    Miles Bannon works hard and strives to be fair; he enjoys his popularity with students -- a bit too much, sometimes -- but overall he is a good man. When he witnesses a group of students picking on one boy in the shower after football practice, he is suddenly forced to balance his responsibility for the situation with the unexpectedly intimate glimpse he now has of them. And when the victim begins to cling to him in the face of his own father's rejection, Miles finds it perhaps too welcome a feeling. Then comes an accusation of impropriety that will destroy his career -- and transform his life, and who he thought he was, forever.