Beautii is left to fend for herself after her parents die, and her brother Jordin is sent to prison. With a baby to take care of and no one to depend on but herself, she starts working at a strip club. Lauren Green is Beautii’s best friend and one of the only people that she can count on. But Lauren has her own sordid past that has turned her heart cold. Disowned by her parent’s after revealing a scandalous secret, the only person she has to turn to is Beautii. Javian “Teach” McKnight is the head boss on the streets of Miami, and is as ruthless as they come. A night out with his home boys unexpectedly leaves him infatuated with Lauren. Never one to have been in love, he doesn’t know what to make of his feelings. Will they be good for each other? Or, is this relationship doomed from the start? Carter “Magic” McKnight is new to the Miami area, just moving there from Texas to be closer to his brother Teach. Left to raise his daughter on his own when his girlfriend disappeared without a trace, Miami is a good move for him. His first day in town he meets Beautii and is momentarily left speechless. Their lives are entangled and these four form bonds that can’t be broken. But things change when Beautii’s brother is released from prison. Someone is out to get Magic, but who? For Beautii things aren’t as they seem and a blast from the past is lurking in the shadows. Lies, deceit, secrets, murder and more come to light. Will bonds be broken or will these couples be able to stand the test of time?

    She’s happy to be back in Darius’ arms and spend time with her girl Draya after being confined. Things were starting to change, but her luck soon changes when she realizes that Carl isn’t through with her. Bodies start turning up dead, and not only is Tiffany in danger again but so is Darius, and anybody that comes in contact with her. Carl is beyond the point of stalking and won’t stop until Tiffany is dead. He is now out for blood and Tiffany soon finds out how sick and twisted her ex best friend truly is. Carl is so wicked that Tiffany wishes that she was back in jail or dead.

    He never had a place to call home. While camping out one night, hoping to find the next town, he had a feeling he was being watched. He ignored his instincts and went to sleep to wake up in the morning with a splitting headache from being hit on the head, and his horse, food, and saddlebags stolen. Following the footsteps left behind by the thieves, he found it led to a cabin and to a patchwork family in dire need of help. Sadie Carman lost her pa and took in two boys and a little girl that needed her to care for them. The boys were a trial, but she loved them like her own children. When Stryker Steele showed up at her door and told her that someone stole his horse and belongings, she was worried the boys had something to do with it. She agreed to let him stay until he could figure out what to do, but she never figured that he would give them a Christmas like they never had and forgive the boys for what they did. She worried Stryker would leave and she wished he'd stay forever.

    Kadris and Kadrick are fraternal twin brothers and the sons of an infamous drug Lord that goes by the name of Kendrick. Practically being handed the keys to the city, the guys feel unstoppable until they meet Unique and Jewels. The two girls are in a league all of their own and like a moth to a flame, Kadris and Kadrick are captivated with them. Growing up with a bougie mother that sheltered her daughter, Unique couldn’t help but to grow up prissy and be green to the street life. But, when she links up with Kadrick she is introduced to a whole new world where she will have to learn how to stand on her own two feet. Jewels wants nothing more than to open up and give Kadris her all, but the strained relationship she has with her mother causes her to keep up a guard. A guard of this kind may even steer Kadris in another direction. When a chamber full of bullets are assigned to Kadris and Kadrick, Unique and Jewels are put to the ultimate test. Will they continue to hold their niggas down? Or, will they end up six feet under right next to their men?

    Both sisters are teen parents with half-ass baby fathers, and both with the urge to provide the best life for their daughters. When jealousy comes poking around, some lines are crossed, rumors are spread and all bets are off. London is faced with the betrayal of her older sister, India, and stirs up the perfect formula for revenge. Blood isn't always as thick as you think!

    In Naked Airport, critic Alastair Gordon ranges from global geopolitics to action movies to the daily commute, showing how airports have changed our sense of time, distance, style, and even the way cities are built and business is done. Gordon introduces the people who shaped this place of sudden transition: pilots like Charles Lindberg, architects like Eero Saarinen, politicians like Fiorello La Guardia, and Hitler, who built Berlin’s Tempelhof as a showcase for Fascist power. He describes the airport’s futuristic contributions, such as credit cards, in the form of fly-now-pay-later schemes, and he charts its shift in popular perception, from glamorous to infuriating. Finally, he analyzes the airport’s function in war and peace—its gatekeeper role controlling immigration, its appeal to revolutionaries since the hijackings of the 1960s, and its new frontline position in the struggle against terror.Compelling and accessible, Naked Airport is an original history of a long-neglected yet central creation of modern reality and imagination.

