A Society Princess—and a Penniless Preacher? Felicity Kensington is preparing for the grandest wedding Pearlman, Michigan, has ever seen. True, her prospective husband is virtually a stranger. But the well-connected engineer her father hired fits all her marriage criteria. Except for one tiny flaw: it’s the town’s new pastor, not the wealthy engineer, who makes Felicity’s heart race…. Gabriel Meeks left New York to avoid high society’s foolish rules. Instead, he’s immediately smitten with the high-andmighty Miss Kensington. Beneath Felicity’s misplaced pride is a woman of genuine worth, if he can only help her see it. And nothing could make him happier than ensuring that her matrimony plan takes an unexpected twist!

Bring the performance and security of SQL Server to Linux About This Book ? Design and administer your SQL Server solution on the open source Linux platform ? Install, configure, and fine-tune your database application for maximum performance ? An easy-to-follow guide teaching you how to implement various SQL Server CTP 2.x offerings on Linux—from installation to administration Who This Book Is For This book is for the Linux users who want to learn SQL Server on their favorite Linux distributions. It is not important if you are experienced database user or a beginner as we are starting from scratch. However, it is recommended that you have basic knowledge about relational models. More advanced readers can pick the chapters of their interest and study specific topics immediately. Users from Windows platform can also benefit from this book to expand their frontiers and become equally efficient on both platforms. What You Will Learn ? Install and set up SQL Server CTP 2.x on Linux ? Create and work with database objects using SQL Server on Linux ? Configure and administer SQL Server on Linux-based systems ? Create and restore database back-ups ? Protect sensitive data using the built-in cryptographic features ? Optimize query execution using indexes ? Improve query execution time by more than 10x using in-memory OLTP ? Track row-versioning using temporal tables In Detail Microsoft's launch of SQL Server on Linux has made SQL Server a truly versatile platform across different operating systems and data-types, both on-premise and on-cloud. This book is your handy guide to setting up and implementing your SQL Server solution on the open source Linux platform. You will start by understanding how SQL Server can be installed on supported and unsupported Linux distributions. Then you will brush up your SQL Server skills by creating and querying database objects and implementing basic administration tasks to support business continuity, including security and performance optimization. This book will also take you beyond the basics and highlight some advanced topics such as in-memory OLTP and temporal tables. By the end of this book, you will be able to recognize and utilize the full potential of setting up an efficient SQL Server database solution in your Linux environment. Style and approach This book follows a step-by-step approach to teach readers the concepts of SQL Server on Linux using the bash command line and SQL programming language trough examples which can easily be adapted and applied in your own solutions.

Harness the power of the Cloud, leveraging the speed and scale of Azure Serverless computing About This Book ? Take advantage of the agility, scale, and cost-effectiveness of the cloud using Azure Serverless compute ? Build scalable, reliable, and cost-effecient applications with Serverless architecture and .NET ? Learn to use Azure functions to their fullest potential in .NET Who This Book Is For This book is for .NET developers who would like to learn about serverless architecture. Basic C# programming knowledge is assumed. What You Will Learn ? Understand the best practices of Serverless architecture ? Learn how how to deploy a Text Sentiment Evaluation application in an Azure Serverless environment ? Implement security, identity, and access control ? Take advantage of the speed of deployment in the cloud ? Configure application health monitoring, logging, and alerts ? Design your application to ensure cost effectiveness, high availability, and scale In Detail Serverless architecture allows you to build and run applications and services without having to manage the infrastructure. Many companies have started adopting serverless architecture for their applications to save cost and improve scalability. This book will be your companion in designing Serverless architecture for your applications using the .NET runtime, with Microsoft Azure as the cloud service provider. You will begin by understanding the concepts of Serverless architecture, its advantages and disadvantages. You will then set up the Azure environment and build a basic application using a sample text sentiment evaluation function. From here, you will be shown how to run services in a Serverless environment. We will cover the integration with other Azure and 3rd party services such as Azure Service Bus, as well as configuring dependencies on NuGet libraries, among other topics. After this, you will learn about debugging and testing your Azure functions, and then automating deployment from source control. Securing your application and monitoring its health will follow from there, and then in the final part of the book, you will learn how to Design for High Availability, Disaster Recovery and Scale, as well as how to take advantage of the cloud pay-as-you-go model to design cost-effective services. We will finish off with explaining how azure functions scale up against AWS Lambda, Azure Web Jobs, and Azure Batch compare to other types of compute-on-demand services. Whether you’ve been working with Azure for a while, or you’re just getting started, by the end of the book you will have all the information you need to set up and deploy applications to the Azure Serverless Computing environment. Style and approach This step-by-step guide shows you the concepts and features of Serverless architecture in Azure with .NET.

