Initially, I kept it as a personal diary of things that I believed were important at the time, including the poems and prose I wrote which sprang organically from the events as they unfolded. Whilst these few short months were extremely challenging, at times shocking and ultimately tragic, they were also a time of great love. Hopefully, I have captured some of those few moments of pure happiness, humour and joy which I believe will not only help other people touched by cancer but will show sufferers and their families that there is no right or wrong way to behave, just as long as you continue to show how much you care and as much as possible, be there for each other.

    Jim stumbles across a uniquely diverse and extraordinarily hilarious batch of island inhabitants as he tries to unravel the case. As Jim soon learns, no one on the island is more unique, diverse, or hilarious than his unlikely counterpart; a man simply known as Kram. TOTALLY FUNNY!!! Mink Island moves at a break-neck pace, with true Alaskan scenery, wildlife, and interesting inhabitants at every turn. Float planes, barges, bears, and even flying salmon… I absolutely love it! It’s a classic whodunit but with the most hilarious batch of characters!

    907 pages. TO TAME A HIGHLAND EARL by Tarah Scott A man torn between two worlds. Both need him… neither wants him. Groomed for a life amongst the English aristocracy, Lord Erroll Rushton is unexpectedly thrust back into his father’s Scottish world when the Englishwoman he compromises refuses to marry him. No gentleman breaks into a lady’s bedchamber...but then, no lady sleeps with a pistol under her pillow. Miss Eve Crenshaw will marry for love or won’t marry at all. When London’s most notorious rakehell breaks into Eve’s bedroom in the dead of night and compromises her beyond repair, she plans a daring elopement that shocks even the earl. HIGHLANDER IN HER BED by Allie Mackay Tour guide Mara MacDougall stops at a London antique shop-and spots perhaps the handsomest bed ever. Then she bumps into the handsomest man ever. Soon Mara can't forget the irresistible-if haughty-Highlander. Not even when she learns that she's inherited a Scottish castle. Spectral Sir Alexander Douglas has hated the Clan MacDougall since he was a medieval knight and they tricked him into a curse-the curse of forever haunting the bed (the very one that Mara now owns) that was once intended for his would-be bride. But Mara makes him feel what no other MacDougall has-a passion that he never knew he'd missed. RESCUED BY THE CELTIC WARRIOR by Amy Jarecki When Hadrian's Wall falls, Valeria's world shatters. Captured by savages, she prays the Romans will find her—but it’s Taran, a Celtic warrior who rides to her rescue. Though the world beyond the Empire is fraught with danger and brutality, the tattooed barbarian ignites an unquenchable flame of passion that cannot be denied. THE DARING HEART by Carmen Caine How can a man even court a lass longer than a fortnight when there are so many pouting lips to kiss? Roaming the courts of Europe, Julian appears to spend his time drinking wine, wagering gold, and dandling willing lasses upon his knee. But no one knows the man behind the mask. No one knows that he is Le Marin—Europe’s most daring and brazen spy. But everything changes the night he finds a dagger pressed against his ribs and an alluring hazel-eyed minx in his bed. Born into the Vindictam, the renowned Venetian family of assassins, Liselle dreams of the day she will be allowed to practice the family craft. And when she is sent to the Scottish court, her dream is finally realized. But is it an honor … or a curse? As the threat of civil war looms over Scotland, and the king's own brother conspires with the English to put himself on the Scottish throne, Julian can’t help but be distracted by the mysterious Venetian beauty and her many secrets. But will it be his undoing? HEART OF THE HIGHLANDS:THE BEAST by April Holthaus Ian MacKay has one mission; to defend the crown no matter the cost. Along with his men, Ian’s mission is to hunt down one of the most dangerous men in the Highlands. But when the daughter of an enemy enters his life, his heart becomes captured instead. Keira Sinclair has lived a life of peace and simplicity until now. With her clan on the verge of losing everything, she is forced to wed a Laird from a neighboring clan to ensure that hers survives. During her travels to her new home, her carriage is attacked and Keira is taken hostage by a ruthless man. Caught in the middle of a war that she does not understand, will Keira's secrets be safe, or will she succumb to the Highland warrior who now threatens to capture her heart?