    It’s not just that the grid has grown old and is now in dire need of basic repair. Today, as we invest great hope in new energy sources--solar, wind, and other alternatives--the grid is what stands most firmly in the way of a brighter energy future. If we hope to realize this future, we need to re-imagine the grid according to twenty-first-century values. It’s a project which forces visionaries to work with bureaucrats, legislators with storm-flattened communities, moneymen with hippies, and the left with the right. And though it might not yet be obvious, this revolution is already well under way.Cultural anthropologist Gretchen Bakke unveils the many facets of America's energy infrastructure, its most dynamic moments and its most stable ones, and its essential role in personal and national life. The grid, she argues, is an essentially American artifact, one which developed with us: a product of bold expansion, the occasional foolhardy vision, some genius technologies, and constant improvisation. Most of all, her focus is on how Americans are changing the grid right now, sometimes with gumption and big dreams and sometimes with legislation or the brandishing of guns.The Grid tells--entertainingly, perceptively--the story of what has been called “the largest machine in the world”: its fascinating history, its problematic present, and its potential role in a brighter, cleaner future.

    This is the story of how these two men - separated in age by forty years - discovered the existence of the electromagnetic field and devised a radically new theory which overturned the strictly mechanical view of the world that had prevailed since Newton's time.The authors, veteran science writers with special expertise in physics and engineering, have created a lively narrative that interweaves rich biographical detail from each man's life with clear explanations of their scientific accomplishments. Faraday was an autodidact, who overcame class prejudice and a lack of mathematical training to become renowned for his acute powers of experimental observation, technological skills, and prodigious scientific imagination. James Clerk Maxwell was highly regarded as one of the most brilliant mathematical physicists of the age. He made an enormous number of advances in his own right. But when he translated Faraday's ideas into mathematical language, thus creating field theory, this unified framework of electricity, magnetism and light became the basis for much of later, 20th-century physics.Faraday's and Maxwell's collaborative efforts gave rise to many of the technological innovations we take for granted today - from electric power generation to television, and much more. Told with panache, warmth, and clarity, this captivating story of their greatest work - in which each played an equal part - and their inspiring lives will bring new appreciation to these giants of science.

    Instead, it tells you-and shows you-what basic and advanced electronics parts and components do, and how they work. Chock-full of illustrations, Practical Electronics for Inventors offers over 750 hand-drawn images that provide clear, detailed instructions that can help turn theoretical ideas into real-life inventions and gadgets.

    Handsome Rancher Gunther Marlboro washed his hands of Lee Ann the day she left him behind but now she’s back looking defeated by the world. Can Gunther show Lee Ann how to trust again and most importantly how to love again?

    

    It seems as if Reni is two steps ahead of them and the clock is ticking. With only a week to get her back, Keys is running out of options as he scrambles to find any leads that will lead him to his dear Victoria before it is too late. Just when all hope is lost Monica shows up to lend a helping hand. She has a beef of her own to squash, but is she friend or foe. As if things couldn’t get any worse Born drops in town bringing drama of his own to the table. In the fourth installment of Coke Dreams nothing is what it seems… forget what you thought you knew and prepare yourself to shocked, shaken and dragged all over as emotions run wild. See if love is enough to save these relationships while loyalties are tested, friendships are broken and once again love hangs in the balance.

    It will enable making a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment. ‘Patterns,’ the units of this language, are answers to design problems: how high should a window sill be?; how many stories should a building have?; how much space in a neighborhood should be devoted to grass and trees?More than 250 of the patterns in this language are outlined, each consisting of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seems likely that they will be a part of human nature and human action as much in five hundred years as they are today.A Pattern Language is related to Alexander’s other works in the Center for Environmental Structure series: The Timeless Way of Building (introductory volume) and The Oregon Experiment.

    In the coming years, we will make decisions regarding our human spaceflight program that will lead to one of two familiar futures: the open universe of "Star Trek, "where we allow ourselves the opportunity to spread our wings and attempt to flourish as an interplanetary species--or the closed, dystopian, and ultimately self-destructive world of "Soylent Green." If we ever hope to live in the future that is the former scenario, our first stepping stone must be a manned mission to Mars. In this four-part e-special, Dr. Robert Zubrin details the challenges of a manned Earth-to-Mars mission. Challenges which, according to Zubrin, we are technologically more prepared to overcome than the obstacles of the missions to the moon of the sixties and seventies. Dr. Zubrin's relatively simple plan, called Mars Direct, could feasibly have humans on the surface of Mars within a decade. Zubrin also discusses the current predicament of NASA, the promise of privatized space flight from companies like SpaceX, and the larger implication behind the absolute necessity to open the final frontier to humanity--the human race's future as a species that takes the necessary baby steps away from the cradle that is planet Earth or, ultimately, perishes here.

    From quick fixes to bigger commitments and long-term strategies, Ed will help you make changes in every part of your life.And if you think living green has to mean compromising on aesthetics or comfort, fear not; Ed's wife, Rachelle, insists on style–with a conscience. In Living Like Ed, his environmentalism and her design savvy combine to create a guide to going green that keeps the chic in eco-chic. From recycling more materials than you ever thought possible to composting without raising a stink to buying an electric car, Living Like Ed is packed with ideas–from obvious to ingenious–that will help you live green, live responsibly, live well. Like Ed.