Over 50 recipes to help you build applications hosted on Serverless architecture using Azure Functions. About This Book ? Enhance Azure Functions with continuous deployment using Visual Studio Team Services ? Learn to deploy and manage cost-effective and highly available serverless applications using Azure Functions ? This recipe-based guide will teach you to build a robust serverless environment Who This Book Is For If you are a Cloud administrator, architect, or developer who wants to build scalable systems and deploy serverless applications with Azure functions, then this book is for you. Prior knowledge and hands-on experience with core services of Microsoft Azure is required. What You Will Learn ? Develop different event-based handlers supported by serverless architecture supported by Microsoft Cloud Platform – Azure ? Integrate Azure Functions with different Azure Services to develop Enterprise-level applications ? Get to know the best practices in organizing and refactoring the code within the Azure functions ? Test, troubleshoot, and monitor the Azure functions to deliver high-quality, reliable, and robust cloud-centric applications ? Automate mundane tasks at various levels right from development to deployment and maintenance ? Learn how to develop statefulserverless applications and also self-healing jobs using DurableFunctions In Detail Microsoft provides a solution to easily run small segment of code in the Cloud with Azure Functions. Azure Functions provides solutions for processing data, integrating systems, and building simple APIs and microservices. The book starts with intermediate-level recipes on serverless computing along with some use cases on benefits and key features of Azure Functions. Then, we’ll deep dive into the core aspects of Azure Functions such as the services it provides, how you can develop and write Azure functions, and how to monitor and troubleshoot them. Moving on, you’ll get practical recipes on integrating DevOps with Azure functions, and providing continuous integration and continous deployment with Visual Studio Team Services. It also provides hands-on steps and tutorials based on real-world serverless use cases, to guide you through configuring and setting up your serverless environments with ease. Finally, you’ll see how to manage Azure functions, providing enterprise-level security and compliance to your serverless code architecture. By the end of this book, you will have all the skills required to work with serverless code architecture, providing continuous delivery to your users. Style and approach This recipe-based guide explains the different features of Azure Function by taking a real-world application related to a specific domain. You will learn how to implement automation and DevOps and discover industry best practices to develop applications hosted on serverless architecture using Azure functions.

Mills & Boon proudly presents THE SARA CRAVEN COLLECTION. Sara’s powerful and passionate romances have captivated and thrilled readers all over the world for five decades and made her an international bestseller. WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES Dare she dream of the devil? It was time for Joanna to stop running and face Callum Blackstone. If she had only herself to consider, she’d tell him to do his worst. But refusing to submit to Cals' impossible demands meant financial disaster for her father and brother. Fate has dealt Cal all the best cards, yet still the price he wanted Joanna to pay seemed far too high. Was revenge really his motive?

