He’s gorgeous, well-built, and more than confident that he knows exactly what life has in store for him. But when Dhara Swamy walks into his life, brilliant, beautiful, and just a little bit broken, everything he thought he knew turns upside down. Dhara is attacked in her own home by unseen powers, and her scientist mind won’t let her accept the fact that there’s something happening to her that the natural laws of the universe just can’t explain. Kean is well-versed in the supernatural, though, and he recognizes immediately that Dhara needs the kind of help that can’t be found in a lab, explained in a textbook, or theorized in a classroom. Book Two Moira Brennan’s beauty is as vivid as her flame-red hair and glowing dragon scales. Both are a badge of vibrancy and power that she wears proudly, and while she’s not one to start a fight, she won’t walk away from one either. As part of the Boston dragon clan, Moira spends her days imbedded in the secret supernatural world of Boston, and her nights in her true dragon form, flying over the city, diving beneath the ocean, and resting in the tree tops. She’s not interested in settling down or changing anything about her life, but then Grady Princeton walks in a with a problem in his company’s vault and everything turns on its head. Book Three Eaman Cleary is a man of few words, and a bit of a mystery, even to those closest to him. He likes it that way, and he’s happiest when he’s flying through the air, his pure-white dragon form blending into the clouds and the pale-blue sky. White-blonde hair and artic skin only add to his mysterious persona, and nobody has ever inspired him to come out of his shell—at least not until Autumn Pruitt walks into the office, afraid for her own life and her daughters’ lives. Autumn never meant to stumble into the clearing in the woods or to see what she saw, but now she can’t get away from the consequences. Book Four Nothing scares Siobhan MacFaddan, except, perhaps, the fear that she’ll spend her life alone. Tall, tan, and blonde, she certainly gets plenty of attention, but she only wants attention from the man who is supposed to be her soulmate, if she can ever find him. Siobhan may not be exactly sure what she’s looking for in a soulmate, but she certainly knows what she’s not looking for, and that’s Julius Giordano, no matter how drop-dead gorgeous he is. When Julius comes to her office to tell her that he’s having visions where a man murders a woman, it doesn’t take her long to figure out that he has a supernatural window into the future or that the man gets under her skin—and not in a good way. But she has to save the woman in Julius’ visions, and as the case progresses, so do her feelings for the man suddenly gifted with psychic abilities. Book Five Ronan Connolly isn’t just another dragon shifter—he’s the rugged, gorgeous, powerful leader of his generation and the person charged with the responsibility of making sure that the clan’s quickly dwindling numbers don’t spell destruction. Dragon shifters can only breed with other dragon shifters, as the legend tells it, and that means that here is a growing shortage of mates for Ronan and his friends. All he cares about is saving the clan from dying out, and the only way to do that is to find some way for shifters and humans to reproduce together.

    Accused of a murder she didn’t commit, the loving wife and mother is desperate to clear her name. Despite her violent past, there’s no way she could have beaten her co-worker, Eamon Taylor, to death with a shovel.But, the cops have good reason to suspect Noelle. The murder weapon has her fingerprints on it, the dead body was found in her car, and she was overheard threatening the victim. If she can’t figure out who wanted Eamon dead, her life could be ruined.As she gets closer to the truth, Noelle realizes the real murderer is someone seeking revenge. But, does the brutal killer want to make Noelle pay for long-forgotten sins … or recent mistakes?When her family is targeted, Noelle will do anything to protect her loving husband and two beautiful children, even if it means facing a sadistic psychopath. Can she defeat a deranged murderer, or will she lose the life she loves?

    Alone with her memories, she picks wild blueberries on a quiet island. As she starts to dip into the cool water for a refreshing swim, she discovers she isn’t alone after all. A man is asleep on her little island. Artemis doesn’t believe his story about why he’s trespassing, but the truth is even more complicated. She is convinced this rugged stranger and his secrets are the key to finding out what really happened to her parents. She’s playing a dangerous game, not only with her life…but with her heart.

