Louis Kingpin, King David, has left a vacuum in the underworld. He leaves behind his vast empire to his surviving heirs, David Jr. and Davita. Born barely ten minutes apart, they were raised very differently.David Jr. is college educated. His mother always pushed him to do the best he could so he could one day legitimize and run the East St. Louis crime family. She thinks she's above and beyond the game. All she wants is the money that she believes she and her son are due.She taught Davita a different set of rules. Davita has been raised to use anybody and everything to get that money by any means necessary. She has embraced the business of the streets, and she is ready to ascend to the throne that her father has unexpectedly left behind.The question remains: will the family ties that bind keep the family together, or will sex, greed, drugs, and their mother's divisive ways tear it all to hell, bringing St. Louis down with them? David Jr. and Davita have decisions to make!

    So when she meets Lloyd AKA Black, a rich street king who ruthlessly runs Atlanta and everything in it, she has no problem shedding her good girl image to be his coke-addicted ride or die. But there is one problem---his wife Dior who Lloyd is NOT divorcing although he tells Keisha a different story. After a turn of events that almost ends in bloodshed for Lloyd and Dior at her hands, Keisha swears to never do coke again, goes back to the stripclub, and takes back her job as a bartender. And it is there that she meets Trigga...Trigga is a boss nigga with an attitude. He's all business and making money but he has a mean, sexy swag that makes him effortlessly attract women. One night, he's in Pink Lips when he sees Keisha, but he's not there for pleasure...he's there for business. And his business involves putting a bullet straight through Lloyd's skull. What he soon finds is that Lloyd won't be an easy mark and one mistake ends up placing him and Keisha in the hospital fighting for their lives. When Trigga wakes up, the first person on his mind is Keisha--the woman he met who he now feels obligated to protect. And Kiesha is all too ready to allow him to do so as long as she can keep her best kept secrets regarding Lloyd underwraps.Dior Mitchell-Evans has been cheated on one to many times by her husband, Lloyd, and she decides once and for all that she won't continue to take it lying down. So she enlists the only man she knows just might love her more than Lloyd to help her with her plans...Lloyd's cousin, Kenyon. Although Kenyon and Lloyd were raised like brothers, Kenyon can't hide the fact that he's loved Dior throughout the years and he won't stand by idly any longer as Lloyd continues to use and abuse her.Love and betrayal sometimes fall hand in hand. But when you fall in love in the streets, you can guarantee that betrayal will soon come. This isn't the typical 'good girl meets thug' tale. This is classic romance meets thug love and it will leave you wanting more.

    Jacobs pinpoints five pillars of our culture that are in serious decay: community and family; higher education; the effective practice of science; taxation, and government; and the self-regulation of the learned professions. The corrosion of these pillars, Jacobs argues, is linked to societal ills such as environmental crisis, racism, and the growing gulf between rich and poor. But this is a hopeful book as well as a warning. Drawing on her vast frame of reference–from fifteenth-century Chinese shipbuilding to Ireland’s cultural rebirth–Jacobs suggests how the cycles of decay can be arrested and our way of life renewed. Invigorating and accessible, Dark Age Ahead is not only the crowning achievement of Jane Jacobs’ career, but one of the most important works of our time.

    The resulting cost? Today we see sprawling cities that are better suited to cars than people and a nationwide fleet of motor vehicles that consume one-eighth of the world's total oil production. Donald Shoup contends in The High Cost of Free Parking that parking is sorely misunderstood and mismanaged by planners, architects, and politicians. He proposes new ways for cities to regulate parking so that Americans can stop paying for free parking's hidden costs.

    Comprised of three beautiful ladies, the sexy all-girl group So Fine has got it all — voice, magnetism, great songs — and drive. There's just one thing missing — and Nina can supply it.Jamil is not only Nina's ex-boyfriend — he's a mega-hit producer with a hot new label: Suicide Records. Nina is sure she can get Jamil to sign So Fine. She's always been able to count on him — though lately, he's been acting a little strange. Maybe it's because he's still got a thing for Nina, even though she's married now. Or maybe it's the influence of his new partner-in-crime, Xtreme, baseball's first bad boy and Suicide's first artist. Whatever it is, Nina has laid a big chunk of her own personal funds on the line, and there's no turning back now.But soon, everything seems to spiral out of control. Egos clash, hearts — and promises — are broken.

    Essence Bestselling Author Brenda Hampton presents Don't Even Go There, the story of Chase Jenkins, a troublemaking, backstabbing diva, who will stop at nothing to get what she wants, even going after her boss's husband.

