Ten-year-old Jada Sly is an artist and a spy-in-training. When she isn't studying the art from her idols like Jackie Ormes, the first-known African American cartoonist, she's chronicling her spy training and other observations in her art journal. Back home in New York City, after living in France for five years, Jada is ready to embark on her first and greatest spy adventure yet. She plans to scour New York City in search of her missing mother, even though everyone thinks her mom died in a plane crash. Except Jada, who is certain her mom was a spy too.

    Kind Leo Umberti, formerly an insurance agent, now quietly spends his days painting abstract landscapes and mourning a long-ago loss. Down the hall, retired professor Rydell Clovis tries desperately to stay fit enough to restart a career in academia. Cassie McMackin, on the same floor, has seemingly lost everything--her husband and only child dead within months of each other--leaving her loosely tethered to this world. And a few doors away, her friend, Viola Six, is convinced of a criminal conspiracy involving the building's widely disliked manager, Herbie Bonebright. Cassie and Viola dream of leaving their unhappy lives behind, but one woman's plan is interrupted--and the other's unexpectedly set into motion--when a fire breaks out in Herbie's apartment.Called to investigate is the city's chief fire inspector. With a gift and a passion for sorting out the mysteries of flame, Lander Maki finds the fire itself, and the circumstances around it, highly suspicious. Viola has disappeared. So has Herbie. And a troubled teen, Clayton Spooner, was glimpsed fleeing the scene. In trying to fit together the pieces of this complicated puzzle, Lander finds himself learning more than expected about human nature and about personal and corporate greed as it is visited upon the vulnerable.Beautifully written and long awaited, from a writer "with extraordinary emotional acuity and with a keen sense of the small detail that says it all" (Chicago Tribune), Aviary weaves a compelling tapestry of crisis, grief, and the mysteries of memory and old age.

    Learn exactly what NFTs are, how they evolved, and why they have value.We'll delve into the different types and aspects of NFTs and discuss the different NFT marketplaces and the pros and cons of each.Create Your Own NFTs Step by step instructions on all aspects of NFT creation, including what types of content to use, where to source content, adding artistic design, writing the NFT's description, adding optional unlockable content and setting an optional ongoing royalty.Mint Your NFTs You'll learn the process of how to get your NFTs on the blockchain.Sell Your NFTs We'll go through the whole process including creating a collection, and the different options such as setting a price or starting an auction.Buy NFTs What you'll need to bid on and purchase NFTs, and how to avoid getting scammed. You'll also get a primer on blockchain, particularly the Ethereum cryptocurrency and "gas" fees. You'll also be shown step by step how to create, secure and fund your own cryptocurrency wallet, where you'll store your NFTs and cryptocurrency. Whether you're experienced with the blockchain and crypto or a complete noob (beginner), The NFT Handbook will guide you in the process of creating, minting, selling and buying NFTs.

    You’d better come if you want to save her.”  Lorraine—“Rainy”—lives at the top of Tiger Mountain. Remote, moody, cloistered in pine trees and fog, it’s a sanctuary, a new life. She can hide from the disturbing past she wants to forget. If she’s allowed to. When Rainy reluctantly agrees to a girls’ weekend in Vegas, she’s prepared for an exhausting parade of shots and slot machines. But after a wild night, her friend Braithe doesn’t come back to the hotel room. And then Rainy gets the text message, sent from Braithe’s phone: someone has her. But Rainy is who they really want, and Rainy knows why. What follows is a twisted, shocking journey on the knife-edge of life and death. If she wants to save Braithe—and herself—the only way is to step back into the past. This seething, gut-punch of a thriller can only have sprung from the fiendish brain of Tarryn Fisher, one of the most cunning writers of our time.Looking for more great reads by Tarryn Fisher? Don't miss The Wives and The Wrong Family.

    Settle in and enjoy your stay at O'Mara's, where stories abound, romance lurks and laughter sounds.  Aisling O'Mara. She's married to a Ronan Keating look-a-like, and okay, he can't sing to save himself, but he does think the world of her. Her life would be perfect if it weren't for the fact Mother Nature hasn't seen fit to bestow a child upon them yet. The tick-tock of her biological clock is getting louder, and she's determined to make it happen. But at what cost?Ita Finnegan. O'Mara's Director of Housekeeping, wants to be happy. She's decided the key to finding happiness is to find love, and she's hatched a plan to meet her perfect match. But how can she expect someone else to love her when she doesn't like herself very much?Meanwhile, Mammy O'Mara is planning a quiet soiree with neighbours and family to introduce herself and Donal to the neighbourhood, but, somehow, it's morphed into the Howth House party of the year. Oh, and you're invited!

