Little did she know money had changed hands for her and the man she was going to work for was the sadistic self-appointed crime boss, Nick Orphanides. Worse still, was when Maria realised the very people she loved and trusted had known the nightmare she was entering? After living with, deprivation and sadism at Nick’s hands for three years; she believed her prayers have finally been answered when Jimmy Dixon wins her in a poker game. Despite Jimmy being one of Nick’s crew, it soon becomes apparent that Nick wants her back and a feud soon develops between the two men. She knows too much, including Nick’s secret links with the Russian Mafia. If Nick can’t buy her back he’ll silence her permanently, along with Jimmy and anyone who stands in his way. Maria finds herself falling for the charms of bad boy Jimmy. However, it isn't long before she realises that he too has a darker side. A deep rooted sadistic uncontrollable anger connected to his childhood Jimmy's Game is the first book in the RUTHLESS Series 1.

    A time when losing a battle meant losing it all. The Sword Saint, Isshin Ashina, aims for world domination... That is until he encounters a certain samurai...

    

    After more than fifty years of national pacifism and isolation including the "lost decade" of the 1990s, Japan is quietly, stealthily awakening. As Japan prepares to become a major player in the strategic struggles of the 21st century, critical questions arise about its motivations. What are the driving forces that influence how Japan will act in the international system? Are there recurrent patterns that will help explain how Japan will respond to the emerging environment of world politics? American understanding of Japanese character and purpose has been tenuous at best. We have repeatedly underestimated Japan in the realm of foreign policy. Now as Japan shows signs of vitality and international engagement, it is more important than ever that we understand the forces that drive Japan. In Japan Rising, renowned expert Kenneth Pyle identities the common threads that bind the divergent strategies of modern Japan, providing essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how Japan arrived at this moment--and what to expect in the future.

    Now recognized as a classic work, this incisive portrait of Japanese society investigates a nation whose deeper proclivities remain veiled behind cliches cherished in the West.

    Written 16 years before Pearl Harbor, Bywater, a leading naval authority during the period between the two world wars, prophesied: A Japanese surprise-attack attacks U.S. naval forces in the Pacific while negotiations between the two countries are still in progress. Japanese troops simultaneously invade the Philippines and Guam. Recognizing their limits, the Japanese hold off from any attempt to capture Hawaii. Instead, they retire the main body of their battle fleet and establish a nearly invulnerable web of iron in the Western Pacific!Author Biography: Hector C. Bywater was murdered in 1941

    . . [will] take a place on my shelves beside the stories of Narayan — Graham GreeneThis volume presents two celebrated novels by Manoj Das, one of India’s most illustrious authors, who has been writing in English and Oriya (Odia)for over six decades.In A Tiger at Twilight the erstwhile raja of Samargarh returns to his abandoned palace in Nijanpur, after years of self-exile, with his sick daughter and his supposed half-sister, and immediately assumes the responsibility of killing a man-eating tiger. Assisting him are a few noted men of the valley including Dev the owner and manager of a resort. But as the hunt intensifies Dev realizes that things aren’t as they seem: Heera, the raja’s sister, has an inexplicable power over the men in the hunting party and a strange connection with the tiger. As the men get closer to killing the beast, bizarre things begin to happen, hinting at the influence of the supernatural.Cyclones is set in Kusumpur, a small coastal village, during the struggle for Independence. The village is devastated by a cyclone and Sandip, the scion of the zamindar (land-lord) family, helps restore it. The war-time colonial government, though, wants to turn the sleepy hamlet into a busy port town. They plan to fill up the river that flows by it, in the process angering all the villagers, including Sandip. But when the contractor for the project is found murdered, Sandip is accused of the crime, forcing him to flee from the authorities. This is the start of a series of adventures that take him from a remote ashram in a forest to the city where communal violence is rife. Cyclones is a powerful novel about the metaphorical storms that gripped the nation during the most turbulent period of its modern history.

    Suspicion falls on the village's newest resident, Zack Wild, attractive, charming, author of violent crime novels, and possessor of a dark history; he seems like the perfect suspect. As the investigation continues, the evidence against Wild mounts, but is prejudice against the newcomer affecting the judgment of Sergeant Mitchell, Constable Turner thinks so; she is determined to bring the killer to justice, no matter who it is, or what she has to do. Who will be proved right, and will they catch the killer before he can strike again?