    He is forced to make a number of decisions that will change his life. Choosing school over the mean Detroit's Eastside streets, the sudden reality of his poor circumstances make him painfully aware of the fortunes that can be made if he embarks on the career path of a hustler. Deciding that he wants to be a baller, Dre meets and forms an alliance with an older, very beautiful female named Destiny. Unbeknownst to him, she had a secret and motive that draws her to him, which causes her to assist him in making all of his plans reality. Dre and his closest friends will create a clique called the Eastside Syndicate and set a hustle in motion like Detroit has never seen. No one else in the city will be able to compete with the murder and muscle game that they release upon the streets. However, when he falls in love with another and finds himself at odds with Destiny, the beautiful temptress who helped to make his dreams come true will stop at nothing to bring Dre and the organization that he created to its knees. Dre has everything that a hustler could ever want. Only when the tide turns, he will quickly realize that the dream life he once lived was no more than a nightmare in disguise.

    Enduring hardship after hardship, and constant tragedies, has drained any hope of having a better life from the beauty. After one traumatic event in particular, Camarih realizes that life will never be what she wants it to, and expects nothing less than good old misfortune. Even her R&B singing boyfriend has become the worst decision she's ever made. And just when Camarih believes life can't get any worse, she unveils a mind blowing secret about the people she thought loved and cared for her, only proving her bad luck theory correct. Mentally, she has given up, until she meets the ignorant, disrespectful, and intimidating Tony Wacko. Knowing as soon as they meet that he is not her type, despite his extremely good-looking exterior, Camarih puts the brash hood boy to the back of her mind. However, Tony has other plans for her. Tony Wacko or Leimert Park's finest, is an ill-mannered, off-kilter, pure unadulterated hood boy, with the sexy looks to match. Ever wondered what a brother straight from the ghetto was like? It's Wacko. He's as ignorant as it gets, but with the same amount of intelligence. Since middle school, he's always had to fend for himself, and getting swallowed up by the hood life has hardened him to seemingly beyond repair. He cares for nothing and no one outside of his money, and a few family members to an extent. Things start to shift when the handsome hard-hearted Tony meets the much softer and sweeter Camarih. For a woman who needs love, the last thing she wants is a man who is incapable of giving it. Will Tony's callous and rude behavior push the gentile spirit that is Camarih away? Or will she be able to soften the brutal, uncivil, and reckless hood? In this urban love story filled with betrayal, jealousy, shocking revelations, and forbidden obsessions, will the good girl and extra rude bad boy be able to develop a true love? Or will Camarih's negative outlook on life and love, continue to be true? But how easy is it for her to walk away when she gave him her all, and when there wasn't much left to begin with?

    In this dramatic page-turner from the author of "Deep Deception," a family is reunited 10 years after the murder of their father, and each member is struggling with his or her own demons.

    Laughlin transports us two centuries into the future, when we've ceased to use carbon from the ground--either because humans have banned carbon burning or because fuel has simply run out. Boldly, Laughlin predicts no earth-shattering transformations will have taken place. Six generations from now, there will still be soccer moms, shopping malls, and business trips. Firesides will still be snug and warm.How will we do it? Not by discovering a magic bullet to slay our energy problems, but through a slew of fascinating technologies, drawing on wind, water, and fire. Powering the Future is an objective yet optimistic tour through alternative fuel sources, set in a world where we've burned every last drop of petroleum and every last shovelful of coal.The Predictable: Fossil fuels will run out. The present flow of crude oil out of the ground equals in one day the average flow of the Mississippi River past New Orleans in thirteen minutes. If you add the energy equivalents of gas and coal, it's thirty-six minutes. At the present rate of consumption, we'll be out of fossil fuels in two centuries' time. We always choose the cheapest gas. From the nineteenth-century consolidation of the oil business to the California energy crisis of 2000-2001, the energy business has shown, time and again, how low prices dominate market share. Market forces--not green technology--will be the driver of energy innovation in the next 200 years. The laws of physics remain fixed. Energy will still be conserved, degrade entropically with use, and have to be disposed of as waste heat into outer space. How much energy a fuel can pack away in a given space is fixed by quantum mechanics--and if we want to keep flying jet planes, we will need carbon-based fuels. The Potential: Animal waste. If dried and burned, the world's agricultural manure would supply about one-third as much energy as all the coal we presently consume. Trash. The United States disposes of 88 million tons of carbon in its trash per year. While the incineration of waste trash is not enough to contribute meaningfully to the global demand for energy, it will constrain fuel prices by providing a cheap supply of carbon. Solar energy. The power used to light all the cities around the world is only one-millionth of the total power of sunlight pouring down on earth's daytime side. And the amount of hydropump storage required to store the world's daily electrical surge is equal to only eight times the volume of Lake Mead. PRAISE FOR ROBERT B. LAUGHLIN -Perhaps the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Richard Feynman---George Chapline, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory -Powerful but controversial.--- Financial Times -[Laughlin's] company ... is inspirational.- --New Scientist