    The things that are hidden inside change his life forever. He is suddenly heir to a barbaric and bloody history of brutal glory as magic slowly dies from the world. Now John is stalked by powerful and petty mages as he struggles to learn the rules of the game, endangering himself and those around him. Then there is the half naked Tribesman, that only John can see, following him around. Confronting his own failings and struggling with the world he has found himself in, John still has to find a way to pay his rent on time. He would also like to not lose the girl of his dreams in the process. This book is NOT Young Adult it contains some language inappropriate for children under 15.

    The ensuing murder investigation is plagued with interference from above and several false leads frustrate the investigators. But slowly they unravel the mystery and unveil a story of resentment and greed. The detective team is led by DCI. Matthew Prior and his partner, Siobhan Williams. He is a gritty and determined veteran and she his perfect counterpart. He is happily married and she, despite being physically attractive, frightens most men off with her sharp brain and wit. Despite all the hurdles put in their way they gradually get to the truth. In the process they uncover a world of deviance and cruelty rooted in the deep past.

    All of them. Grab all four books in the thrilling Urban Fantasy series, Paradise Lost, for one low price, in this great value 1800+ pages box set! First the gods left. Then the Others came. Jean Matthias, ex-monster-killer, is now trying to help them adjust to this new godless world. Everyone from his past thinks he’s dead. In order to keep helping the displaced mythical creatures that now roam the world, he’s going to need it to stay that way. Except-something is terrorizing the night. A murderous creature is unearthing parts of his past best left dead and buried. If the wrong people find out he’s still breathing, he'll be forced back into a life he died to escape. And to make matters worse, if the creature isn't stopped, it might just trigger the apocalypse. Again. Jean didn’t start this fight, but he’s damn sure going to end it. If you like the Dresden Files, Mercy Thompson or want to read a throwback to Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then you’ll love the Paradise Lost Boxed Set. "Mythology, satire, and brutal honesty. Vance delivers a knockout punch of fun and fearlessness in every last one of his books. Not only does he make you laugh, he makes you think. That's a rare combination that few authors ever achieve, and Vance does it splendidly." — John P. Logsdon, author of the Paranormal Police Department series. The Paradise Lost Boxed Set includes the following novel: • GoneGod World (Keep Evolving - Book 1) • Keep Evolving (Keep Evolving - Book 2) • CrystalDreams (Keep Evolving - Book 3) • Penemue's Inferno (Keep Evolving - Book 4) NEW RELEASE

    But as the festive season draws closer, Laurel begins to wonder if Christmas on Skopelos can ever live up to the cosy Yorkshire Christmases she spent with her beloved grandmother, Marnie. And with a travel writer arriving to review the Villa, Laurel needs a touch of festive sparkle - and a little help from some old friends... With critics to impress, Greek feasts to cook, and an ABBA-themed winter wedding on the horizon, can Laurel throw the perfect Christmas for everyone? And will she find her own romance underneath the mistletoe...? Escape to Greece this Christmas for this joyous sequel to My Mamma Mia Summer.

    But eleven years later he was out on appeal. Now he’s missing and people are dying again. DS Logan McRae is on the case, and twenty years of secrets and lies are being dragged into the light. Only one thing is certain – Aberdeen will never be the same again.BLIND EYE: Someone’s preying on Aberdeen’s growing Polish population. The pattern is always the same: men abandoned on building sites, barely alive, their eyes gouged out and the sockets burned. With the victims too scared to talk, Grampian Police is getting nowhere fast. The attacks are brutal, they keep on happening, and soon DS Logan McRae will have to decide how far he’s prepared to bend the rules to get a result.DARK BLOOD: Richard Knox has served his time, so why shouldn’t he be allowed to live wherever he wants? Yes, in the past he was a violent rapist, but he’s seen the error of his ways. Found God. Wants to leave his dark past in Newcastle behind him and make a new start. Or so he says.Detective Sergeant Logan McRae isn’t exactly thrilled to be part of the team helping Knox settle into his new Aberdeen home. He’s even less thrilled to be stuck with DSI Danby from Northumbria Police – the man who put Knox behind bars for ten years – supposedly here to ‘keep an eye on things’. Only things are about to go very, very wrong…

