The excitement of planetfall is indescribable, but quickly transforms into sick disappointment when they find the atmosphere is a roiling mass of hydrochloric acid, carbon dioxide and other deadly poisons. They fly onward, seeking better planets. They find them, but none are ideal. The search goes on for a century, then longer still. As they move farther from Earth, aliens discover the intruding ship, and they begin to investigate humanity. They find our species unacceptable. The years and the light-years go by without relief. The colony begins to splinter. Some accept that their voyage is eternal, while others seek to end it any way they can. The colony’s culture grows darker, and a war begins, both inside and outside the vast ship. What lives among the stars we see at night? Can we reach out to them and survive? Find out in BLACK PHOENIX, a story of exploration, colonization, alien contact and civil war by Wayne Wightman and B. V. Larson, bestselling SF authors with over three million copies sold.

    Virtually broke, they turn to embarrassing home invasions and petty hits to rebuild their nest egg. In addition to each other, Callie and Creed have dreams. Creed’s is to retire and live in a scenic lake house. Callie’s is to romance a local hot mom. The same hot mom who happens to be the target of a creepy, dangerous stalker named Walter Develin.

    We’ve comea long way since then. With this book, Drs. Romero and Balch liftthe veil from many of these once-opaque concepts in high-techfinance. We can all benefit from learning how the cooperationbetween wetware and software creates fitter models. This bookdoes a fantastic job describing how the latest advances in financialmodeling and data science help today’s portfolio managerssolve these greater riddles. —Michael Himmel, ManagingPartner, Essex Asset ManagementI applaud Phil Romero’s willingness to write about the hedgefund world, an industry that is very private, often flamboyant,and easily misunderstood. As with every sector of the investmentlandscape, the hedge fund industry varies dramaticallyfrom quantitative “black box” technology, to fundamental researchand old-fashioned stock picking. This book helps investorsdistinguish between these diverse opposites and understandtheir place in the new evolving world of finance. —Mick Elfers,Founder and Chief Investment Strategist, Irvington Capital

    Too bad it paired my childhood sweetheart with my worst enemy. She's the one who got away. The girl who should have been mine. When I was younger and seething with ambition, I let her slip through my fingers. Big mistake. Now I want her in my bed, writhing beneath me, my name burning her lips. When I win her back, I'll carry her to my bed, strip her down and finally savor a sweet seduction. She'll know I own her the moment I claim her tight, wet heat. Mismatch is a STAND-ALONE, full-length contemporary romance. There are no cliffhangers, and a happy ending is guaranteed!

    Does your child decide they don't like a food before they've even tried it? Do they say 'Yuk' to foods they used to eat happily? Would they live off chips and ice-cream and never touch a vegetable again if given the chance? This little book provides easy-to-follow, easy-to-remember rules to help re-programme your child into a happy, healthy, adventurous eater.

    A plane crashes in the deserts of North Africa.Fourteen-year-old Billy Sterling regains consciousness to find himself alone among the wreckage. He soon finds the body of the pilot, a celebrated war hero, and on it a cryptic map, more like a pirate’s treasure map than a serious navigational tool. But there is no sign of the plane’s co-pilot.Billy is confident someone will come for him. Someone does, but not anyone he expects... Seven years later, a mysterious stranger contacts Billy’s grieving father, George Bridger Sterling, claiming to be the lost co-pilot. Only a few hours later, this sinister informant is found brutally murdered. Armed with the information that Billy’s plane did not go down where he was told it had, Sterling sets out to discover the truth. Why did the plane take a different route? And why was Billy on board at all? Along with an eccentric private investigator, Eric Churchill, Sterling travels into the vast and dangerous desert, forced to rely on strangers for his own survival.But he is not the only one still looking for Billy after all these years...'Sandstorm' is a fast-paced and evocative thriller, full of adventure and betrayal. Praise for the author: ‘Fast-moving, well written, endlessly exciting, The Eye of Ra excellently conjures up the atmosphere of the desert’ RICHARD BUNDY ‘One of the most impressive novels I’ve read in years. The quality of writing, the characterisation, the plot twists are all excellent. But the true brilliance of the novel is the life in the desert. A stunning achievement; a book to buy and read over and over’ DAVID V BARRETT Michael Asher served in the Parachute Regiment and SAS. A fluent Arab speaker, he has lived for years among the Bedouin peoples. He has made expeditions in many countries, always preferring to travel on foot or with animal transport. He is also the author of ‘Shoot to Kill: From 2 Para to the SAS’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

    This book is for civil engineers that teach fluid mechanics both within their discipline and as a service course to mechanical engineering students. As with all previous editions this 10th edition is extraordinarily accurate, and its coverage of open channel flow and transport is superior. There is a broader coverage of all topics in this edition of Fluid Mechanics with Engineering Applications. Furthermore, this edition has numerous computer-related problems that can be solved in Matlab and Mathcad.

    

    In How to Create a Mind, Kurzweil presents a provocative exploration of the most important project in human-machine civilization—reverse engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create even more intelligent machines.Kurzweil discusses how the brain functions, how the mind emerges from the brain, and the implications of vastly increasing the powers of our intelligence in addressing the world’s problems. He thoughtfully examines emotional and moral intelligence and the origins of consciousness and envisions the radical possibilities of our merging with the intelligent technology we are creating.Certain to be one of the most widely discussed and debated science books of the year, How to Create a Mind is sure to take its place alongside Kurzweil’s previous classics which include Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever and The Age of Spiritual Machines.

