Heartache and hardship in London’s East End, from the bestselling author of The Orphans of Halfpenny Street St Saviours children’s home in London’s East End has provided a safe refuge for local children for decades and Sister Beatrice and her team are as busy as ever. New staff member Jinny is glad to escape the lewd advances of her drunken and slovenly mother’s rotten boyfriends, but can she prove she isn’t a chip off the old block? As ever, the staff are tested when orphaned brother and sister Andy and Beth are brought to the home – they are clearly terrified of something, and Andy refuses to be sent home, but can Sister Beatrice get to the bottom of their story before they are returned to their stepfather? It’s all in a day’s work for the home – but things are about to change forever – will they be ready to face the future?

Tom Jackson started putting old postcards on Twitter in 2016. He lives in South London. @pastpostcard

The heart-warming story of one little dog’s big adventure, and the lives he changes along the way. This Christmas, anything could happen… When their pet corgi goes missing on a trip to London, the Walker family search everywhere. But Henry has ended up in the one place they never think to look… Henry has been mistaken for a royal corgi by the Queen’s Guard, and found himself in a very different sort of family home. In no time, Henry is getting the royal treatment in Buckingham Palace, from velvet thrones to a personal chef. If this is a dog’s life, he doesn’t mind it one bit. But as Christmas spirit fills the palace, Henry knows he must somehow get back to the Walkers. Because true family is for life, not just for Christmas… The feel-good Christmas story to read on your holidays, perfect for fans of Debbie Johnson and Erin Green.

Writer and canine behaviourist Carol Price has owned, trained and bred Border Collies for over 15 years. She is a member of The UK Registry of Canine Behaviourists, specialising particularly in Border Collies and rescue dogs, and the author of the best-selling books Understanding the Border Collie and Understanding the Rescue Dog. She has written extensively for The Times on canine and other animal behaviour subjects, and is a regular contributor and training advisor for both of the UK’s top-selling dog magazines, Dogs Today and Your Dog.

Surrendering to the Italian billionaire When ruthless Rafael Vitali learns the woman in his bed is the daughter of his sworn enemy, he can’t get her out of his penthouse quick enough. But when Allegra reveals she’s pregnant, Rafael seizes the opportunity to assert his control. He insists Allegra move to Sicily… as his wife! Allegra’s night of abandon with Rafael shattered the life she once knew. His claim over her body, and their unborn child, is undeniable but giving him a claim over her fragile heart is beyond foolish…yet the temptation he poses is wildly, wickedly irresistible… When one night…leads to pregnancy!

Stir two hearts…and let simmer PI Carson Ford believes the fortune-teller who promised his father a second great love was a fraud. He wants the fortune-teller's daughter, Olivia Hurley, to explain that to his dad. But the mystery ‘great love’ sounds very much like Olivia’s missing aunt; finding her just might be a journey to love for themselves!

Forgiveness starts with a stolen kiss Widowed chief of police Trent Knight never expected Carmen Shields, the woman he blames for his wife's death, to be the one to make him love again. But Carmen is not only finding her way into his little daughters' affections, she seems to be stealing his heart too.

LOVE IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS With two little girls and a demanding job, Charlotte Folsom’s plate is already full when she arrives in Sugar Falls. Hiking, fishing, rafting? Absolutely not her thing. But Chef Charlotte is on special assignment for her magazine, so she decides to make the best of it. Her river guide, Alex Russell, is rugged and hunky, and the camera loves him. For her, the jury is still out. Alex has seen enough city sophisticates come to Idaho for his adventure vacations to know that Charlotte is not the woman for him. When a sudden storm leaves them stranded in the mountains, however, unexpected passion flares among the pines. The Mountain Man and the Magazine Mom? Unthinkable! Or just maybe inevitable…

Finding love twice in a lifetime! When Lucy Brooks lost her husband, her dreams of a family went with him. Now her life is a busy balance of friends, work and the demands of her small ranch. When she meets handsome, brooding Noah Spencer, she recognises grief in his penetrating eyes. And yet she can't deny the feelings – and hope – that he reawakens within her. All widower Noah has in life is his little daughter and a fresh start as Stonerock's newest police officer. Right now he needs to keep his life simple and his heart guarded. Yet he can't resist the instant pull of sweet, selfless Lucy. This could be a second chance at living happily-ever-after…