    The classic and popular text is back with refreshed pedagogy and programming problems helps the students to have an upper hand on the practical understanding of the subject. Salient Features: Expanded discussion on Recursion (Backtracking, Simulating Recursion), Spanning Trees. Covers all important topics like Strings, Arrays, Linked Lists, Trees Highly illustrative with over 300 figures and 400 solved and unsolved exercises Content 1.Introduction and Overview 2.Preliminaries 3.String Processing 4.Arrays, Records and Pointers 5.Linked Lists 6.S tacks, Queues, Recursion 7.Trees 8.Graphs and Their Applications 9.Sorting and Searching About the Author: Seymour Lipschutz Seymour Lipschutz, Professor of Mathematics, Temple University

    Prophecies. Dark Visions. Future events with dire consequences only she can avert.Sarah is an Automatic Writer who suffers from a rare obsessive-compulsive disorder called trichotillomania. She has dealt with kidnappings before, so when she receives a message that details a kidnapping, when it is to take place, and what she can do to stop it, she's ready. But things go wrong fast when the kidnappers recognize her from a previous intervention on her part. People are killed. Witnesses place Sarah at the scene. The police find her notebook riddled with prophecies of accidents and crimes from her automatic writing episodes and they want answers.Sarah is in a fight for her life with no one to trust. Her Dark Visions have brought her into the hands of a kidnapping ring who will do anything to find out how she knows so much about them.While the police hunt Sarah for the wrong reasons, her parents think she is at a sleepover. Her life is in her own hands and whether she makes it out of this mess alive or not depends on how many people have to die.The Warning (Sarah Roberts Book Two)At the end of Dark Visions (Sarah Roberts Book One), Sarah had spent the last four years saving people and averting serious accidents using the messages she receives from the dead.In The Warning, Sarah has learned the whereabouts of her sister's murderer. It is time to exact justice for the gruesome murder of Vivian Roberts, whose killer has never been found. When Sarah receives the warning, a message that tells her to stand down and let it go, she refuses. Against sound advice, Sarah enters a heavily guarded compound where the odds are stacked against her.In The Warning, Sarah Roberts becomes the hunted rather than the hunter.How many people have to die to catch one murderer? Sarah must face the reality that has become her life as an Automatic Writer. The Warning begins as a flame, ignites to a fire and explodes in an inferno of violence over a girl who receives messages from the dead to help the living.The Crypt (Sarah Roberts Book Three)Sarah Roberts is in Budapest searching for a weapon. During her time there, she notices a strange man wearing a fedora following her. Before she can find out who he is, she gets arrested. After her release from the Hungarian jail, she is ordered out of the country.The man in the fedora shows up at her Budapest hotel before she has a chance to leave for the airport. He is from a psychic research organization and he wants to take her back to the States with him to further understand her automatic writing abilities. When Sarah refuses to go, she is informed that she does not have a choice because she is now property of the United States government.While Sarah remains in Hungary after her deadline and then travels to Italy in a struggle to locate Armond Stuart, she has to keep the fedora-wearing American and his ten-man team off her back. The only way to escape their reach is to fake her own death. Convinced that is her only option, Sarah concocts a plan that will deal with Armond and have herself killed in the process.

    The authors have extensive experience both managing data analysts and conducting their own data analyses, and have carefully observed what produces coherent results and what fails to produce useful insights into data. This book is a distillation of their experience in a format that is applicable to both practitioners and managers in data science.