    But if you haven't seen the performance improvements you expected, or still don't feel confident enough to use Spark in production, this practical book is for you. Authors Holden Karau and Rachel Warren demonstrate performance optimizations to help your Spark queries run faster and handle larger data sizes, while using fewer resources.Ideal for software engineers, data engineers, developers, and system administrators working with large-scale data applications, this book describes techniques that can reduce data infrastructure costs and developer hours. Not only will you gain a more comprehensive understanding of Spark, you'll also learn how to make it sing.With this book, you'll explore:How Spark SQL's new interfaces improve performance over SQL's RDD data structureThe choice between data joins in Core Spark and Spark SQLTechniques for getting the most out of standard RDD transformationsHow to work around performance issues in Spark's key/value pair paradigmWriting high-performance Spark code without Scala or the JVMHow to test for functionality and performance when applying suggested improvementsUsing Spark MLlib and Spark ML machine learning librariesSpark's Streaming components and external community packages

    One hot summer. Lots of ridiculously sexy (and ridiculously rich) guys. What could go wrong? When Peyton, Courtney, and Savannah Diamond are sent to live with their long lost father, their lives go from glum to glamorous overnight. Because their father is THE Adrian Diamond. Billionaire owner of the most luxurious hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. Savannah thinks Vegas is a fairy tale come true. But is bad boy Damien actually interested in her, or is she just another toy for him to play with? Courtney wants to lay low and keep her nose where it belongs—in an SAT prep book. But will her attraction for her future step-brother bring more attention to her than she can handle? Peyton wants nothing to do with her father. But she wants everything to do with her sexy new bodyguard, Jackson. Except Jackson’s way older than she is. And he’s forbidden from dating her, since he works for her father. The sisters are in WAY over their heads. And they’re forgetting one important rule: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas... but that doesn't matter when you live there ;) Thousands of copies sold. Over 600 five star reviews for the series. Now, for a limited time, save 50% compared to buying the individual books by reading the entire Secret Diamond Sisters trilogy in this special bundle deal! Perfect for fans of Gossip Girl, The Princess Diaries, and Pretty Little Liars. This bundle contains all three books in The Secret Diamond Sisters series: 1) The Secret Diamond Sisters 2) Diamonds in the Rough 3) Diamonds are Forever

    You can also read it for FREE in Kindle Unlimited! Reckless lovers, passionate Highlanders, and men who dare to forge kingdoms come together in this fabulous collection of romantic tales. This set includes: Virtue by Victoria Vane - Abandoned as a young child, Alexander serves two masters…and a woman who doesn’t know her own heart. Together, they will forge the future of a kingdom. Valor by Victoria Vane - A king’s grandson robbed of his rightful inheritance…a knight’s daughter who longs for justice…and her salvation will require his sacrifice. Kilted at the Altar by Anna Markland - A rip-roaring comedic romance set in the Highlands of Scotland, part of the bestselling "Clash of the Tartans" series. My Reckless Love by Melissa Limoges - Between meddlesome relatives and a series of misunderstandings, Arabella and Calum must decide if they can entrust their hearts to one another before the enemy robs them of their newfound happiness. My Steadfast Love by Melissa Limoges - Treachery, murder, passion, and warring clans encompass this tale set in the highlands of Scotland. My Passionate Love by Melissa Limoges - Mairi and Aaron are forced together by circumstances. Will their kindled passion thaw with the coming spring? Or will it burn eternal? Get this collection before it's gone!

    As a child she just wanted to be an actress - she never imagined she'd also become a hugely popular pin up girl or that she'd be romanced by film stars and pursued by paparazzi.Now, in her deeply personal and honest autobiography, Kelly opens up about the men she has loved and the tragic loss and heartache she has overcome. And she reveals how, by refusing to be limited by other people's perceptions of her, she has forged a successful career as an actress, model and business woman. In Close Up we see the real Kelly. The girl behind the gloss. A funny, feisty woman who lives life on her own terms.

    An endless struggle.Three hundred ships. Trapped. Relentlessly pursued by the genocidal Regent and its vast robot battlefleets.Terrence Compton is one of Earth's greatest admirals, a warrior almost without equal. He and his forces saved Earth from invasion by the cybernetic legions of the First Imperium's insane computer Regent. But now he and his fleet are far from home, lost and cut off, with nowhere to flee but deeper into the darkness of uncharted space.Compton and his fleet must find safety...and ultimately a new home. Their journey will take them deep into the heart of the First Imperium, to the silent, windswept worlds where the ancient race that built the Regent once dwelled...and uncover the lost secrets of its disappearance 500,000 years ago. And find a way to destroy the Regent, to rid the universe of the insane machine once and for all.Includes the full novels Into the Darkness, Shadows of the Gods, and Revenge of the Ancients.Crimson Worlds Refugees Reading OrderInto the Darkness (Book One) - part of this collectionShadows of the Gods (Book Two) - part of this collectionRevenge of the Ancients (Book Three) - part of this collectionWinds of Vengeance (Book Four)Storm of Vengeance (Book Five) - Coming 2017

    His mother, Kate, a labor-and-delivery nurse, struggles to maintain the family, which also includes Scarlett, 14, and Maddy, 4. The therapist says they are not coping well. In fact, the Dugan family is a mess—until a strange boy named Norbert moves in next door and changes their lives in more ways than they could ever imagine.About the authorsMark Gimenez is the author of six novels: THE COLOR OF LAW, THE ABDUCTION, THE PERK, THE COMMON LAWYER, ACCUSED, and THE GOVERNOR'S WIFE. Cole Gimenez is a seventh-grader. They live in Texas.