A crime-scene investigator and a gorgeous cop must track down a serial killer in USA TODAY bestselling author Marie Ferrarella's explosive new novel! For Susannah Quinn, heartbreakingly handsome detective Christian Cavanaugh O'Bannon is trouble that she doesn't need. Still, her CSI instincts tell her a serial killer's on the loose, so she agrees to work this case with Chris through long daysand even hotter nights. But his reckless charm is allowing him perilously close to her darkest secrets. Going by the book has never been freewheeling Chris's style, so an unofficial partnership with Susannah is just what he needs to stop a vicious murderer in his tracks. While he struggles to win the beautiful blonde's trust, mutual desire puts them both in harm's way

Forever his Valentine It may be the most romantic time of the year, but Valentine’s Day just brings up bad memories for Nate Truett. Because on that day six years ago, Ronnie Hartman turned down his marriage proposal and broke his heart. Ever since, he’s been avoiding the holiday and her, completely. Now he’s returned to Arizona, with one last chance to set things right. Ronnie hasn’t forgotten that awful day, or why she turned down Nate’s proposal, but six years is a long time. Seeing how easily the he fits back into her life is…interesting. As he is welcomed with open arms by her family, Ronnie realises one thing. Whatever his reasons for coming back, she can’t avoid him or the past, anymore…

‘A sparkling, laugh-out-loud, romantic read’ Phillipa Ashley, bestselling author of Summer at the Cornish Cafe ‘The perfect holiday read to warm your heart’ #1 Bestselling author Tracy Bloom When the owner of Brides by the Sea, Cornwall’s cutest little wedding shop, offers Lily a job as their new wedding stylist, her first thought is – can she possibly pull it off? Before she’s even sourced a fairy light or tasted a cupcake, Kip Penryn hires her services – but he’s opened an exclusive wedding venue in direct competition to her friend Poppy! Lily feels like a traitor working for Kip, only everyone knows Penryn men are gorgeous but unreliable. All she has to do is sit back and watch him mess it up…doesn’t she? Love is in the Cornish sea breeze this summer as the girls tackle their busiest wedding season yet. There’s plenty of bunting, bubbly and baking – but who is going to catch the bouquet? ‘Funny and big-hearted, I was enchanted by Lily and her friends’ Sunday Times bestselling author Michele Gorman ‘A pure delight…fabulous, fun and unforgettable’ – Debbie Johnson, bestselling author of Christmas at the Comfort Food Cafe

Build smart applications by implementing real-world artificial intelligence projects Key Features *Explore a variety of AI projects with Python *Get well-versed with different types of neural networks and popular deep learning algorithms *Leverage popular Python deep learning libraries for your AI projects Book Description Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the newest technology that’s being employed among varied businesses, industries, and sectors. Python Artificial Intelligence Projects for Beginners demonstrates AI projects in Python, covering modern techniques that make up the world of Artificial Intelligence. This book begins with helping you to build your first prediction model using the popular Python library, scikit-learn. You will understand how to build a classifier using an effective machine learning technique, random forest, and decision trees. With exciting projects on predicting bird species, analyzing student performance data, song genre identification, and spam detection, you will learn the fundamentals and various algorithms and techniques that foster the development of these smart applications. In the concluding chapters, you will also understand deep learning and neural network mechanisms through these projects with the help of the Keras library. By the end of this book, you will be confident in building your own AI projects with Python and be ready to take on more advanced projects as you progress What you will learn *Build a prediction model using decision trees and random forest *Use neural networks, decision trees, and random forests for classification *Detect YouTube comment spam with a bag-of-words and random forests *Identify handwritten mathematical symbols with convolutional neural networks *Revise the bird species identifier to use images *Learn to detect positive and negative sentiment in user reviews Who this book is for Python Artificial Intelligence Projects for Beginners is for Python developers who want to take their first step into the world of Artificial Intelligence using easy-to-follow projects. Basic working knowledge of Python programming is expected so that you’re able to play around with code