    Local gangster Dante (Jack Boy) knows more than anybody how dangerous and ruthless the streets can be. But against his better instincts allows himself to fall for a local female gangster named Alinna. Considered to be somewhat of a competitor to Dante because she leads her own all female crew. Alinna too, is very well aware of the dangers that come with letting feelings get in the way of business. But like Dante, decides to embrace the attraction anyway. That however proves to be a mistake. When she discovers Dante is two-timing her with a female gang unit officer. But unlike what she has with Dante, this relationship is more about lust and power. Or better yet the officers lust for it. While both get pleasure from this arrangement, she also gains intel. Which lead to major busts that fuel her quick ascension within the department. However her world is suddenly rocked when she discovers she's pregnant with Dante's child! Now they have something that binds them together forever... and something that complicates not just her job but also Dante's relationship with Alina! But with Alina being onto Dante's cheating ways, and the officer being willing to eliminate any and all threats to her burgeoning career. Not to mention the threat of the streets discovering Dante's Serpico ties. Could he end up losing everything in the end?

    Whyte published the findings from his revolutionary Street Life Project in The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Both the book and the accompanying film were instantly labeled classics, and launched a mini-revolution in the planning and study of public spaces. They have since become standard texts, and appear on syllabi and reading lists in urban planning, sociology, environmental design, and architecture departments around the world.Project for Public Spaces, which grew out of Holly's Street Life Project and continues his work around the world, has acquired the reprint rights to Social Life, with the intent of making it available to the widest possible audience and ensuring that the Whyte family receive their fair share of Holly's legacy.From the forward: For more than 30 years, Project for Public Spaces has been using observations, surveys, interviews and workshops to study and transform public spaces around the world into community places. Every week we give presentations about why some public spaces work and why others don't, using the techniques, ideas, and memorable phrases from William H. "Holly" Whyte's The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces.Holly Whyte was both our mentor and our friend. Perhaps his most important gift was the ability to show us how to discover for ourselves why some public spaces work and others don't. With the publication of The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces and its companion film in 1980, the world could see that through the basic tools of observation and interviews, we can learn an immense amount about how to make our cities more livable. In doing so, Holly Whyte laid the groundwork for a major movement to change the way public spaces are built and planned. It is our pleasure to offer this important book back to the world it is helping to transform.

    Nineteen years her senior, the powerful drug lord stakes his claim the moment he lays eyes on her. Nothing will stop him from courting Kirby--not even his wife or nephew, Grip who ironically shares a past and burning desire for his new love interest. When skeletons begin tumbling out of the closet and buried secrets are revealed, who will triumph and who will end up broken-hearted in the end?

    Although she has a very light complexion, she is proud of her blackness, even as she takes a beating from the very sistahs she tries so hard to emulate. Her only friend, Scooter Morrison, is an upwardly mobile brother who also happens to be young, gifted, and gay. Then a chance encounter with two fine Puerto Rican men changes Juanita’s and Scooter’s lives in ways they could never have imagined. There is Conan, a hardworking man who wrestles with both his love for Juanita and his guilt over his brother’s death; and Jorge, an unscrupulous bad-boy thug who has no problem using what he’s got to get what he wants, until he comes dangerously close to getting scorched by his own flames.Fast-paced, suspenseful, and unpredictable, Chocolate Sangria explores the hearts of two lovers who get caught in the great cultural divide—and the devastating consequences of keeping secrets, telling lies, and betraying those you love.

    Even more selfish and devious than before, Niquole will stop at nothing to get her kids back and make her husband suffer. Her street savvy personality mixed with her no-nonsense attitude has Niquole believing she has free reign to screw anyone who gets in her way. Soon, someone unexpected re-enters Niquole's life and seems to be one of the many obstacles slowing her down and threatening to ruin her plans. Will the grimy road that Niquole travels finally cut her off for good? Or will she thrive amongst those who pretend to love her?