Italian style and culture have been exported all over the world. What is it like at home? Almost ten years after the 2008 banking crisis, Italy struggles to maintain its standard of living, the stability of the currency, and its ability to provide jobs for its school leavers and university graduates, many of whom now leave to work elsewhere in Europe. In addition, the influx of refugees from southeast Europe and across the Mediterranean is putting pressure on both its security and its economy. How are traditional Italian society and politics changing to deal with these challenges, with its most famous political personality of the last ten years, the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, still apparently waiting in the wings? The Italians are the most European-minded of nations, having emerged from a long history of regional fragmentation. Culture Smart! Italy introduces you to their history and culture and offers an insider’s guide to their daily lives, passions, and preoccupations. This is your chance to get to know them better.

    Ellen G. White often lifted the veil between the seen and the unseen world, setting forth the truth about angels and their involvement in events on earth, as she described what God brought to her mind. Beginning with Lucifer’s rebellion in heaven and continuing to the work of angels after the end of sin, this volume provides a behind-the-scenes view of the existence and activities of angels as they go about the work of heaven. Best of all, it will help you enjoy the fellowship of angels in your daily walk with God.The handsome, new binding is durable, strong, and a great addition to the Christian Home Library series.

    But Detective Kay Hunter isn’t convinced, especially when a man is found dead with the ransom money still in his possession. When a second schoolgirl is taken, Kay’s worst fears are realised. With her career in jeopardy and desperate to conceal a disturbing secret, Kay’s hunt for the killer becomes a race against time before he claims another life. For the killer, the game has only just begun… Will to Live When a packed commuter train runs over a body on a stretch of track known to locals as ‘Suicide Mile’, it soon transpires that the man was a victim of a calculated murder. As the investigation evolves and a pattern of murders is uncovered, Detective Sergeant Kay Hunter realises the railway’s recent reputation may be the work of a brutal serial killer. With a backlog of cold cases to investigate and attempting to uncover who is behind a professional vendetta against her, Kay must keep one step ahead of both the killer and her own adversaries. When a second murder takes place within a week of the first, she realises the killer’s timetable has changed, and she’s running out of time to stop him… One to Watch Sophie Whittaker shared a terrifying secret. Hours later, she was dead.Detective Kay Hunter and her colleagues are shocked by the vicious murder of a teenage girl at a private party in the Kentish countryside. A tangled web of dark secrets is exposed as twisted motives point to a history of greed and corruption within the tight-knit community. Confronted by a growing number of suspects and her own enemies who are waging a vendetta against her, Kay makes a shocking discovery that will make her question her trust in everyone she knows. One to Watch is a gripping murder mystery thriller, and the third in the Detective Kay Hunter series.

    After being ejected as collateral via my parent's breakup; After being lied to, cheated on and subtracted from all equations of love; I determined that things were not adding up any more. I knew that I deserved to be loved everyday, not only with words but with actions. I found a great deal of power in learning about love. I had been confused this whole time as I believed what we were all taught to believe as children - that love was something you find inside of another person. This journey allowed me to heal, forgive and accelerate my life towards love. Our journeys have different titles but we are all out here walking together toward the same goal. People with different skin tones, speech variations and socie-economic status all deserve love. This is The Dear Queen Journey: A Path To Self Love.

    This volume contains: CITY OF THE DEAD (BOOK #1) Gia Santella copes with her parents' death by drinking, spending money, and kicking butt when it's necessary. After an unexpected letter reveals that her loved ones' tragedy was murder, Gia changes her focus to revenge. Vowing to find the one responsible, the grieving daughter must stay one step ahead of a ruthless plot to end her family line. To avoid yet another family death, Gia has a bloody choice to make: kill or be killed. FORGOTTEN ISLAND (BOOK #2) Vigilante heiress Gia Santella is facing her most dangerous enemy yet. When a hate group infiltrates Gia's San Francisco neighborhood, a student journalist at U.C. Berkeley reporting on the group disappears. Gia's search for the missing student unravels dark secrets that threaten to destroy her beloved neighborhood. She is caught in a race against time. If she fails, more innocent people will die. DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL (BOOK #3) Under the sultry Mediterranean skies, Gia thinks that she's finally escaped the dark cloud that has hovered over her most of her life. But she is wrong. When tragedy strikes and she is left reeling, she is thirsty for vengeance. But in her efforts to see revenge and justice, she finds herself face-to-face with a tangled web of deep dark secrets that threaten to destroy everything she ever believed was true. LONE RAVEN (BOOK #4) Gia Santella's hunt for her best friend leads her on a road trip to Mexico where she learns that there is no refuge from evil despite sunny skies and bucolic beaches. The beauty of Baja hides dark secrets and soon Gia finds herself caught up in a group of ex-pats who like the advantages of living in a place where people can disappear without a trace and nobody bats an eye. BLACK WIDOW (BOOK #5) A Mediterranean cruise. A fascinating new friend. An assassin playing a deadly game of revenge. Vigilante heiress Gia Santella has everything that money can buy. It's what she can't buy--love, companionship, friendship--that eludes her. When Gia is forced to take a luxury cruise, she sets aside her vigilante ways. As she enjoys exotic lands and foods, a new friendship gives her hope that she might be able to lead a normal life like everybody else. But like everything else in her life has done, her new friendship soon takes a deadly turn. TASTE OF VENGEANCE (BOOK #6) They dine with bishops. They vacation with presidents. They sleep with movie stars. So who can stop them when their actions turn deadly? Sydney Rye and Gia Santella--two fierce vigilantes devoted to justice--meet for the first time when they find themselves caught up in a deadly Silicon Valley subculture revolving around some of the most powerful men in the world. It doesn't take long for them to realize that the elite group of men are playing a depraved and deadly game and nobody will dare to interfere. It's left up to the two women to risk it all to stop the men and save more innocent lives.