    

    It also provides an overview of different security topics such as identifying, categorizing and protecting your assets on AWS, managing access to AWS resources using accounts, users and groups and suggesting ways you can secure your data, your operating systems and applications and overall infrastructure in the cloud.

    Yet contemporary Japanese designers and architects keep finding new ways to refurbish and take inspiration from the ways of old. Whether it's a pristinely preserved traditional house or a cutting-edge apartment, the best Japanese homes share a love of cleverly designed spaces and warm materials such as wood, bricks, and bamboo. From a thatched roof farmhouse occupied by a Zen priest to Tadao Ando's experimental 4x4 House, Shigeru Ban's conceptual Shutter House, and a beautiful homage to bamboo in the form of a home, this book traverses the multifaceted landscape of Japanese living today. Also included is a list of addresses and a glossary of terms, such as tatami.

    In the remote village of Izumi five high school friends died within the space of a fortnight.The circumstances were never explained. Four years later a British paranormal researcher travels to Izumi in an attempt to unravel the mystery. There he encounters much more than culture shock. He encounters the dark side of Japanese culture – the side they don't talk about in guidebooks. He encounters Reiko.

    It presents some of the behavioral aspects of construction management along with some difficulties a project manager may encounter.

    atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the ensuing death and destruction that led to the end of World War II. The events that culminated in the fall of Japan - which forever changed the course of diplomacy, geopolitics, and warfare in the twentieth century - are vividly recreated through dramatic first-hand accounts of the major participants on both sides of the Pacific. They include: Harry Truman, the inexperienced American president who made the decision that would lead to unprecedented death and destruction; the war-mongering, but mysterious, Japanese Emperor Hirohito, who ultimately presided over his country's surrender; General Leslie Groves, the no-nonsense director of the Manhattan Project; and Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the plane, the Enola Gay, which dropped the very first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945.

    Describes the principles of wabi-sabi, a Japanese aesthetic associated with Japanese tea ceremonies and based on the belief that true beauty comes from imperfection and incompletion, through text and photographs.

    Drawing on material little known to Western readers, and barely explored in depth in Japan itself, Hotta poses an essential question: Why did these men--military men, civilian politicians, diplomats, the emperor--put their country and its citizens so unnecessarily in harm's way? Introducing us to the doubters, schemers, and would-be patriots who led their nation into this conflagration, Hotta brilliantly shows us a Japan rarely glimpsed--eager to avoid war but fraught with tensions with the West, blinded by reckless militarism couched in traditional notions of pride and honor, tempted by the gambler's dream of scoring the biggest win against impossible odds and nearly escaping disaster before it finally proved inevitable. In an intimate account of the increasingly heated debates and doomed diplomatic overtures preceding Pearl Harbor, Hotta reveals just how divided Japan's leaders were, right up to (and, in fact, beyond) their eleventh-hour decision to attack. We see a ruling cadre rich in regional ambition and hubris: many of the same leaders seeking to avoid war with the United States continued to adamantly advocate Asian expansionism, hoping to advance, or at least maintain, the occupation of China that began in 1931, unable to end the second Sino-Japanese War and unwilling to acknowledge Washington's hardening disapproval of their continental incursions. Even as Japanese diplomats continued to negotiate with the Roosevelt administration, Matsuoka Yosuke, the egomaniacal foreign minister who relished paying court to both Stalin and Hitler, and his facile supporters cemented Japan's place in the fascist alliance with Germany and Italy--unaware (or unconcerned) that in so doing they destroyed the nation's bona fides with the West.We see a dysfunctional political system in which military leaders reported to both the civilian government and the emperor, creating a structure that facilitated intrigues and stoked a jingoistic rivalry between Japan's army and navy. Roles are recast and blame reexamined as Hotta analyzes the actions and motivations of the hawks and skeptics among Japan's elite. Emperor Hirohito and General Hideki Tojo are newly appraised as we discover how the two men fumbled for a way to avoid war before finally acceding to it. Hotta peels back seventy years of historical mythologizing--both Japanese and Western--to expose all-too-human Japanese leaders torn by doubt in the months preceding the attack, more concerned with saving face than saving lives, finally drawn into war as much by incompetence and lack of political will as by bellicosity. An essential book for any student of the Second World War, this compelling reassessment will forever change the way we remember those days of infamy.