Real-world examples of cross-browser, mobile, and data-driven testing with all the latest features of Selenium WebDriver 3 Key Features *Unlock the full potential of Selenium to test your web applications *Use Selenium Grid for faster, parallel running, and cross-browser testing *Test iOS and Android Apps with Appium Book Description Selenium WebDriver is an open source automation tool implemented through a browser-specific driver, which sends commands to a browser and retrieves results. The latest version of Selenium 3 brings with it a lot of new features that change the way you use and setup Selenium WebDriver. This book covers all those features along with the source code, including a demo website that allows you to work with an HMTL5 application and other examples throughout the book. Selenium WebDriver 3 Practical Guide will walk you through the various APIs of Selenium WebDriver, which are used in automation tests, followed by a discussion of the various WebDriver implementations available. You will learn to strategize and handle rich web UI using advanced WebDriver API along with real-time challenges faced in WebDriver and solutions to handle them. You will discover different types and domains of testing such as cross-browser testing, load testing, and mobile testing with Selenium. Finally, you will also be introduced to data-driven testing using TestNG to create your own automation framework. By the end of this book, you will be able to select any web application and automate it the way you want. What you will learn *Understand what Selenium 3 is and how is has been improved than its predecessor *Use different mobile and desktop browser platforms with Selenium 3 *Perform advanced actions, such as drag-and-drop and action builders on web page *Learn to use Java 8 API and Selenium 3 together *Explore remote WebDriver and discover how to use it *Perform cross browser and distributed testing with Selenium Grid *Use Actions API for performing various keyboard and mouse actions Who this book is for Selenium WebDriver 3 Practical Guide is for software quality assurance/testing professionals, software project managers, or software developers interested in using Selenium for testing their applications. Prior programming experience in Java is necessary.

Build optimized applications in Kotlin by learning how to make use of the standard library features the smart way Key Features *Get the most out of the Kotlin library to develop high-quality portable applications *Explore the powerful support for data processing and I/O operations *Discover ways to enhance your Android application development Book Description Given the verbosity of Java, developers have turned to Kotlin for effective software development. The Kotlin standard library provides vital tools that make day-to-day Kotlin programming easier. This library features the core attributes of the language, such as algorithmic problems, design patterns, data processing, and working with files and data streams. The recipes in this book offer coding solutions that can be readily executed. The book covers various topics related to data processing, I/O operations, and collections transformation. We'll walk through effective design patterns in Kotlin and you'll understand how coroutines add new features to JavaScript. As you make your way through the chapters, you'll learn how to implement clean, reusable functions and scalable interfaces containing default implementations. In the concluding chapters, we'll provide recipes on functional programming concepts, such as lambdas, monads, functors, and Kotlin scoping functions. By the end of the book, you'll be able to address a range of problems that Kotlin developers face by implementing easy-to-follow solutions. What you will learn *Work with ranges, progressions, and sequences in use cases *Add new functionalities to current classes with Kotlin extensions *Understand elements such as lambdas, closures, and monads *Build a REST API consumer with Retrofit and a coroutine adapter *Discover useful tips and solutions for making your Android projects *Explore the benefits of standard library features Who this book is for This book is for software developers who are familiar with Kotlin’s basics and want to discover more advanced features and concepts, especially those provided by the Kotlin standard library. It’s also ideal for experienced software developers who are familiar with the functional programming paradigm and other programming languages who want to switch to Kotlin. It will also help Java developers switch to Kotlin and integrate it into existing Java Virtual Machine (JVM) projects.

Make web applications run faster by using advanced PHP, SQL and JavaScript techniques About This Book ? Use a customized PHP stack to create efficient data-driven web applications ? Ensure seamless implementation of a JavaScript & HTML 5 CSS based frontend and PHP based backend. ? Learn about problem identification, best strategies, and UI design patterns as well to build a clean, fast web application Who This Book Is For The audience for this book would be PHP developers who have some basic knowledge of PHP programming and Web technologies. JavaScript programming knowledge is not necessary. What You Will Learn ? Install, confgure, and use profling and benchmarking testing tools ? Understand how to recognize optimizable data structures and functions to effectively optimize a PHP7 application ? Diagnose bad SQL query performance and discover ways to optimize it ? Grasp modern SQL techniques to optimize complex SQL queries ? Identify and simplify overly complex JavaScript code ? Explore and implement UI design principles that effectively enhance the performance ? Combine web technologies to boost web server performance In Detail This book will get you started with the latest benchmarking, profiling and monitoring tools for PHP, MySQL and JavaScript using Docker-based technologies. From optimizing PHP 7 code to learning asynchronous programming, from implementing Modern SQL solutions to discovering Functional JavaScript techniques, this book covers all the latest developments in Faster Web technologies. You will not only learn to determine the best optimization strategies, but also how to implement them. Along the way, you will learn how to profile your PHP scripts with Blackfire.io, monitor your Web applications, measure database performance, optimize SQL queries, explore Functional JavaScript, boost Web server performance in general and optimize applications when there is nothing left to optimize by going beyond performance. After reading this book, you will know how to boost the performance of any Web application and make it part of what has come to be known as the Faster Web. Style and approach The book has a step by step practical approach to developing highly efficient Web applications, with many practical and useful code snippets.