Unleash the combination of Docker and Jenkins in order to enhance the DevOps workflow About This Book ? Build reliable and secure applications using Docker containers. ? Create a complete Continuous Delivery pipeline using Docker, Jenkins, and Ansible. ? Deliver your applications directly on the Docker Swarm cluster. ? Create more complex solutions using multi-containers and database migrations. Who This Book Is For This book is indented to provide a full overview of deep learning. From the beginner in deep learning and artificial intelligence to the data scientist who wants to become familiar with Theano and its supporting libraries, or have an extended understanding of deep neural nets. Some basic skills in Python programming and computer science will help, as well as skills in elementary algebra and calculus. What You Will Learn ? Get to grips with docker fundamentals and how to dockerize an application for the Continuous Delivery process ? Configure Jenkins and scale it using Docker-based agents ? Understand the principles and the technical aspects of a successful Continuous Delivery pipeline ? Create a complete Continuous Delivery process using modern tools: Docker, Jenkins, and Ansible ? Write acceptance tests using Cucumber and run them in the Docker ecosystem using Jenkins ? Create multi-container applications using Docker Compose ? Managing database changes inside the Continuous Delivery process and understand effective frameworks such as Cucumber and Flyweight ? Build clustering applications with Jenkins using Docker Swarm ? Publish a built Docker image to a Docker Registry and deploy cycles of Jenkins pipelines using community best practices In Detail The combination of Docker and Jenkins improves your Continuous Delivery pipeline using fewer resources. It also helps you scale up your builds, automate tasks and speed up Jenkins performance with the benefits of Docker containerization. This book will explain the advantages of combining Jenkins and Docker to improve the continuous integration and delivery process of app development. It will start with setting up a Docker server and configuring Jenkins on it. It will then provide steps to build applications on Docker files and integrate them with Jenkins using continuous delivery processes such as continuous integration, automated acceptance testing, and configuration management. Moving on you will learn how to ensure quick application deployment with Docker containers along with scaling Jenkins using Docker Swarm. Next, you will get to know how to deploy applications using Docker images and testing them with Jenkins. By the end of the book, you will be enhancing the DevOps workflow by integrating the functionalities of Docker and Jenkins. Style and approach The book is aimed at DevOps Engineers, developers and IT Operations who want to enhance the DevOps culture using Docker and Jenkins.

Build DIY wireless projects using the Raspberry Pi Zero W board About This Book ? Explore the functionalities of the Raspberry Pi Zero W with exciting projects ? Master the wireless features (and extend the use cases) of this $10 chip ? A project-based guide that will teach you to build simple yet exciting projects using the Raspberry Pi Zero W board Who This Book Is For If you are a hobbyist or an enthusiast and want to get your hands on the latest Raspberry Pi Zero W to build exciting wireless projects, then this book is for you. Some prior programming knowledge, with some experience in electronics, would be useful. What You Will Learn ? Set up a router and connect Raspberry Pi Zero W to the internet ? Create a two-wheel mobile robot and control it from your Android device ? Build an automated home bot assistant device ? Host your personal website with the help of Raspberry Pi Zero W ? Connect Raspberry Pi Zero to speakers to play your favorite music ? Set up a web camera connected to the Raspberry Pi Zero W and add another security layer to your home automation In Detail The Raspberry Pi has always been the go–to, lightweight ARM-based computer. The recent launch of the Pi Zero W has not disappointed its audience with its $10 release. "W" here stands for Wireless, denoting that the Raspberry Pi is solely focused on the recent trends for wireless tools and the relevant use cases. This is where our book—Raspberry Pi Zero W Wireless Projects—comes into its own. Each chapter will help you design and build a few DIY projects using the Raspberry Pi Zero W board. First, you will learn how to create a wireless decentralized chat service (client-client) using the Raspberry Pi's features?. Then you will make a simple two-wheel mobile robot and control it via your Android device over your local Wi-Fi network. Further, you will use the board to design a home bot that can be connected to plenty of devices in your home. The next two projects build a simple web streaming security layer using a web camera and portable speakers that will adjust the playlist according to your mood. You will also build a home server to host files and websites using the board. Towards the end, you will create free Alexa voice recognition software and an FPV Pi Camera, which can be used to monitor a system, watch a movie, spy on something, remotely control a drone, and more. By the end of this book, you will have developed the skills required to build exciting and complex projects with Raspberry Pi Zero W. Style and approach A step-by-step guide that will help you design and create simple yet exciting projects using the Raspberry Pi Zero W board.

