Are you willing to gamble with your life? Some debts can’t be repaid. The Gambler’s Den lies in ruins, its staff scattered across the Sand Sea, all but a memory of the minds of its past patrons. But when the Morning Star appears, ruled by a mysterious figure known only as the Hare, the comparisons can’t be helped. Who is this larger-than-life character? Why do the showgirls wear masks? What are they hiding? The answer…they should be dead. Franco and Misu were safe only in their anonymity, but with Franco gone Misu must find him – jeopardising all they have built. In order to save the man she trusts Misu must put her faith in the villain. Wilheim does not forget disobedience lightly, and Misu’s was a great betrayal, so now he will call in his debt, and his revenge on the staff of the Morning Star. Who will win? Who will survive? Who will the odds favour?

Lady Alkmene and Jake Dubois are back in a gripping new adventure facing dangerous opponents at a masked ball in the countryside. Masked danger… Lady Alkmene Callender has always loved grand parties, but when she receives an invitation to a masked ball thrown by Franklin Hargrove – oil magnate, aviation enthusiast and father of her best friend, Denise – she’s never seen such luxury. The estate is lit up with Chinese lanterns in the gardens, boats operated by footmen float across the pond and the guest list features the distinguished, rich and powerful! But below the glamour, evil is lurking. When a dead body is discovered, it forces Lady Alkmene to throw off her mask and attempt to find the true killer before Denise’s family are accused. If only her partner, Jake Dubois, weren’t hiding something from her… This case might just be more dangerous than either of them could have imagined. 1. A Proposal to Die For 2. Diamonds of Death 3. Deadly Treasures 4. A Fatal Masquerade

‘Immensely talented new author.’ John Marrs, author of The One and When You Disappeared ‘Engrossing, compelling and twisty from the first page to the shocking ending. This book grabbed me and didn't let go.’ Michele Campbell author of It’s Always the Husband 'Unique and utterly compelling. This twisty psychological thriller will chill you to the bones.' Gemma Metcalfe author of Trust Me ‘A stellar and original concept, brilliantly executed. The final chapters had my heart in my throat! O’Sullivan is certainly one to watch.’ Phoebe Morgan, author of THE DOLL HOUSE A deserted train station: A man waits. A woman watches. Chris is ready to join his wife. He’s planned this moment for nearly a year. The date. The time. The train. But he hadn’t factored in Sarah. So when Sarah walks on to the platform and sees a man swaying at the edge she assumes he’s just had too much to drink. What she doesn’t expect is to stop a suicide. As Sarah becomes obsessed with discovering the secrets that Chris is clearly hiding, he becomes obsessed with stopping her, protecting her. But there are some secrets that are meant to stay buried… Pre-order Close Your Eyes… Darren’s thrilling second book, coming May 2018! Perfect for fans of Clare Mackintosh, BA Paris and Holly Seddon. Praise for Our Little Secret ’Darren O’Sullivan keeps the reader on the edge of their seat in this dark, clever look at what drives people to the edge and how quickly a life can change.’ Phoebe Morgan author of The Doll House ‘This is one of the best books I have ever read. It was nail-biting and had me on edge from start to finish… a must buy!’ Greta Halliday ‘An absolutely phenomenal debut.’ Rebecca Pugh ‘One of the best books of its genre.’ Julia Beales ‘The only thing unbelievable about this thriller is that it's the authors debut.’ Jennifer Kelly ‘Gripping from the moment you start reading it.’ Emily Charlton ‘Incredibly well-written debut.’ Susan Anne Burton ‘One of the best novels I've read in a long time.’ Paul Lane

‘What a wonderful romance…I simply loved it!’ Lori Belcher (NetGalley Reviewer) Can love blossom in the countryside? Artist Holly Hunter is turning her life upside-down! She’s leaving the bright lights of London (and a cheating husband) behind her and hoping for a fresh start as she escapes to the peaceful Cotswolds countryside. Men are off the cards for Holly. Instead, she’s focusing on her little gallery and adopting an adorable Border Collie puppy named Tubs. Or so she thought… Because no matter how hard she tries to resist him, local vet Adam Whitney is utterly gorgeous. And in a village as small as this one, Holly can only avoid Adam for so long! Fans of Milly Johnson, Caroline Roberts and Jill Mansell will love this heart-warming read!