    It tells the story of Bailey, from her own viewpoint, who begins her life in circumstances beyond her control. She longs for love and to live in home where she will be cared for. This short story follows her adventures from her start and through the trials she faces to reach her Forever Home. This is the first book of a new series that will introduce you to Bailey and each of her friends and how they all find their way home. I hope you enjoy her journey.

    But when a real-life murder mystery lands at her feet, she discovers that everyone has secrets—some more deadly than others. The sticky situation is further complicated by a handsome widower, an adorable dog, and a slew of sketchy characters. Can the sassy southern sleuth find “whodunit” without adding herself to the body count?

    Now, to save the life of another, he must return to Syria and confront his biggest failure.Defense Intelligence Agency operative Matt Drake broke a promise. A promise that cost three people their lives and crippled his best friend. Three months later, he's paralyzed by survivor's guilt and haunted by the memories of the fallen. Matt may have left Syria, but Syria hasn't left him.In the midst of his self-imposed exile, Matt is dragged back into the world of espionage and assets that he tried to forget. A Pakistani scientist working for an ISIS splinter cell has created a terrifying weapon of mass destruction. The scientist offers to defect with the weapon, but he trusts just one man to bring him out of Syria alive—Matt Drake.

    With many of its pits now deemed “overmined” and abandoned, American journalist Matthew Gavin Frank sets out across the infamous Diamond Coast to investigate an illicit trade that supplies a global market. Immediately, he became intrigued by the ingenious methods used in facilitating smuggling particularly, the illegal act of sneaking carrier pigeons onto mine property, affixing diamonds to their feet, and sending them into the air.Entering Die Sperrgebiet (“The Forbidden Zone”) is like entering an eerie ghost town, but Frank is surprised by the number of people willing—even eager—to talk with him. Soon he meets Msizi, a young diamond digger, and his pigeon, Bartholomew, who helps him steal diamonds. It’s a deadly game: pigeons are shot on sight by mine security, and Msizi knows of smugglers who have disappeared because of their crimes. For this, Msizi blames “Mr. Lester,” an evil tall-tale figure of mythic proportions.From the mining towns of Alexander Bay and Port Nolloth, through the “halfway” desert, to Kleinzee’s shores littered with shipwrecks, Frank investigates a long overlooked story. Weaving interviews with local diamond miners who raise pigeons in secret with harrowing anecdotes from former heads of security, environmental managers, and vigilante pigeon hunters, Frank reveals how these feathered bandits became outlaws in every mining town.Interwoven throughout this obsessive quest are epic legends in which pigeons and diamonds intersect, such as that of Krishna’s famed diamond Koh-i-Noor, the Mountain of Light, and that of the Cherokee serpent Uktena. In these strange connections, where truth forever tangles with the lore of centuries past, Frank is able to contextualize the personal grief that sent him, with his wife Louisa in the passenger seat, on this enlightening journey across parched lands.Blending elements of reportage, memoir, and incantation, Flight of the Diamond Smugglers is a rare and remarkable portrait of exploitation and greed in one of the most dangerous areas of coastal South Africa. With his sovereign prose and insatiable curiosity, Matthew Gavin Frank “reminds us that the world is a place of wonder if only we look” (Toby Muse).

    Air Force intelligence officer Nick Flynn on the hunt for Russian commandos in the mountains of Alaska.After a CIA covert mission goes badly awry, U.S. Air Force intelligence officer Nicholas Flynn is exiled to guard a remote radar post along Alaska’s Arctic frontier. This dead-end assignment is designed to put his career permanently on ice, but Flynn’s not the type to fade quietly into obscurity...As winter storms pound Alaska and northern Canada, Russian aircraft begin penetrating deep into friendly airspace. Are these rehearsals for a possible first strike, using Russia’s new long-range stealth cruise missiles? Or is some other motive driving the Kremlin to take ever-increasing risks along the hostile Arctic frontier separating two of the world’s great powers?When an American F-22 collides with one of the Russian interlopers, things go south fast—in seconds, missiles are fired. There are no survivors. Despite horrific weather, Flynn and his security team are ordered to parachute into the area in a desperate bid to reach the crash sites ahead of the Russians. It’s now obvious that the Pentagon and CIA are withholding vital information, but Flynn and his men have no choice but to make the dangerous jump.Soon they’re caught in a deadly game of hide-and-seek with Spetsnaz commandos operating covertly on American soil. It seems that the F-22s and their Russian counterparts aren’t the first aircraft to have gone missing in these desolate mountains. The Kremlin is hunting for the first prototype of its new stealth bomber—which vanished on what was supposed to be a test flight…while loaded with nuclear-armed stealth cruise missiles.As Russia and the U.S. square off on the brink of all-out-war, it’s up to Nick to find the missing bomber…and prevent a potential nuclear holocaust.

