Just a few months after their wedding, and a few weeks after running a 10K, a rare autoimmune disease landed Joclyn in the hospital with a failing heart. Enduring four open heart surgeries, rounds of experimental chemotherapy, a punctured lung, a lost voice, a pacemaker, an unsympathetic nurse, bedpans, and legitimately gruesome hospital food, it seemed the bad news would never end. But with the help of a top-notch medical team, supportive and loving friends and family, courage, a will to live, and a desire to just go home, they learned the true value of love, hope and life. Joclyn, an occupational therapist, Jeremy, a public school administrator, live in Sacramento, California with their dog, Ramsay. Their experience received national attention and helped facilitate legislative reform surrounding “surprise medical bills,” out-of-network bills received when a patient has done everything he possibly can to remain in-network.

    Plato isn’t an ordinary cat. He’s a magical lynx with extraordinary powers.When a series of dangerous activities break out in a small city in Mexico, is it by design that the magical creature is present? Is Plato really coordinating everything?Plato isn’t the only one staying in this Mexican city or at the boutique hotel. Other magical creatures are working to stop the bad guys.That’s what Beaufonts and their sidekicks do.Can Plato, a dragon, and a talking squirrel save this coastal city?Scroll up and grab your copy of The Mysterious Plato, the first short story in this Beaufont collection, to find out.

     The Cosy Cottage Café is at the heart of the picturesque English village of Heatherlea. Through summer, autumn, winter and spring, café owner Allie Jones and her friends, Dawn, Camilla and Honey, share their hopes and dreams, ups and downs, and a few surprises along the way. Join them at The Cosy Cottage Café and enjoy this bestselling series. ** PLEASE NOTE: THE FOUR STORIES WERE PREVIOUSLY RELEASED AS SINGLE TITLES. **

    Commissioned by the United States Government to do what other units cannot, existing both above and outside the law. A new recruit, Corporal Chris Jordon, has just been delivered, but before he can call himself Steel, he must pass every physical and mental test Mic throws at him. Orders for a mission have come down and Mic must train Jordon faster than ever. Their team is thrown into a desperate mission to rescue an undercover operative in the heart of Columbia. Forced to take down the head of the Fernando Cartel and the mysterious Frenchie, their mission is complicated when Mic and Jordon are lost to their team. Digging deep within herself, Mic will need every ounce of her strength to save both her team, and herself. Hardened by Steel- Book Two It’s been two months since our team mate was killed in front of us. Two months of training and waiting. Time is up and another new recruit is due to arrive any minute; the cousin of the man who betrayed us all. The guys aren’t going to like it, but Jackson has overridden my protests. Just when I didn’t think things could get any worse, my contact with Aunt Beatrice is discovered and my actions have put her in mortal danger. A hit was ordered from a cartel in Mexico. Led by the cousin of Diego Fernando’s widow, the Vega Cartel has a blood debt to settle and they have come to collect. Jordon is becoming more attractive to me by the day; as my feelings for him continue to grow, our situation becomes even more complicated when our connection is discovered by one of the team. Events spiral out of my control, forcing me to face my demons and darkest fears. I find myself teetering on the edge of good and evil, poised to fall. A sinister message has me racing to Mexico, trying to beat the dawn. What I find waiting for me there may spell the end of my life and Steel Corps itself. I must decide; am I hard enough to make this choice? Is my soul a big enough sacrifice for the lives of innocents? There is no question. I am Staff Sergeant Michaels and I am Steel. Forged by Steel- Book Three I’m Staff Sergeant Michaels, the leader of Steel Corps. We’re the best America has to offer and we’ve been dealt a heavy blow. I’m fighting to recover; struggling to be the leader my men expect me to be – need me to be. It’s been five days. Five days since my men rescued me from that basement in Mexico. My body is healing and I’m stronger than ever - eager to go to Russia and end this terror haunting me. Secrets burden our team like lead weights around our necks. We must strip them free and bind ourselves together anew. These revelations have the power to rip us apart, forever changing Steel. Will it be for the better? Or will Steel Corps burn? I can’t decide our future alone, but Chris Jordon is at my side, watching my back – chasing the shadows away, whether I want him to or not. An unexpected visitor forces our hands and sends Steel on a mission from which we may not return. I may get my way, but at what price? Only one way to find out…