‘Utterly enjoyable from beginning to end!’ Being Unique Books Life is about to change forever… When best friends, Tina and Jodie, make a drunken New Year’s Eve vow to change their lives before they hit the big 3 – 0, neither expected to end the year with much more than another hangover… Twelve months later, Jodie is married and living in Provence – and Tina is exactly where she was a year ago (although now her rent is double). Tina can’t help but feel a little bit left behind, but as Jodie reminds her, she’s not thirty yet, there’s still time to quit her job, start her own literary agency and sign the man of her dreams! Don’t miss the new gorgeously uplifting holiday romance from bestselling author Jennifer Bohnet. Praise for A Year of Taking Chances: ‘A must-read!’ Anita Tarrant (NetGalley reviewer) ‘There are no words to justify how beautiful this book is. I loved every minute!’ Karen Whittard (NetGalley reviewer) ‘Utterly enjoyable from beginning to end!’ Being Unique Books ‘Fabulous!’ Lianne James (NetGalley reviewer) ‘Amazing…I couldn’t put it down.’ Nicola Clough (NetGalley reviewer) ‘Well-written and engaging… [it] made me laugh and cry!’ Harriet Salkeld (NetGalley reviewer)

‘I loved it! Wicked humour with a big heart’ - Liz Fenwick It is a truth universally acknowledged that working with an ex is a terrible idea… Annie Elliot never expected her life to turn out this way: living with her dad, working as an accountant – surely the least glamorous job in Hollywood?! – and dodging her family’s constant bickering. Landing a job as a producer on a new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice seems like the piece of luck she’s been waiting for. Until the cast is announced, and Annie discovers that the actor playing Mr Darcy is Austen Wentworth: the man she’s spent nearly a decade trying to forget. Not only is Austen her ex – but while Annie’s life has stalled, Austen is Hollywood’s hottest property…and has just been voted World’s Sexiest Man. With nowhere to hide, there’s just one question. Now the one who got away has come back, should Annie stand by her pride? Or give into Austen’s powers of persuasion? A laugh-out-loud retelling of a Jane Austen romance, perfect for fans of Lindsey Kelk and Fiona Collins Brigid Coady was the winner of the 2015 Joan Hessayon New Writers’ Scheme Award Praise for Brigid Coady ‘Awesome, awesome, awesome! … Fans of Paige Toon, Sophie Kinsella and Lindsey Kelk, this will most definitely be your thing!’ – Sophie Bailey, ibloggbooks.com ‘As the story moved from setting the scene and firmly entrenching the reader in a Persuasion rerun to the actual filming it stepped away from a faithful retelling of the story and came into its own right. If you loved films like Ten Things I Hate About You …you will really like this.’ – Alison Robinson, Netgalley

’Smart, sexy, romantic, and enormous fun’ – Keris Stainton ‘I loved it! Wicked humour with a big heart’ – Liz Fenwick on Persuading Austen Emma Woodhouse knows the world loves nothing more than a celebrity romance. And, as a rising star at Mega! Management, she match-makes some of the biggest names in the business. Who cares if it’s all for show? For Emma, fauxmance beats the real thing any day! But Emma has a huge task ahead. She needs to find fake girlfriends for every member of Breach of the Peace, the world’s hottest new boy band. Rich, talented heart-throbs, they should have their pick of the ladies – but, with band mates Will and Ed determined to undermine her every move, and her best mate Gee voicing disapproval about her chosen profession, Emma’s carefully ordered world begins to fall apart. Is it possible that Emma doesn’t know best after all? A new laugh-out-loud retelling of a Jane Austen romance, perfect for fans of Lindsey Kelk and Fiona Collins, from the winner of the 2015 Joan Hessayon New Writers’ Scheme Award. Available to pre-order now! Praise for Brigid Coady: ‘Awesome, awesome, awesome! … Fans of Paige Toon, Sophie Kinsella and Lindsey Kelk, this will most definitely be your thing!’ – Sophie Bailey, ibloggbooks.com on Persuading Austen ‘As the story moved from setting the scene and firmly entrenching the reader in a Persuasion rerun to the actual filming it stepped away from a faithful retelling of the story and came into its own right. If you loved films like Ten Things I Hate About You …you will really like this.’ – Alison Robinson, Netgalley on Persuading Austen

A story of class, scandal and forbidden passions in the shadow of war. Perfect for fans of Iona Grey, Gill Paul and Downton Abbey. England, 1934. Hester Blake, an ambitious girl from an industrial Northern town, finds a job as a lady's maid in a small aristocratic household. Despite their impressive title and glorious past, the Fitzmartins are crumbling under the pressures of the new century. And in the cold isolation of these new surroundings, Hester ends up hopelessly besotted with her young mistress, Lady Lucy. Accompanying Lucy on her London Season, Hester is plunged into a heady and decadent world. But hushed whispers of another war swirl beneath the capital... and soon, Hester finds herself the keeper of some of society's most dangerous secrets... "A gorgeous, elegant and well-researched book" - Crystal King, the author of Feast of Sorrow.