    Ideal for processing large datasets, the Apache Hadoop framework is an open source implementation of the MapReduce algorithm on which Google built its empire. This comprehensive resource demonstrates how to use Hadoop to build reliable, scalable, distributed systems: programmers will find details for analyzing large datasets, and administrators will learn how to set up and run Hadoop clusters. Complete with case studies that illustrate how Hadoop solves specific problems, this book helps you:Use the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) for storing large datasets, and run distributed computations over those datasets using MapReduce Become familiar with Hadoop's data and I/O building blocks for compression, data integrity, serialization, and persistence Discover common pitfalls and advanced features for writing real-world MapReduce programs Design, build, and administer a dedicated Hadoop cluster, or run Hadoop in the cloud Use Pig, a high-level query language for large-scale data processing Take advantage of HBase, Hadoop's database for structured and semi-structured data Learn ZooKeeper, a toolkit of coordination primitives for building distributed systems If you have lots of data -- whether it's gigabytes or petabytes -- Hadoop is the perfect solution. Hadoop: The Definitive Guide is the most thorough book available on the subject. "Now you have the opportunity to learn about Hadoop from a master-not only of the technology, but also of common sense and plain talk." -- Doug Cutting, Hadoop Founder, Yahoo!

    What’s more, they can do it one step at a time, through a series of simple, proven steps. Now, there’s an authoritative and extensively updated version of Martin Fowler’s classic refactoring book that utilizes Ruby examples and idioms throughout–not code adapted from Java or any other environment.The authors introduce a detailed catalog of more than 70 proven Ruby refactorings, with specific guidance on when to apply each of them, step-by-step instructions for using them, and example code illustrating how they work. Many of the authors’ refactorings use powerful Ruby-specific features, and all code samples are available for download. Leveraging Fowler’s original concepts, the authors show how to perform refactoring in a controlled, efficient, incremental manner, so you methodically improve your code’s structure without introducing new bugs. Whatever your role in writing or maintaining Ruby code, this book will be an indispensable resource.This book will help you Understand the core principles of refactoring and the reasons for doing it Recognize “bad smells” in your Ruby code Rework bad designs into well-designed code, one step at a time Build tests to make sure your refactorings work properly Understand the challenges of refactoring and how they can be overcome Compose methods to package code properly Move features between objects to place responsibilities where they fit best Organize data to make it easier to work with Simplify conditional expressions and make more effective use of polymorphism Create interfaces that are easier to understand and use Generalize more effectively Perform larger refactorings that transform entire software systems and may take months or years Successfully refactor Ruby on Rails code

    A mage cop on his first assignment learns the world isn't as black and white as hopedA jump mage and a starship with matching needs turn out to be a magnet for troubleDigging in 1940s New York City awakens a monster--and brings in the elite of the FaeThe protected heir of an interstellar dictatorship is called to a battle no one expected him to fightAn explosive collection of four novellas from science fiction and fantasy author Glynn Stewart, spanning his ONSET, Starship's Mage, Changeling Blood and Exile universes, including two brand new urban fantasy novellas.  Includes:ONSET: Murder by MagicStarship's Mage: Episode 1Fae, Flames and FedorasAshen Stars

    It is also a practical, modern introduction to scientific computing in Python, tailored for data-intensive applications. This is a book about the parts of the Python language and libraries you'll need to effectively solve a broad set of data analysis problems. This book is not an exposition on analytical methods using Python as the implementation language.Written by Wes McKinney, the main author of the pandas library, this hands-on book is packed with practical cases studies. It's ideal for analysts new to Python and for Python programmers new to scientific computing.Use the IPython interactive shell as your primary development environmentLearn basic and advanced NumPy (Numerical Python) featuresGet started with data analysis tools in the pandas libraryUse high-performance tools to load, clean, transform, merge, and reshape dataCreate scatter plots and static or interactive visualizations with matplotlibApply the pandas groupby facility to slice, dice, and summarize datasetsMeasure data by points in time, whether it's specific instances, fixed periods, or intervalsLearn how to solve problems in web analytics, social sciences, finance, and economics, through detailed examples