Learn how to unify Customer Experience, User Experience and more to shape lasting customer engagement in a world of rapid change. About This Book ? An introductory guide to Experience Design that will help you break into XD as a career by gaining A strong foundational knowledge ? Get acquainted with the various phases of a typical Experience Design workflow ? Work through the key process and techniques in XD, supported by most of the common use cases Who This Book Is For This book is for designers who wish to enter the field of UX Design, especially Programmers, Content Strategists, and Organizations keen to understand the core concepts of UX Design. What You Will Learn ? Understand why Experience Design (XD) is at the forefront of business priorities, as organizations race to innovate products and services in order to compete for customers in a global economy driven by technology and change ? Get motivated by the numerous professional opportunities that XD opens up for practitioners in wide-ranging domains, and by the stories of real XD practitioners ? Understand what experience is, how experiences are designed, and why they are effective ? Gain knowledge of user-centered design principles, methodologies, and best practices that will improve your product (digital or physical) ? Get to know your X’s and D’s—understand the differences between XD and UX, CX, IxD, IA, SD, VD, PD, and other design practices In Detail We live in an experience economy in which interaction with products is valued more than owning them. Products are expected to engage and delight in order to form the emotional bonds that forge long-term customer loyalty: Products need to anticipate our needs and perform tasks for us: refrigerators order food, homes monitor energy, and cars drive autonomously; they track our vitals, sleep, location, finances, interactions, and content use; recognize our biometric signatures, chat with us, understand and motivate us. Beautiful and easy to use, products have to be fully customizable to match our personal preferences. Accomplishing these feats is easier said than done, but a solution has emerged in the form of Experience design (XD), the unifying approach to fusing business, technology and design around a user-centered philosophy. This book explores key dimensions of XD: Close collaboration among interdisciplinary teams, rapid iteration and ongoing user validation. We cover the processes, methodologies, tools, techniques and best-practices practitioners use throughout the entire product development life-cycle, as ideas are transformed to into positive experiences which lead to perpetual customer engagement and brand loyalty. Style and approach An easy-to-understand guide, filled with real-world use cases on process, design, and techniques, helping you build a strong foundation in Experience Design.

He had her at hello again… After the prom night accident that had stolen the innocence of his small lakeside hometown, Jack Llewellyn had run. The guilt—especially facing his high school sweetheart Arlie Gallagher—had been too much. Now he had no choice. He was back in town, and on Arlie’s radar. Arlie couldn’t believe that after all these years, she still had him under her skin. He was such a changed man…a responsible business owner, a single parent. Would he understand the changes she’d gone through, the secrets she lived with? She was ready to forgive him but was he ready to forgive himself? And did they have to say goodbye this time?

These Greek men are… ? powerful ? passionate ? prepared to marry! Aleksi–at least until she had his wedding ring on her finger… Ana had secretly hoped her marriage of convenience to Luc Dimitriades would turn into the real thing, yet one year after taking their vows he still seemed susceptible to his mistress. Ana knew she had to leave and fought to resist his passion but Luc knew she was carrying his child… Hot-blooded tycoon Jace Dimitriades knows that women find him irresistible–and Rebekah's no exception. So how come all he's getting from her is the cold shoulder? Jace will show Rebekah that he's different, but it seems the only way is to play his ace–and propose!

They married for convenience. Will they stay together for the baby…or for love? Nasira Edwards has come to Royal, Texas, to escape her past and stop her brother from making a terrible mistake. But her own marital mistake has tracked her down. Her husband, shipping magnate Sebastian Edwards, has followed her across the ocean and he refuses to leave Texas without his wife. Sebastian knows their convenient marriage isn’t about love. That’s the way it has to be. But the passion between them is as hot as ever. And he’s come west to coax the beauty back into his bed—while keeping his emotions in check. Then Nasira reveals she’s pregnant….

Cody Jameson knows that hiring gourmet chef Vivienne Clayton for the Circle C Ranch has to be a mistake. He once secretly loved her, but she’s back in tiny Clayton, Colorado, for just a year. Vivienne wonders how she’ll survive in the town she couldn’t leave fast enough. Yet she soon finds herself cooking beans and biscuits for cowboys and helping Cody with his sassy teenage sister. To the entire ranch’s surprise, it seems like this big-city chef might actually stand a chance of becoming a cowboy’s lady forever. Rocky Mountain Heirs: When the greatest fortune of all is love.