Develop rich and scalable web applications with Node.js, Express.js, and MongoDB About This Book ? Learn the advanced features of Aurelia to build responsive web applications ? Write clean, modular, and testable code that will be easy to maintain and evolve ? Harness the power of JavaScript on the client and server side to build full-stack applications Who This Book Is For Hands-On Full Stack Web Development with Aurelia is for you if you are a web or full-stack JavaScript developer who has experience with traditional stacks such as LAMP, MEAN, or MERN and wish to explore the power of Aurelia and new stack with modern web technologies. What You Will Learn ? Employ best practices and modern approaches to create frontend applications ? Learn about modern CSS preprocessors and improve the readability of your application ? Use the Aurelia framework to create navigable web applications ? Write your own tests, making your application secure and fault-tolerant ? Create solid RESTful APIs using the microservice architecture ? Understand the NoSQL paradigm and get the best performance from your database ? Integrate third-party libraries such as Gmail for Single Sign On ? Write UI testing scripts and integration tests to build extensible apps In Detail Hands-On Full Stack Web Development with Aurelia begins with a review of basic JavaScript concepts and the structure of an Aurelia application generated with the Aurelia-CLI tool. You will learn how to create interesting and intuitive application using the Aurelia-Materialize plugin, which implements the material design approach. Once you fully configure a FIFA World Cup 2018 app, you'll start creating the initial components through TDD practices and then develop backend services to process and store all the user data. This book lets you explore the NoSQL model and implement it using one of the most popular NoSQL databases, MongoDB, with some exciting libraries to make the experience effortless. You'll also be able to add some advanced behavior to your components, from managing the lifecycle properly to using dynamic binding, field validations, and the custom service layer. You will integrate your application with Google OAuth Service and learn best practices to secure your applications. Furthermore, you'll write UI Testing scripts to create high-quality Aurelia Apps and explore the most used tools to run end-to-end tests. In the concluding chapters, you'll be able to deploy your application to the Cloud and Docker containers. By the end of this book, you will have learned how to create rich applications using best practices and modern approaches. Style and approach This is a comprehensive example-based book that guides you to create highly scalable applications using the new MEAN Stack.

Make the most of Kotlin by leveraging design patterns and best practices to build scalable and high performing apps About This Book ? Understand traditional GOF design patterns to apply generic solutions ? Shift from OOP to FP; covering reactive and concurrent patterns in a step-by-step manner ? Choose the best microservices architecture and MVC for your development environment Who This Book Is For This book is for developers who would like to master design patterns with Kotlin to build efficient and scalable applications. Basic Java or Kotlin programming knowledge is assumed What You Will Learn ? Get to grips with Kotlin principles, including its strengths and weaknesses ? Understand classical design patterns in Kotlin ? Explore functional programming using built-in features of Kotlin ? Solve real-world problems using reactive and concurrent design patterns ? Use threads and coroutines to simplify concurrent code flow ? Understand antipatterns to write clean Kotlin code, avoiding common pitfalls ? Learn about the design considerations necessary while choosing between architectures In Detail Design patterns enable you as a developer to speed up the development process by providing you with proven development paradigms. Reusing design patterns helps prevent complex issues that can cause major problems, improves your code base, promotes code reuse, and makes an architecture more robust. The mission of this book is to ease the adoption of design patterns in Kotlin and provide good practices for programmers. The book begins by showing you the practical aspects of smarter coding in Kotlin, explaining the basic Kotlin syntax and the impact of design patterns. From there, the book provides an in-depth explanation of the classical design patterns of creational, structural, and behavioral families, before heading into functional programming. It then takes you through reactive and concurrent patterns, teaching you about using streams, threads, and coroutines to write better code along the way By the end of the book, you will be able to efficiently address common problems faced while developing applications and be comfortable working on scalable and maintainable projects of any size. Style and approach This book explains design patterns in a step-by-step manner with clear and concise code examples