    She lives humbly in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Sheryl Valley, a town corrupted by the mafia in Southern California. With no diploma, she works hard in her parents’ restaurant and provides voice-overs for children’s animated movies during the weekend.In accordance with a long-standing family tradition, Ronney’s twenty-fifth birthday celebration comes with a dare from her cousins: she must knock on the front door of the infamous Khan household. The Khans’ reputation proceeds them, rumored to be in association with the mafia. But when Ronney knocks on the door, before she has the chance to run, the Khan family matriarch, Camilia, takes an interest in Ronney. Romney’s lack of conventional beauty and disinterest in fashion draws Camilia in, leading her to offer Ronney the position of personal assistant to her eldest son, Yeraz, with a substantial salary at stake. It’s an offer Ronney cannot refuse.To keep her job, Ronney’s task is simple: do not fall in love with Yeraz."Easy,” she thinks.But what if destiny decides otherwise?Ugly Ronneyis a romance in which the heroes enter the gallery of legendary lovers.

    But nothing could have prepared him for the heartache he feels when he falls hopelessly in love with a Japanese girl named Sakurai. Immersed in their shared love for classical music and foreign movies, the two gradually grow closer and closer.One night, after being hit by personal tragedy, Sugihara reveals to Sakurai that he is not Japanese—as his name might indicate.Torn between a chance at self-discovery that he’s ready to seize and the prejudices of others that he can’t control, Sugihara must decide who he wants to be and where he wants to go next. Will Sakurai be able to confront her own bias and accompany him on his journey?

    Having being separated from her mother at such a young age, Orabella knew nothing about the business her mother participated in with her new husband.After the death of her father, she is thrown into the world of her mother where she meets her mother's husband, and her husband's son - Vincenzo. Vincenzo is not like any man she's ever met, he's mean, and demanding. He's cruel and he's scary. Vincenzo was known to leave people in fear by just simply looking at them. What Orabella doesn't know about him is that he is the world's most feared Mafia Don.The moment Vincenzo's eyes land on Orabella, he claims her as his. Her stepbrother is the womanizer who stunned everyone when he makes Orabella the woman to be by his side. With Orabella being scared and hopeless, will she learn to let her stepbrother into her heart?- ❧﹘"Y-You can't do that," she cried out, "you're my brother."He laughed at her as his fingers latched onto her thin lace panties. "I'm not your brother, neonata." His lips were on her neck as he nibbled her skin, trailing lower to her breast."Why are you doing this?" She asked him, biting down on her lip the moment his tongue grazed her bud."Because you are mine."

    This work also covers various political and social subtexts of the movies.

    In academic and common parlance alike, caste has become a central symbol for India, marking it as fundamentally different from other places while expressing its essence. Nicholas Dirks argues that caste is, in fact, neither an unchanged survival of ancient India nor a single system that reflects a core cultural value. Rather than a basic expression of Indian tradition, caste is a modern phenomenon--the product of a concrete historical encounter between India and British colonial rule. Dirks does not contend that caste was invented by the British. But under British domination caste did become a single term capable of naming and above all subsuming India's diverse forms of social identity and organization.Dirks traces the career of caste from the medieval kingdoms of southern India to the textual traces of early colonial archives; from the commentaries of an eighteenth-century Jesuit to the enumerative obsessions of the late-nineteenth-century census; from the ethnographic writings of colonial administrators to those of twentieth-century Indian scholars seeking to rescue ethnography from its colonial legacy. The book also surveys the rise of caste politics in the twentieth century, focusing in particular on the emergence of caste-based movements that have threatened nationalist consensus. Castes of Mind is an ambitious book, written by an accomplished scholar with a rare mastery of centuries of Indian history and anthropology. It uses the idea of caste as the basis for a magisterial history of modern India. And in making a powerful case that the colonial past continues to haunt the Indian present, it makes an important contribution to current postcolonial theory and scholarship on contemporary Indian politics.

    In episodic and dreamlike prose, the narrator shares stories and memories of those around her: her feckless, mostly absent father; her lonely, loving mother who tells her daughter that butterflies are the souls of napping children; her gossiping neighbors; and the ghosts of weeping women that haunt their house.This extraordinary novel allows us to see how Korean women "lived in the folds of history ... laughing, wailing, spirit-cajoling, poetry-writing, tear-hiding, bosom-bracing, scheming, fire-breathing". Vivid, sensuous, permeated by beautiful images and by the mysteries that define a child's world, House of the Winds is a moving tale of awakening.

    The reader is caught up in the day-to-day lives of women like Sharifa, Latifa and Marzia, sharing their problems, dramas, the tears and the laughter: whether enjoying a good gossip over tea and fresh nan, dealing with a husband’s desertion, battling to save the life of a one-year-old opium addict or learning how to deliver babies safely. Mary Smith spent several years in Afghanistan working on a health project for women and children in both remote rural areas and in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Given the opportunity to participate more fully than most other foreigners in the lives of the women, many of whom became close friends, she has been able to present this unique portrayal of Afghan women – a portrayal very different from the one most often presented by the media.