Kaine and Karma 2: Luvin' A Savage


Sha Jones - 2017
     That is until Kaine's ex fiancé Tameka crashes Karma's birthday party and announce that she's pregnant with his baby and has no plans of getting rid of it. After Tameka's pregnancy is confirmed Kaine makes it very clear to her that Karma still has his heart and he's only there to father their child. Tameka on the other hand isn't taking no for an answer so she kicks the baby mama drama up a notch and wreak havoc on Kaine and Karma's relationship by showing up announced, threatening Karma and just making her pregnancy an inconvenience for them. But with the past coming back to haunt both Kaine and Karma Tameka and her baby bump is the least of their worries. Kaine is hiding a deep, dark secret that he hasn't shared with Karma, and not only will it put the both of their lives in danger, it will change the entire course of their relationship. Karma soon realizes that loving Kaine comes with a serious price to pay......one that money can't buy. In this second installment of Kaine and Karma there will be wild turns, unexpected surprises and a plot twist that no one saw coming!

Love And The Game 2


Johnni Sherri - 2018
    While she ultimately decides to let Derrick sweep her off her feet, Plus’ feelings for her never seem to waver. However, when Derrick gets drafted into the NBA and has to relocate hundreds of miles away, Perri is faced with the decision to either stay in Maryland or leave with her fiancé for good. Now that Plus has completely stepped up as a father, the mere mention of Perri taking Camille away leaves him emotionally shattered. But after everything he’s put Perri through is this now his karma? In addition to this love triangle, Tez and Myesha’s relationship goes through its own struggle of sorts. Both of their pasts come back to haunt them, leaving a huge question mark over the survival of their union. While Jorell and Nika make such a cute couple; him with his ‘bama’ ways and her with her quick-witted nature, will the secrets he has buried tear them apart? Find out how what happens when people really do love hard but aren’t fair when playing the game.

Expecting The Plug's First Child


Timkeia - 2020
    

Make Me Beg


Allison Hobbs - 2014
    This unconventional couple was briefly introduced in the steamy bestseller, “No Boundaries” and they’ve returned in this sizzling novella that gives readers a behind the scenes look at their jaw-dropping, sexual adventures. Once a month, the couple departs from their normal marital routine and engages in a kinky threesome where Vanessa selects a hot-looking sex partner to indulge her fantasies while her husband sits back and watches. With a few rules in place, Vanessa and Spike’s open marriage has been a thrilling experience thus far. But when roguishly handsome, Quincy Langford enters the picture, he shakes things up and redefines the rules when he takes the sex game to new heights. If three's a crowd, will one of the men bow out gracefully...or is there always room for one more?

House In Virginia


Tsu Surf - 2019
    Watkins, have collaborated to bring to life for readers the collection of hit songs, "House In Virginia". Money is the root of all evil. It’s the thirst and hunger for money that is the origin of the ills of this world. It’s where our desperate thoughts and shameful actions are buried. Yet, when we are broke is when we have the most diabolical thoughts; when we are willing to break hearts, destroy relationships… and even ruin our own lives. ​ Meet Karen Dunlap and Jovan “Jo” Saint: a young, loving couple living the way that many in their mid-twenties are in hoods of New Jersey. Karen is working a minimum wage job, while Jo hustles on the block with his right-hand, Pop. For the five years that Jo and Karen have been together, Karen has been by Jo’s side no matter his struggle because she sees and believes in her man’s potential. Yet, Karen cannot deny that she wants more, to leave the hood, and live a comfortable life of ease. Jo is desperate to come up in the game, not only for his own comfort but for Karen as well. However, before Jo has the chance to sweep his woman off of her feet, a boss, Kway, easily gains Karen’s attention with the glitz and glam of his lifestyle. However, everything that glitters isn’t gold, and Kway is a dull and ugly, cancerous individual that affects the lives of every woman he touches with his negligence and deceit. ​ Though Karen soon comes to her senses, re-dedicating herself to her man just in time to experience Jo’s long-awaited come up, her decision to step out on her relationship will haunt her forever, proving to be the worst mistake she has ever made. Yet, will it cause her to lose the love of her life for good? Jo is blind to the deceit hovering around him as he and Pop begin the construction of their own empire. He is blindly happy in his newfound riches. Yet, “the more money we come across, the more problems we see”. The rise of Jo and Pop is laced with mayhem, murder, and infidelities that lead to heartbreaking disaster, the loss of lives, and the introduction of new love. Join Tsu Surf, National Bestselling Author, Jessica N. Watkins, and a host of entertaining characters on this mind-boggling, roller coaster ride of a street love story.

Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life


Eric Klinenberg - 2018
     We are living in a time of deep divisions. Americans are sorting themselves along racial, religious, and cultural lines, leading to a level of polarization that the country hasn't seen since the Civil War. Pundits and politicians are calling for us to come together, to find common purpose. But how, exactly, can this be done?In Palaces for the People, Eric Klinenberg suggests a way forward. He believes that the future of democratic societies rests not simply on shared values but on shared spaces: the libraries, childcare centers, bookstores, churches, synagogues, and parks where crucial, sometimes life-saving connections, are formed. These are places where people gather and linger, making friends across group lines and strengthening the entire community. Klinenberg calls this the "social infrastructure" When it is strong, neighborhoods flourish; when it is neglected, as it has been in recent years, families and individuals must fend for themselves.Klinenberg takes us around the globe--from a floating school in Bangladesh to an arts incubator in Chicago, from a soccer pitch in Queens to an evangelical church in Houston--to show how social infrastructure is helping to solve some of our most pressing challenges: isolation, crime, education, addiction, political polarization, and even climate change.Richly reported, elegantly written, and ultimately uplifting, Palaces for the People urges us to acknowledge the crucial role these spaces play in civic life. Our social infrastructure could be the key to bridging our seemingly unbridgeable divides--and safeguarding democracy.

Philosophy and the Event


Alain Badiou - 2009
    Responding to Tarby's questions, Badiou takes us on a journey that interrogates and explores the four conditions of philosophy: politics, love, art and science. In all these domains, events occur that bring to light possibilities that were invisible or even unthinkable; they propose something to us. Everything then depends on how the possibility opened up by the event is grasped, elaborated and embedded in the world - this is what Badiou calls a 'truth procedure'. The event creates a possibility but there then has to be an effort - a group effort in the case of politics, an individual effort in the case of love or art - for this possibility to become real and inscribed in the world. As he explains his thinking on politics, love, art and science, Badiou takes stock of his major works, reflects on their central themes and arguments and looks forward to the questions he plans to address in his future writings. The book concludes with a short introduction to Badiou's philosophy by Fabien Tarby. For anyone wishing to understand the work of one of the most widely read and influential philosophers writing today, this small book will be an indispensable guide.

Securing the Heart of A Bully


Kennedy B. - 2020
    

Loving a Heartless Felon


Jade Jones - 2016
    Popping up at her crib uninvited, beating up on her little brother, and driving a car through her house were just a few of the things she experienced since their breakup. Life was miserable before Apollo came out of nowhere and rescued her. He's everything she ever wanted in a partner, and she loves him for building up her self-esteem and providing for her family. Life is perfect, but things suddenly take a turn for the worse after he's arrested for the murder of Trip. Further tension arises once Liberty discovers that Apollo is a contract killer. After he's released, she somehow finds herself trying to convince him not to kill his next target--who's ironically her little cousin's boyfriend. Shayla never thought she'd fall in love and marry the outlaw her mama warned her about. Regardless of their past differences, she's determined to make it work with Romeo. Can they overcome their many obstacles in spite of enemies lurking in the shadows? Kendall Rivers is a 23-year old good girl from the suburbs, who's always lived her life on the straight and narrow. However, everything changes the moment she meets head of a ruthless gang known worldwide as The Heartless Felons. Sexy, charming, and swag on a thousand, Quay is every female's dream and every father's worst nightmare. Despite his bad boy reputation, Kendall still finds herself falling head over heels in love. But there's only one problem... Quay is hiding a deep, dark secret that could potentially put their lives in jeopardy. Will this unlikely couple triumph? Or will Quay's reckless ways and dangerous lifestyle lead to their demise? SCROLL UP TO GRAB YOUR COPY OF THE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED FLAWLESS SPIN-OFF!

Still Anonymous


Shataya Simms - 2017
     Betrayed by one of her most trusted friend’s, pop-star Aneesah “Anì” Bradshaw is left fighting for her freedom in the court of law. Catching a break, she is released from prison but pays the ultimate price of losing the love of her life. Now shunned by the media and critics alike, Aneesah is left to pick up the pieces of her fallen career. Going out on a whim and doing things her way, she regains her popularity in the music industry but struggles with the loneliness that seems to be embedded in her heart. Rekindling an old flame, life seems to finally fall back into place for the pop-princess; however, a dark secret looms over her head, jeopardizing her relationship. Hit with a life-altering tragedy that shatters her world, Aneesah gives up her career, isolates herself from loved ones, and ultimately spirals out of control, leading her down a dark, twisted path of self-destruction.

Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution


Janette Sadik-Khan - 2016
    Her approach was dramatic and effective: Simply painting a part of the street to make it into a plaza or bus lane not only made the street safer, but it also lessened congestion and increased foot traffic, which improved the bottom line of businesses. Real-life experience confirmed that if you know how to read the street, you can make it function better by not totally reconstructing it but by reallocating the space that’s already there.      Breaking the street into its component parts, Streetfight demonstrates, with step-by-step visuals, how to rewrite the underlying “source code” of a street, with pointers on how to add protected bike paths, improve crosswalk space, and provide visual cues to reduce speeding. Achieving such a radical overhaul wasn’t easy, and Streetfight pulls back the curtain on the battles Sadik-Khan won to make her approach work. She includes examples of how this new way to read the streets has already made its way around the world, from pocket parks in Mexico City and Los Angeles to more pedestrian-friendly streets in Auckland and Buenos Aires, and innovative bike-lane designs and plazas in Austin, Indianapolis, and San Francisco. Many are inspired by the changes taking place in New York City and are based on the same techniques. Streetfight deconstructs, reassembles, and reinvents the street, inviting readers to see it in ways they never imagined.