Join the virtual reality revolution by creating immersive 3D games and applications with Cardboard VR, Gear VR, OculusVR, and HTC Vive About This Book ? Develop robust, immersive VR experiences that are easy on the eye. ? Code 3D games and applications using Unity 3D game engine. ? Learn the basic principles of virtual reality applications Who This Book Is For If you are a game developer and a VR enthusiast now looking to get stuck into the VR app development process by creating VR apps for different platforms, then this is the book for you. Familiarity with the Unity game engine and the C# language is key to getting the most from this book. What You Will Learn ? Use Unity assets to create object simulation. ? Implement simple touch controls in your application. ? Apply artificial intelligence to achieve player and character interaction. ? Add *s for movement, tracking, grasping, and spawning. ? Create animated walkthroughs, use 360-degree media, and build engaging VR experiences. ? Deploy your games on multiple VR platforms. In Detail Are you new to virtual reality? Do you want to create exciting interactive VR applications? There's no need to be daunted by the thought of creating interactive VR applications, it's much easier than you think with this hands-on, project-based guide that will take you through VR development essentials for desktop and mobile-based games and applications. Explore the three top platforms—Cardboard VR, Gear VR, and OculusVR —to design immersive experiences from scratch. You’ll start by understanding the science-fiction roots of virtual reality and then build your first VR experience using Cardboard VR. You'll then delve into user interactions in virtual space for the Google Cardboard then move on to creating a virtual gallery with Gear VR. Then you will learn all about virtual movements, state machines, and spawning while you shoot zombies in the Oculus Rift headset. Next, you'll construct a Carnival Midway, complete with two common games to entertain players. Along the way, you will explore the best practices for VR development, review game design tips, discuss methods for combating motion sickness and identify alternate uses for VR applications Style and approach A project-based guide with every project built across chapters.

Grasp the fundamental concepts of deep learning using Tensorflow in a hands-on manner About This Book ? Get a first-hand experience of the deep learning concepts and techniques with this easy-to-follow guide ? Train different types of neural networks using Tensorflow for real-world problems in language processing, computer vision, transfer learning, and more ? Designed for those who believe in the concept of 'learn by doing', this book is a perfect blend of theory and code examples Who This Book Is For This book targets data scientists and machine learning developers who wish to get started with deep learning. If you know what deep learning is but are not quite sure of how to use it, this book will help you as well. An understanding of statistics and data science concepts is required. Some familiarity with Python programming will also be beneficial. What You Will Learn ? Understand the fundamentals of deep learning and how it is different from machine learning ? Get familiarized with Tensorflow, one of the most popular libraries for advanced machine learning ? Increase the predictive power of your model using feature engineering ? Understand the basics of deep learning by solving a digit classification problem of MNIST ? Demonstrate face generation based on the CelebA database, a promising application of generative models ? Apply deep learning to other domains like language modeling, sentiment analysis, and machine translation In Detail Deep learning is a popular subset of machine learning, and it allows you to build complex models that are faster and give more accurate predictions. This book is your companion to take your first steps into the world of deep learning, with hands-on examples to boost your understanding of the topic. This book starts with a quick overview of the essential concepts of data science and machine learning which are required to get started with deep learning. It introduces you to Tensorflow, the most widely used machine learning library for training deep learning models. You will then work on your first deep learning problem by training a deep feed-forward neural network for digit classification, and move on to tackle other real-world problems in computer vision, language processing, sentiment analysis, and more. Advanced deep learning models such as generative adversarial networks and their applications are also covered in this book. By the end of this book, you will have a solid understanding of all the essential concepts in deep learning. With the help of the examples and code provided in this book, you will be equipped to train your own deep learning models with more confidence. Style and approach A step-by-step guide filled with multiple examples to help you get started with data science and deep learning.