Get a solid understanding of Java fundamentals to master programming through a series of practical steps About This Book ? Enjoy your first step into the world of programming ? Understand what a language is and use its features to build applications ? Learn about a wide variety of programming applications Who This Book Is For Introduction to Programming is for anybody who wants to learn programming. All you’ll need is a computer, internet connection, and a cup of coffee. What You Will Learn ? Understand what Java is ? Install Java and learn how to run it ? Write and execute a Java program ? Write and execute the test for your program ? Install components and confgure your development environment ? Learn and use Java language fundamentals ? Learn object-oriented design principles ? Master the frequently used Java constructs In Detail Have you ever thought about making your computer do what you want it to do? Do you want to learn to program, but just don't know where to start? Instead of guiding you in the right direction, have other learning resources got you confused with over-explanations? Don't worry. Look no further. Introduction to Programming is here to help. Written by an industry expert who understands the challenges faced by those from a non-programming background, this book takes a gentle, hand-holding approach to introducing you to the world of programming. Beginning with an introduction to what programming is, you'll go on to learn about languages, their syntax, and development environments. With plenty of examples for you to code alongside reading, the book's practical approach will help you to grasp everything it has to offer. More importantly, you'll understand several aspects of application development. As a result, you'll have your very own application running by the end of the book. To help you comprehensively understand Java programming, there are exercises at the end of each chapter to keep things interesting and encourage you to add your own personal touch to the code and, ultimately, your application. Style and approach This step-by-step guide will familiarize you with programming using some practical examples.

Learn how to create interactive and visually aesthetic plots using the Bokeh package in Python About This Book ? A step by step approach to creating interactive plots with Bokeh ? Go from nstallation all the way to deploying your very own Bokeh application ? Work with a real time datasets to practice and create your very own plots and applications Who This Book Is For This book is well suited for data scientists and data analysts who want to perform interactive data visualization on their web browsers using Bokeh. Some exposure to Python programming will be helpful, but prior experience with Bokeh is not required. What You Will Learn ? Installing Bokeh and understanding its key concepts ? Creating plots using glyphs, the fundamental building blocks of Bokeh ? Creating plots using different data structures like NumPy and Pandas ? Using layouts and widgets to visually enhance your plots and add a layer of interactivity ? Building and hosting applications on the Bokeh server ? Creating advanced plots using spatial data In Detail Adding a layer of interactivity to your plots and converting these plots into applications hold immense value in the field of data science. The standard approach to adding interactivity would be to use paid software such as Tableau, but the Bokeh package in Python offers users a way to create both interactive and visually aesthetic plots for free. This book gets you up to speed with Bokeh - a popular Python library for interactive data visualization. The book starts out by helping you understand how Bokeh works internally and how you can set up and install the package in your local machine. You then use a real world data set which uses stock data from Kaggle to create interactive and visually stunning plots. You will also learn how to leverage Bokeh using some advanced concepts such as plotting with spatial and geo data. Finally you will use all the concepts that you have learned in the previous chapters to create your very own Bokeh application from scratch. By the end of the book you will be able to create your very own Bokeh application. You will have gone through a step by step process that starts with understanding what Bokeh actually is and ends with building your very own Bokeh application filled with interactive and visually aesthetic plots. Style and approach This books take you through a step by step process that starts with understanding what Bokeh actually is and ends with building your very own Bokeh application filled with interactive and visually aesthetic plots that will amaze your users.

IT service management automation at your fingertips About This Book ? Learn to leverage ServiceNow’s capabilities for improved IT automation by following step-by-step, practical instructions ? Build core administration, development, and maintenance skills with IT service management in ServiceNow ? Improve your workflow efficiency by designing and creating responsive and automated workflows, business logic, and front-end automation Who This Book Is For This book is for IT professionals and administrators who are planning to or are already trying to implement ServiceNow in their organization for Enterprise IT service management tasks. Some familiarity with web technologies (JavaScript) would be helpful. Prior ServiceNow experience is not necessary. What You Will Learn ? Read and write clear, effective code for the ServiceNow platform ? Identify and avoid common pitfalls and missteps that could seriously impact future progress and upgradeability ? Use debugging tools to troubleshoot when things go wrong ? Discover tips and tricks from top ServiceNow developers, architects, and administrators. Find out what the pros wish they knew when they were starting out In Detail This book is an updated version of Learning ServiceNow, that will cover the new and updated features of the ServiceNow platform. It will show you how to put important ServiceNow features to work in the real world, while introducing key concepts via examples of managing and automating IT services. It'll help you build a solid foundation of knowledge, and will demonstrate how to effectively implement and configure modules within ServiceNow. We'll show you how to configure and administer your instance, and then move on to building strong user interfaces and creating powerful workflows. We also cover other key elements of ServiceNow, such as notifications, security, reporting, and custom development. You will learn how to improve and automate your business' workflow and processes. By the end of this book, you will be able to successfully configure and manage ServiceNow like a pro. Style and approach This book is a step-by-step practical tutorial to help you quickly deploy and configure ServiceNow in your organization. It guides you through the process of building applications and understanding the underlying systems, to help you become a more effective ServiceNow/ITSM administrator and/or developer.