    Messiah takes the reader on a new and unique journey through every book of the New Testament. Each part of Messiah begins with one of the Gospels, and together combine to provide the reader with enjoyable and impactful readings all centered on Jesus. The end result is a Bible developed for the purpose of being read and understood, not referred to. Messiah is a new way to interact with God’s Word.Messiah delivers Scripture to the reader as it was originally created: without chapter or verse breaks. While references are made available for ease of finding specific Scripture references, those references do not appear within the actual text of Scripture. This makes for uninterrupted reading of God’s Word. Created with the look and feel of a paperback book, and written using the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, the most readable translation available, Messiah enables you to easily read and understand the Bible.

    For five months, and two thousand miles, the wagon train lumbers toward California on the Oregon Trail and into big trouble. The emigrants endure disease, dirt, and attacks from outlaws, and invaded Indians. Bitter strife erupts between ill-matched pioneers forced together by necessity.The 1845 wagon train is part of a vast westward movement; a monument to Americana that fascinates readers 175 years later.In one of the wagons is a heart-sick physician, Hannah Blanc, whose tribulations are Jobian: the suicide of a beloved husband, unfair denial of her medical career by graybeards of the profession, and a nightmarish new "marriage of necessity to a vile man named Ed Spencer.The guide is a hard-to-figure mountain man, Nimrod Lee, who knows the trail, but is also looking a man he needs to kill. Guilt over the murder of his Crow wife beclouds his conscience. Betrayal of his word to her chief father threatens his life. The killer of his wife is still out there.A love affair between Hannah and Nimrod is inevitable, but it's complicated, because for both, painful histories and mixed-up emotions make tall walls. The heart of the story is the pool of misgivings that threatens to drown their tenuous affair.The wagon train is a village of strangers locked together with no escape.Beyond all they must endure, the pioneers keep fighting, and keep coming. Those who make it are survivors; survivors with a great story to tell.

    I want her out of my head...I don't know how his eyes manage to look so hot and so cold at the same time. Eyes like that want to either murder me or screw me...LiamI made my name fixing hearts.Most people know me as a world-class cardiac surgeon.Even more know the device I invented that made billions while saving lives.I’ve achieved success beyond my wildest dreams—and I’ve always dreamed big.Funny how the one heart I can’t put back together is my own.That’s why I’ve returned to New York.More accurately—she’s why.In the fashion world, Mia has arrived. But to me, she’ll always be the one who got away.Back in college, she claimed she loved me.Then she ripped my heart to shreds.Now I can have anything I want. Any toy. Any woman.And what I want is her—out of my system. This time, I plan to be the one leaving.They say revenge is best served cold, but once Mia is back in my bed?It may be too hot to walk away from…

    But after they find a crashed spaceship in the forest with a dying giant inside, they are faced with a choice that will decide their destinies forever.In his last moments, the giant transfers his knowledge and secrets to them. A war is being fought among the stars, and they have been tasked with completing his final mission to save his people. But it’s not an easy decision whether to stay or go. Joining the war means going up against a murderous regime and its demon-like supersoldiers. But if they do nothing, not only will they be condemning a civilization of trillions, they will be risking an invasion of Earth itself.

    Part group biography, part cultural history, Strong Like Her delves into the fascinating stories of our muscular foremothers. From the first female Olympian (who entered the chariot race through a loophole) to the circus stars who could lift their husbands above their heads and make it look like “a little light housework with a feather duster,” these brave and brawny women paved the way for the generations to follow. Filled with Sophy Holland’s beautiful por­traits of some of today’s most awe-inspiring ath­letes, Strong Like Her celebrates strength in all its forms. Illuminating the lives and accomplish­ments of storied female sports stars—whose con­tributions to society go far beyond their entries in record books—Shapley challenges us to rethink everything we thought we knew about the power of women.