    No job. No prospects. He lives in one of the most crime-ridden apartment blocks on the west coast. His girlfriend uses him for a place to stay. His father is on life support. Rent is due next week… Games are Nick’s passion. He's played them all - well, the old screen ones anyway. He's never been able to afford an Immersion tank and the amazing games that come with them, but he's seen the web casts. He knows the names of every superstar pixel runner. His heroes. So when he's picked out of the crowd to participate in a competitive, quest-driven dark fantasy RPG, his brain melts. Could this be his opportunity to get ahead? Or will he be chewed up by the machine, just another failed pixel runner by the side of the road? STRENGTH BUILD is a LitRPG serial. The Fields of Durandor is the first episode, with more to come in the coming weeks!

    He hung grisly souvenirs on nails in his junkyard.La Costra NostraCharles Carneglia was a stone-cold killer who fell in with the bloodthirsty John Gotti crew. As the infamous crime family rose to power with their murderous trail of sex, jealousy, greed, and revenge, Carneglia rose with them.Mafia, Madness And MurderThis is the horrifying story of a misfit who fit perfectly into the New York mafia. In a harrowing journey inside a ruthless criminal underworld, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Anthony M. DeStefano chronicles one man s life in a world of depraved acts of violence and the horrors that went with being a member of the Gambino family."Thrilling American crime writing. -Jimmy Breslin on "King of the Godfathers"Includes 16 Pages of Shocking Photos"

    This reader offers students and scholars a plethora of his speeches, interviews, correspondence, one-act plays, and other materials, as well as lengthy selections from all of Frost's books of verse. Though many have been drawn to his seemingly old-fashioned simplicity, this wide-ranging reader in fact reveals that Frost's work was often dark or ironic in tone—and always subtle and complex.

    It’s a birthday book! It was born from the simple idea that birthdays provide the perfect annual opportunity to preserve a sweet moment in time as your child changes from year to year. So it’s a multi-layered confection: annual touchstone, cherished ritual, and eternal keepsake. This journal provides fun, fast, and casual birthday activities for ages 1-18 as well as space to stick birthday photos and a random picture from each year, amusing and thought-provoking questions to ask your kid, and a time-capsule envelope for stashing away odds and ends (artwork, school papers, hand tracings, birthday cards, invitations, and other memorabilia).From toddler hood to young adulthood to every hood in between, you’ll return to the same four activities for each birthday. The questions prompts, and tone may shift each year, but the essence intentionally remains intact.

    Her father insists she marry. She insists that the man who wins her hand must first find matches for her three younger sisters. Sir Stirling James takes up the challenge, and the sisters are shocked when he announces the engagement of their youngest sister to the Devil of Delny. When Quin Ramsey’s surrogate brother Sir Stirling James informs him he is to wed the fourth daughter of a lesser duke, he refuses. But when he waltzes with the lovely innocent, he realizes that he wants no other man to waltz with her THE MARRIAGE WAGER He lost at cards, but won at love… Buccaneer Frasier Gordon is lucky at cards, and keeps a woman in every port. The stakes in a card game turn high, when his old friend Sir Stirling James wagers the hand of a dukes’ daughter against the fastest frigate in Scotland. Who knew the turn of one card would change his fortune forever? A LADY BY CHANCE He bargained for a lady, but the hoyden stole his heart… Signing a wedding contract for the third daughter of a duke sight unseen is the first impulsive thing by-the-book Navy Lieutenant Patrick Chalmers has ever done. When he arrives on his wedding day to claim his bride, he never dreams the beautiful woman walking down the aisle is the spitfire he saved from falling out of a tree. HOW TO CATCH AN HEIRESS It takes cunning to catch an heiress…and a handsome face doesn’t hurt Tomorrow is Sir Stirling James’ wedding day. Stirling matched the Duke of Roxburgh’s three younger daughters with reputable men. His reward is the duke’s eldest daughter, Lady Chastity, the future duchess of Roxburgh. Now, if he can only get the lady down the aisle and into his bed. When Lady Chastity bargained with her father to marry the man who could match her sisters with suitable husbands in one month’s time, she didn’t believe such a man existed. But tomorrow, she is to wed the marriage maker.