Small-town Texas with high-stakes risks Alice Green, a young cop, goes rogue to save a young girl when she believes her actions led to the girl's abduction. O'Brien is prepared to put everything on the line to help solve this crime. But can Alice open up enough to let the handsome rancher aid in her mission?

Sex, money and politics are the driving forces of society in this new novel from bestselling author Alaa al Aswany. A medley of Egyptian and American lives collides on the campus of the University of Illinois Medical Center in a post-9/11 Chicago, and crises of identity abound. Among the players are an atheistic anti-establishment American professor of the sixties generation, whose relationship with a younger African-American woman becomes a moving target for intolerance; a veiled PhD candidate whose conviction in the code of her traditional upbringing is shaken by her exposure to American society; an emigre who has fervently embraced his new American identity, but who cannot escape his Egyptian roots when faced with the issue of his daughter's 'honour'; an Egyptian State Security informant who spouts religious doctrines while hankering after money and power; and a dissident student poet who comes to America with the sole aim of financing his literary aspirations, but whose experience in Chicago turns out to be more than he bargained for. This tightly plotted page-turner is set far from the downtown Cairo of al Aswany's ‘The Yacoubian Building’, but is no less unflinching an examination of contemporary Egyptian lives.

The classic humorous novel about an alcohol-loving clergyman who thinks he is the reincarnation of a dog. Complete with the award-winning film screenplay that expands upon the tale. Dean Spanley is affable, conventional and prudent – the very archetype of a bland churchman. Only his keen interest in the transmigration of souls and his obsession with dogs betray any shadow of eccentricity. But then, richly primed with a few glasses of Imperial Tokay, he begins to speak vividly of the joys of rabbiting, of rolling in fresh dung and of baying at the moon. Are these canine memories a drunken fancy? Or can it be that Dean Spanley must once have been a dog? This special edition includes Lord Dunsany’s witty and inventive novel, My Talks With Dean Spanley, together with Alan Sharp’s award-winning screenplay for the film starring Peter O’Toole and Sam Neill, which faithfully adapts and expands upon the events in the story.

On a Saturday morning in May 1980, Melanie Bowen, a pretty fifteen year old, ran down the stairs of her parents’ home in Port Talbot, grabbed her leather jacket and crash helmet, yelled a goodbye, and then walked out of the front door into the sunshine for what was to be the last time in her life. Never Say Die is the true story of what followed… Since the motorcycle crash that left her paralysed from the chest down, Melanie's life has been one of extremes. On the down side, she has endured 5 horrific months of despair and indignity in rehabilitation, undergone a colostomy at 23, been in another serious car crash, suffered syringomyelia and the terrifying prospect of full quadriplegia, been diagnosed with breast cancer and broken several bones. On the plus side, however, she's won medals in athletics for Wales, been humbled and inspired by Falklands veterans at RAF Chessington, raised thousands for charity, become a major disability poster girl in America, dabbled with the film world and been screen tested for a movie, met the Queen, and set up her own rehabilitation charity, whose patrons include the acclaimed actor Michael Sheen, Dame Tanni Grey Thompson and former Welsh Rugby captain, Gwyn Jones. She has also, against all the odds, found lasting happiness, having fallen in love with and married the surgeon who 25 years earlier told her she would never walk again.

A saga of life in the Northern Territories and the clash of white and Aborigine cultures – one of Australia’s all-time best-selling novels and an inspiration for Baz Luhrmann’s lavish film ‘AUSTRALIA’. Capricornia has been described as one of Australia's 'great novels', a sharply observed chronicle about life in the Northern Territory of Australia and the inhumane treatment suffered by Aborigines at the hands of white men. The story is immense and rambling, laced with humour that is often as bitter and as harsh as the terrain in which it is set, and follows with irony the fortunes (and otherwise) of a range of Outback characters over a span of generations. Through their story is reflected the story of Australia, the clash of personalities and cultures that provide the substance on which today's society is founded. Above all, however, this is a novel of protest and of compassion - for the Aborigines and half-bloods of Australia's 'last frontier'. Sprawling, explosive, thronged with characters, plots and sub-plots, Capricornia is without doubt one of the best known and widely read Australian novels of the last 70 years. When it was first published it was acclaimed as 'a turning point', an 'outstanding work of social protest'. Its message is as penetrating today as it was in the 1930s when Herbert himself was official 'Protector of Aborigines' at Darwin.