    

    Biography

    

    It's a place where folks embrace what matters most in life -- love, family, community.... Christmas to the Rescue! Librarian Becca James, on the mend from a tragic loss, finds hope -- and the promise of romance -- when an adorable rescue dog leads her on the Christmas adventure of a lifetime! A Very Cookie Christmas Busy, overworked Clara Cane finds her organizing skills put to the test when her most demanding client shows up in town -- and her high-school crush stirs up feelings she thought she'd long since moved past.... Sweet Apple Christmas Cafe owner Holly Snow makes the best scones in town and accepts her single status -- until a handsome orchard owner walks in and sparks begin to fly.... Christmas Romance in Heartsprings Valley: Holiday Collection, Books 1-3 This special Christmas box set includes the first three books in the Heartsprings Valley Sweet Romance series:Christmas to the Rescue! (Book 1)A Very Cookie Christmas (Book 2)Sweet Apple Christmas (Book 3) It's Always Christmas in Heartsprings Valley!

    But she has good reason to keep them separate.For single mum Maddie, home is a flat on a run-down estate. And family consists of an excitable toddler, a lonely Dad and a younger brother mired in a love triangle.Meanwhile, professional Madeleine balances a tricky day job, made worse by a jealous colleague. No one at work knows about her other life, and she needs to keep it this way: one of the bosses has made his feelings very clear about single parents and the people on her estate.Thank goodness for her fun-loving and loyal friends - although Maddie wishes they’d believe her when she insists she has no time for love. Or so she tells herself as she fights to quell her hidden feelings for her gorgeous colleague, Oliver, who comes from the posh part of town.But when her friends line up their ideal man for her – Sean, more beanstalk than Bean – Maddie wishes she’d told them the truth. Because it’s hard enough juggling two lives. Add any more complications and Maddie’s carefully constructed world is going to come crashing down.

    The idea of his wife working at the infamous club turns him on as much as it makes him nervous. Lynn cultivates a new, alluring personality for her job, and their stale married life gets a much-needed infusion of passion and excitement. But when the ownership of Liquid Kitty changes hands, Lynn’s alter-ego gets up to more than Rick bargained for... is it more than they can handle?

    

    It's become more expensive, more exclusive, and effectively off-limits to huge swaths of the potential sports-loving population. Youth registration numbers are stagnant; efforts to appeal to new Canadians are often grim at best; the game, increasingly, does not resemble the country of which it's for so long been an integral part. These signs worried Sean Fitz-Gerald. As a lifelong hockey fan and father of a young mixed-race son falling headlong in love with the game, he wanted to get to the roots of these issues. His entry point: a season with the Peterborough Petes, a storied OHL team far from its former glory in a once-emblematic Canadian city that is finding itself on the wrong side of the country's changing demographics. Fitz-Gerald profiles the players, coaches and front office staff, a mix of world-class talents with NHL aspirations and Peterborough natives happy with more modest dreams. Through their experiences, their widely varied motivations and expectations, we get a rich, colourful understanding of who ends up playing hockey in Canada and why. Fitz-Gerald interweaves the action of the season with portraits of public figures who've shaped and been shaped by the game: authors who captured its spirit, politicians who exploited it, and broadcasters who try to embody and sell it. He finds his way into community meetings full of angry season ticket holders, as well as into sterile boardrooms full of the sport's institutional brain trust, unable to break away from the inertia of tradition and hopelessly at war with itself. Before the Lights Go Out is a moving, funny, yet unsettling picture of a sport at a crossroads. Fitz-Gerald's warm but rigorous journalistic approach reads, in the end, like a letter to a troubled friend: it's not too late to save hockey in this country, but who has the will to do it?

    

    

    You live in a shitty flat in Detroit with a cupboard of stale coffee, a few bottles of light beer in the fridge, and a shoe box of pot that has probably been cut with cat shit. And until this week you have been slouching your way through life and pissing on anything meaningful. But that's all about to change. You are now given a final chance to make something out of this life, if only you can survive this one week.