The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream


Christopher B. Leinberger - 2007
    In The Option of Urbanism visionary developer and strategist Christopher B. Leinberger explains why government policies have tilted the playing field toward one form of development over the last sixty years: the drivable suburb. Rooted in the driving forces of the economy—car manufacturing and the oil industry—this type of growth has fostered the decline of community, contributed to urban decay, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and contributed to the rise in obesity and asthma.   Highlighting both the challenges and the opportunities for this type of development, The Option of Urbanism shows how the American Dream is shifting to include cities as well as suburbs and how the financial and real estate communities need to respond to build communities that are more environmentally, socially, and financially sustainable.

Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World


Wade Graham - 2016
    It tells the stories of the real architects and thinkers whose imagined cities became the blueprints for the world we live in.From the nineteenth century to today, what began as visionary concepts—sometimes utopian, sometimes outlandish, always controversial—were gradually adopted and constructed on a massive scale in cities around the world, from Dubai to Ulan Bator to London to Los Angeles. Wade Graham uses the lives of the pivotal dreamers behind these concepts, as well as their acolytes and antagonists, to deconstruct our urban landscapes—the houses, towers, civic centers, condominiums, shopping malls, boulevards, highways, and spaces in between—exposing the ideals and ideas embodied in each.From the baroque fantasy villages of Bertram Goodhue to the superblocks of Le Corbusier’s Radiant City to the pseudo-agrarian dispersal of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, our upscale leafy suburbs, downtown skyscraper districts, infotainment-driven shopping malls, and “sustainable” eco-developments are seen as never before. In this elegantly designed and illustrated book, Graham uncovers the original plans of brilliant, obsessed, and sometimes megalomaniacal designers, revealing the foundations of today’s varied municipalities. Dream Cities is nothing less than a field guide to our modern urban world.Illustrated with 59 black-and-white photos throughout the text.

A History of Future Cities


Daniel Brook - 2013
    Pouring into developing-world “instant cities” like Dubai and Shenzhen, these urban newcomers confront a modern world cobbled together from fragments of a West they have never seen. Do these fantastical boomtowns, where blueprints spring to life overnight on virgin land, represent the dawning of a brave new world? Or is their vaunted newness a mirage?In a captivating blend of history and reportage, Daniel Brook travels to a series of major metropolitan hubs that were once themselves instant cities— St. Petersburg, Shanghai, and Mumbai—to watch their “dress rehearsals for the twenty-first century.” Understanding today’s emerging global order, he argues, requires comprehending the West’s profound and conflicted influence on developing-world cities over the centuries.In 1703, Tsar Peter the Great personally oversaw the construction of a new Russian capital, a “window on the West” carefully modeled on Amsterdam, that he believed would wrench Russia into the modern world. In the nineteenth century, Shanghai became the fastest-growing city on earth as it mushroomed into an English-speaking, Western-looking metropolis that just happened to be in the Far East. Meanwhile, Bombay, the cosmopolitan hub of the British Raj, morphed into a tropical London at the hands of its pith-helmeted imperialists.Juxtaposing the stories of the architects and authoritarians, the artists and revolutionaries who seized the reins to transform each of these precociously modern places into avatars of the global future, Brook demonstrates that the drive for modernization was initially conflated with wholesale Westernization. He shows, too, the ambiguous legacy of that emulation—the birth (and rebirth) of Chinese capitalism in Shanghai, the origins of Bollywood in Bombay’s American-style movie palaces, the combustible mix of revolutionary culture and politics that rocked the Russian capital—and how it may be transcended today.A fascinating, vivid look from the past out toward the horizon, A History of Future Cities is both a crucial reminder of globalization’s long march and an inspiring look into the possibilities of our Asian Century.

Soft City: Building Density for Everyday Life


David Sim - 2019
    Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life. How do we move from the current reality in most cites—separated uses and lengthy commutes in single-occupancy vehicles that drain human, environmental, and community resources—to support a soft city approach?   In Soft City David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl, shows how this is possible, presenting ideas and graphic examples from around the globe. He draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions.   Sim shows that increasing density is not enough. The soft city must consider the organization and layout of the built environment for more fluid movement and comfort, a diversity of building types, and thoughtful design to ensure a sustainable urban environment and society.  Soft City begins with the big ideas of happiness and quality of life, and then shows how they are tied to the way we live. The heart of the book is highly visual and shows the building blocks for neighborhoods: building types and their organization and orientation; how we can get along as we get around a city; and living with the weather. As every citizen deals with the reality of a changing climate, Soft City explores how the built environment can adapt and respond.  Soft City offers inspiration, ideas, and guidance for anyone interested in city building. Sim shows how to make any city more efficient, more livable, and better connected to the environment.