    Meanwhile in London, anthropologist Kelly Kinnear is forced into violent confrontation with the shareholders of the most powerful conglomerate in the City of London, warning them of the destruction of an African country. Now the time has come to act. Together, Armstrong and Kinnear forge a passionate alliance – and begin the fight against the forces of greed, evil and corruption attacking a land they would both give their lives to save . . .Hungry as the Sea: Nick Berg - robbed of his wife and ousted from his huge shipping empire - is hell-bent on vengeance. It is the sea which gives him his opportunity. When his arch-rival's luxury liner is trapped in the tempestuous Antarctic, Nick stakes all to pit his powerful salvage tug, the Warlock, in a desperate race against time and the elements . . .Wild Justice: The hijacking of a jumbo jet off the Seychelles galvanizes anti-terrorist chief Peter Stride into the action for which he has spent a lifetime training. But in the hail of bullets which follows, he knows that this is only the beginning of a nightmare. Stride is the one man who might find the twisted genius who holds the world hostage – if only his every move were not anticipated by the enemy . . .

    This e-sampler includes book excerpts, reading group guides, and other classified materials from the hilarious Spellman Files series.The Spellman Files is an irresistible, totally hilarious series about a family of private investigators (the Spellmans) who put the "fun" in "dysfunctional."

    Little, except which side you are on. Suvir and Murad - both victims of circumstance, both numb with the pain of haivng lost their loved ones - choose to do things differently. While one becomes the most feared of terrorist, the other joins the Special forces. Their face-off is a flight to death as one is out to carry out a major terrorist operation in Delhi and the other has been specially called in to foil the attack... Moving breathlessly, through rugged terrain, this edgy thriller will not let you rest till the very last page!

    Wealthy, glamorous and bored, she longed for something more.Now a talented artist with a small business, Helen creates crazy patchwork crafts to support her young daughter, Megan. Penniless, content and single, she is almost unrecognisable.But when her past unexpectedly collides with her new life, Helen finds herself torn. She knows what the easiest choice is, but is it what she wants?

    How do you keep a cowboy at Christmas?Don’t miss this holiday collection of modern-day cowboys and the women they love, featuring the same USA Today, Amazon Bestselling, and Award-Winning authors from “A Cowboy to Keep,” which garnered 55 reviews with an average rating of 4.5 stars.CHRISTMAS, LIBERTY, AND THE THREE MINUTE MAN by Carra CopelinDaniel Dylan Layman is determined to show headstrong city girl Liberty Ann Hart that a country life in Mistletoe, Texas, is the perfect Christmas gift.A CHRISTMAS CAROLE by Andrea DowningCarrie Matheson and her son are trying to settle into a new life in Wyoming. Tate Schrugge is trying to ditch his Scrooge and play Santa to the young boy. But will there be a Dickens of a romance by Christmas?THE PEPPERMINT TREE by Kristy McCaffreyLawyer Skye Mallory returns home for the holidays due to an unexpected inheritance, and cowboy Joe Carrigan stands in her way.THE DEVIL’S CHRISTMAS KISS by Devon McKayWhen Kristen Kelly receives a Christmas kiss from Cole Lawson, she doesn’t believe it means anything. But Cole sets out to make things right with the woman of his heart.SLAY BELLS by Hildie McQueenAt a small-town Christmas festival sparks fly between Carmen Dias and Detective Jared Bowden, but a dead body and a pesky ex-girlfriend don’t exactly spell romance.THE BEST CHRISTMAS by Hebby RomanAll Sofia Rossi wants is to re-connect with her estranged son. But can Gar McCulloch, a handsome cowboy who runs a juvenile rehab ranch, be the answer to her problems?COUNTING DOWN TO CHRISTMAS by Patti Sherry-CrewsWedding planner Melody Evans views happily-ever-after endings with a skeptical eye. Veterinarian Leland Jennings IV thinks Christmas is for kids. Can the holiday spirit bring them together?