    Eighteen recently built and unusual houses, from ultramodern to Japanese rustic, are presented in depth. Particular emphasis is given to what the author calls the "big idea" for each house-the thing that does the most to make the home feel more spacious than it actually is. Big ideas include ingenious sources of natural light, well thought-out loft spaces, snug but functional kitchens, unobtrusive partitions, and unobstructed circulation paths.An introduction puts the houses in the context of lifestyle trends and highlights their shared characteristics. The Houses section details each project the intentions of the designers and occupants are explained. The result is a very human sensibility that runs through the book, a glimpse of the dreams and aspirations that these unique homes represent and that belies their apparent modesty. The second half of the book is devoted to illustrating the special features in the homes, from storage and kitchen designs to revolutionary skylights and partitions.Building small can be a sign of higher ambitions, and those who read this book will undoubtedly grow to appreciate that building a small home can be an amazingly positive and creative act, one which can enhance one's life in surprising ways. In The Very Small Home, Brown has given home owners, designers, and architects a fascinating new collection of ideas.

    A portrayal of how and why Japan waged war from 1931-1945 and what life was like for the Japanese people in a society engaged in total war.

    Taking as his starting point dramatic examples such as the High Line in New York City and the outrageous island experiment of Dubai, Moore then reaches far and wide: back in time to explore the Covent Garden brothels of eighteenth-century London and the fetishistic minimalism of Adolf Loos; across the world to assess a software magnate's grandiose mansion in Atlanta and Daniel Libeskind's failed design for the World Trade Center site; and finally to the deeply naturalistic work of Lina Bo Bardi, whom he celebrates as the most underrated architect of the modern era.Just published in the UK, Why We Build is already being hailed as a vibrant new classic:"Moore's writing is lively and engaging, his language straightforward, his case studies unpredictable and instructive. . . . Moore certainly knows how to make these sacred monsters come alive on the page."-The Evening Standard (London)"Mischievous . . . [Moore] has a lot to offer those who like verbal flexibility and thought-provoking aphorisms. . . . Elegant and witty, with a sometimes eighteenth-century sensuality, this is a hard-hitting book with great panache." -The Daily Telegraph"Elegantly written. . . . What Moore explores with insight and wit [is] the DESIRE to build. The emotions carrying it. The drive for beauty, monumentality, display, a kind of immortality." -The New Humanist"[A] fresh analytic approach [that is] engaging, outrageous, wise, very probably true and rather important ." -Country LifeReaders will never look at architecture the same way again.

    Think again. Tokyo: A Certain Style, the mini-sized decor book with a difference, shows how, for those living in one of the worlds most expensive and densely packed metropolises, closet-sized apartments stacked to the ceiling with gadgetry and CDs are the norm. Photographer Kyoichi Tsuzuki rode his scooter all over Tokyo snapping shots of how urban Japanese really live. Hundreds of photographs reveal the real Tokyo style: microapartments, mini and modular everything, rooms filled to the rafters with electronics, piles of books and clothes, clans of remote controls, collections of sundry objects all crammed into a space where every inch counts. Tsuzuki introduces each tiny crash pad with a brief text about who lives there, from artists and students to professionals and couples with children. His captions to the hundreds of photographs capture the spirit and ingenuity required to live in such small quarters. This fascinating, voyeuristic look at modern life comes in a chunky, pocket-sized format-the perfect coffee table book for people with really small apartments.