From the bestselling author of Iris and Ruby comes a novel in which a group of old friends reunite to start a new stage of their lives. Miranda Meadowe decides a lonely widowhood in her crumbling country house is not for her. Reviving a university dream, she invites five of her oldest friends to come and join her to live, and to stave off the prospect of old age. All have their own reasons for accepting. To begin with, omens are good. They laugh, dance, drink and behave badly, as they cling to the heritage they thought was theirs for ever: power, health, stability. They are the baby boomers; the world is theirs to change. But as old attractions resurface alongside new tensions, they discover that the clock can’t be put back. When building work reveals an Iron Age burial site of a tribal queen, the outside world descends on their idyllic retreat, and the isolation of the group is breached. Now the past is revealed; and the future that beckons is very different from the one they imagined.

You can’t choose your family – but you can choose your friends… A heartfelt, warm and truthful novel about female friendship. Eve has never imagined herself as a stepmother. But when she falls in love with Ian, he comes with a ready-made family of three children. And, to make matters worse, he's a widower. The ghost of his glamorous and well known wife haunts them. Clare, a teacher and single mother, is Eve's best friend. She is the only person Eve can talk to about how on earth a journalist in her thirties can win round three wary children. But despite Clare's years of practice with her own teenage daughter, it's Lily, her younger sister, who provides the truly sympathetic ear. Mel is sent along to Eve's so-called 'support group' by a colleague. With a fledgling relationship and a new business to get off the ground, she has a very different set of pressures to the other women. And Mandy is the stay-at-home mum, whose relationship comes with stepchildren, and who wants more than anything to stitch together a happy family life for herself, her kids and her new step-kids. As a cup of coffee turns to a bottle of wine and the get-togethers become a regular fixture, conversations about new families evolve into ones about relationships, life and each woman’s deepest hopes and dreams. But the friendship is tested and feelings about lovers, husbands and step-children challenged when the five women are forced to confront new futures as well as unwelcome figures from the past…

The living embodiment of The Beatles and a musical juggernaut without parallel, Paul McCartney is undoubtedly the patriarch of pop. In this authoritative biography, acclaimed author and journalist Howard Sounes creates the most accurate and extensive profile of McCartney ever built, leaving no stone unturned, and no shadow unexplored. He is the torch-bearer of the Beatles – the greatest band in pop – and one of the most closely studied stars in show business. But surprises and secrets still linger in the life of Sir Paul McCartney. In FAB, his full story is told for the first time. Acclaimed author Howard Sounes spent more than two years investigating every aspect of Sir Paul’s life and work, including interviewing over 200 people. The result is the richest and more comprehensive biography of McCartney ever written. Uniquely, FAB pays equal attention to the story of Paul McCartney both in the Beatles and post-Beatles, creating a unique narrative spanning the arc of the artist’s life. FAB culminates in the sensational human story of Sir Paul’s calamitous marriage to Heather Mills, which is fully revealed for the first time. Sounes proves a judicious critic of the music of an iconic star while also delivering a superb psychological portrait of the man.

With a new introduction by M. John Harrison and a striking new cover design from the artist Stanley Donwood, this acclaimed cult novel sees human existence threatened by devastating climate change. Water. Man’s most precious commodity is a luxury of the past. Radioactive waste from years of industrial dumping has caused the sea to form a protective skin strong enough to devastate the Earth it once sustained. And while the remorseless sun beats down on the dying land, civilization itself begins to crack. Violence erupts and insanity reigns as the remnants of mankind struggle for survival in a worldwide desert of despair. Remarkable for its prescience and the originality of its vision, The Drought is a work of major importance from the early career of one of Britain’s most acclaimed novelists. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Ned Beauman, Ali Smith, Neil Gaiman and Martin Amis) and brand-new cover designs.