Learn continuous deployment and automation with code-signing, continuous testing, building, deploying, and releasing of your app. About This Book ? A practical guide on automating your mobile development pipeline with Fastlane, Jenkins, and Slack. ? Build, test, run and deploy your mobile application release with this end to end guide. ? Implement Continuous Integration, delivery, and deployment practices to optimize your application development workflow for faster and efficient release builds. Who This Book Is For This book is intended for mobile developers who are keen on incorporating Continuous integration and deployment practices in their workflow. What You Will Learn ? Harness the fastlane tools for the Continuous Deployment strategy ? Integrate Continuous Deployment with existing Continuous Integration. ? Automate upload of screenshots across all device screen-sizes ? Manage push notifications, provisioning profiles, and code-signing certificates ? Orchestrate automated build and deployments of new versions of your app ? Regulate your TestFlight users and on-board new testers In Detail Competitive mobile apps depend strongly on the development team’s ability to deliver successful releases, consistently and often. Although continuous integration took a more mainstream priority among the development industry, companies are starting to realize the importance of continuity beyond integration and testing. This book starts off with a brief introduction to fastlane—a robust command-line tool that enables iOS and Android developers to automate their releasing workflow. The book then explores and guides you through all of its features and utilities; it provides the reader a comprehensive understanding of the tool and how to implement them. Themes include setting up and managing your certificates and provisioning and push notification profiles; automating the creation of apps and managing the app metadata on iTunes Connect and the Apple Developer Portal; and building, distributing and publishing your apps to the App Store. You will also learn how to automate the generation of localized screenshots and mesh your continuous delivery workflow into a continuous integration workflow for a more robust setup. By the end of the book, you will gain substantial knowledge on delivering bug free, developer-independent, and stable application release cycle. Style and approach A step by step guide taking the readers through all the tools of fastlane.

A tutorial leading the aspiring Go developer to full mastery of Golang's distributed features. About This Book ? This book provides enough concurrency theory to give you a contextual understanding of Go concurrency ? It gives weight to synchronous and asynchronous data streams in Golang web applications ? It makes Goroutines and Channels completely familiar and natural to Go developers Who This Book Is For This book is for developers who are familiar with the Golang syntax and have a good idea of how basic Go development works. It would be advantageous if you have been through a web application product cycle, although it’s not necessary. What You Will Learn ? Gain proficiency with concurrency and parallelism in Go ? Learn how to test your application using Go's standard library ? Learn industry best practices with technologies such as REST, OpenAPI, Docker, and so on ? Design and build a distributed search engine ? Learn strategies on how to design a system for web scale In Detail Distributed Computing with Go gives developers with a good idea how basic Go development works the tools to fulfill the true potential of Golang development in a world of concurrent web and cloud applications. Nikhil starts out by setting up a professional Go development environment. Then you’ll learn the basic concepts and practices of Golang concurrent and parallel development. You’ll find out in the new few chapters how to balance resources and data with REST and standard web approaches while keeping concurrency in mind. Most Go applications these days will run in a data center or on the cloud, which is a condition upon which the next chapter depends. There, you’ll expand your skills considerably by writing a distributed document indexing system during the next two chapters. This system has to balance a large corpus of documents with considerable analytical demands. Another use case is the way in which a web application written in Go can be consciously redesigned to take distributed features into account. The chapter is rather interesting for Go developers who have to migrate existing Go applications to computationally and memory-intensive environments. The final chapter relates to the rather onerous task of testing parallel and distributed applications, something that is not usually taught in standard computer science curricula. Style and approach Distributed Computing with Go takes you through a series of carefully graded tutorials, building ever more sophisticated applications.

Leverage the power of Redis 4.x to develop, optimize and administer your Redis solutions with ease About This Book ? Build, deploy and administer high performance and scalable applications in Redis ? Covers a range of important tasks - including development and administration of Redis ? A practical guide that takes your understanding of Redis to the next level Who This Book Is For This book is for database administrators, developers and architects who want to tackle the common and not so common problems associated with the different development and administration-related tasks in Redis. A fundamental understanding of Redis is expected to get the best out of this book. What You Will Learn ? Install and configure your Redis instance ? Explore various data types and commands in Redis ? Build client-side applications as well as a Big Data framework with Redis ? Manage data replication and persistence in Redis ? Implement high availability and data sharding in Redis ? Extend Redis with Redis Module ? Benchmark, debug, fine-tune and troubleshoot various issues in Redis In Detail Redis is considered the world's most popular key-value store database. Its versatility and the wide variety of use cases it enables have made it a popular choice of database for many enterprises. Based on the latest version of Redis, this book provides both step-by-step recipes and relevant the background information required to utilize its features to the fullest. It covers everything from a basic understanding of Redis data types to advanced aspects of Redis high availability, clustering, administration, and troubleshooting. This book will be your great companion to master all aspects of Redis. The book starts off by installing and configuring Redis for you to get started with ease. Moving on, all the data types and features of Redis are introduced in detail. Next, you will learn how to develop applications with Redis in Java, Python, and the Spring Boot web framework. You will also learn replication tasks, which will help you to troubleshoot replication issues. Furthermore, you will learn the steps that need to be undertaken to ensure high availability on your cluster and during production deployment. Toward the end of the book, you will learn the topmost tasks that will help you to troubleshoot your ecosystem efficiently, along with extending Redis by using different modules. Style and approach This book is a rich collection of recipes that will come in handy when you are working with Redis. It addresses your common and not-so-common pain points, so this is a book of Redis that you must have on the shelf.

这本《从零开始学日语，这本就够》满足了初学者的所有要求。不仅封面大方美观，内容更是丰富多彩。从基础的“五十音图”入门，到日常生活、青春校园、职场风云、诗歌、歌词等，几乎涵盖了所有你能想到的，以及你若是有机会去日本旅游生活或是工作能够用到的所有方面。

日文可易可难。日文逐渐受到人们青睐，因为其上手简单。但简单入门后，你会发现，越往里面钻研，就越复杂，出现的新问题也越多。在这段瓶颈期，你面对的是繁冗的词汇、变幻的语法、复杂的敬语等等。

现今，互联网资源十分发达，相信大家对日语都不是那么陌生。若你真正想学好日语，认真选择入门书籍的话，这本《我的本日语单词学习书》*是*。其实任何语言的学习都是一样，只要努力学习记忆，发现其中的乐趣，一切难题就都会迎刃而解。

语言是交流的工具，而口语尤为重要。现代社会，不善于交流将失去许多机会，也无法很好地与别人的协作。可以说，人际矛盾的产生大多数都可归于交流不畅，而避免这种矛盾的有效的办法就是熟悉对方语言，增加共识，进行有效的交流沟通。

寄宿家庭，顾名思义，并非住在自己家里，而是寄住在别人的家庭，和其他家庭的家人一起生活，当然，这里特指外国人家庭。寄宿家庭为留学生提供了一个学习、享受外国生活方式、体验外国文化的平台。是独自在外求学的留学生有方向的学习、体验的一个非常好的机会。所以，寄宿家庭是很多留学生出国留学的首要考量。

Master the skills you need to develop portable, highly-functional Android applications using NDK About This Book Develop portable games using Android NDK and debug them on your desktop Familiarise yourself with different popular C++ libraries on Android and use them in your games Write multi-threaded code with graphics, sound, networking, and resource storage Who This Book Is For If you want to leverage your C++ skills in mobile development and increase the performance of your Android applications, then this is the book for you. Knowledge of C or C++ is assumed, including pointer manipulation, multi-threading, object-oriented programming concepts, and the basics of C++11. It would be an added advantage if you know how to develop applications without any IDE. What You Will Learn Explore popular C++ libraries and use them on Android Write portable, multithreaded native networking code Create portable audio framework using OpenAL Implement portable rendering framework using OpenGL ES 3 Debug mobile applications on your desktop machine Access resources from APK archives Render text with FreeType In Detail Android NDK is used for multimedia applications that require direct access to system resources. NDK is also the key for portability, which in turn allows a reasonably comfortable development and debugging process using familiar tools such as GCC and Clang toolchains. This is a hands-on guide to extending your game development skills with Android NDK. The book takes you through many clear, step-by-step example applications to help you further explore the features of Android NDK and some popular C++ libraries and boost your productivity by debugging the development process. Through the course of this book, you will learn how to write portable multi-threaded native code, use HTTP networking in C++, play audio files, use OpenGL ES 3, and render high-quality text. Each chapter aims to take you one step closer to building your application. By the end of this book, you will be able to create an engaging, complete gaming application. Style and approach This book adopts a step-by-step approach and each chapter is based on the material from the previous ones. The book focuses on putting to your knowledge of C++ use while you develop Android applications of your own.

香港人缺的就是時間，盡管知道花一天時間郊遊，就會讓身心健康，但還是無法起行。用小半天時間吧，探賞一下交通便利的天然美景，讓我們不花時間地洗滌心靈。

書中食譜的選取原則是以簡便易做又美味可口為重，基本上在四五個步驟內即可完成。除幾十款西式糕餅甜點外，書中介紹的大多數均屬家中常吃的中菜和小食，每個食譜都列明食材、調味和製法，並按主要的烹製技法編排，讓你一目瞭然。