Build your own hybrid cloud strategy with this comprehensive learning guide. About This Book ? Build a hybrid cloud strategy for your organization with AWS and OpenStack ? Leverage Hybrid Cloud to design a complex deployment pipeline ? Learn to implement security and monitoring best practices with real-world examples Who This Book Is For This book is targeted at cloud architects, cloud solution providers, DevOps engineers, or any working stakeholder who wants to learn about the hybrid cloud architecture. A basic understanding of public and private cloud is desirable. What You Will Learn ? Learn the demographics and definitions of Hybrid Cloud ? Understand the different architecture and design of Hybrid Cloud ? Explore multi-cloud strategy and use it with your hybrid cloud ? Implement a Hybrid Cloud using CMP / Common API’s ? Implement a Hybrid Cloud using Containers ? Overcome various challenges and issues while working with your Hybrid Cloud ? Understand how to monitor your Hybrid Cloud ? Discover the security implications in the Hybrid Cloud In Detail Hybrid cloud is currently the buzz word in the cloud world. Organizations are planning to adopt hybrid cloud strategy due to its advantages such as untested workloads, cloud-bursting, cloud service brokering and so on. This book will help you understand the dynamics, design principles, and deployment strategies of a Hybrid Cloud. You will start by understanding the concepts of hybrid cloud and the problems it solves as compared to a stand-alone public and private cloud. You will be delving into the different architecture and design of hybrid cloud. The book will then cover advanced concepts such as building a deployment pipeline, containerization strategy, and data storage mechanism. Next up, you will be able to deploy an external CMP to run a Hybrid cloud and integrate it with your OpenStack and AWS environments. You will also understand the strategy for designing a Hybrid Cloud using containerization and work with pre-built solutions like vCloud Air, VMware for AWS, and Azure Stack. Finally, the book will cover security and monitoring related best practices that will help you secure your cloud infrastructure. By the end of the book, you will be in a position to build a hybrid cloud strategy for your organization. Style and approach This book follows a step-by-step, practical approach to deploying and implementing hybrid cloud architectures using AWS and OpenStack.

Build neural network models in text, vision and advanced analytics using PyTorch About This Book ? Learn PyTorch for implementing cutting-edge deep learning algorithms. ? Train your neural networks for higher speed and flexibility and learn how to implement them in various scenarios; ? Cover various advanced neural network architecture such as ResNet, Inception, DenseNet and more with practical examples; Who This Book Is For This book is for machine learning engineers, data analysts, data scientists interested in deep learning and are looking to explore implementing advanced algorithms in PyTorch. Some knowledge of machine learning is helpful but not a mandatory need. Working knowledge of Python programming is expected. What You Will Learn ? Use PyTorch for GPU-accelerated tensor computations ? Build custom datasets and data loaders for images and test the models using torchvision and torchtext ? Build an image classifier by implementing CNN architectures using PyTorch ? Build systems that do text classification and language modeling using RNN, LSTM, and GRU ? Learn advanced CNN architectures such as ResNet, Inception, Densenet, and learn how to use them for transfer learning ? Learn how to mix multiple models for a powerful ensemble model ? Generate new images using GAN’s and generate artistic images using style transfer In Detail Deep learning powers the most intelligent systems in the world, such as Google Voice, Siri, and Alexa. Advancements in powerful hardware, such as GPUs, software frameworks such as PyTorch, Keras, Tensorflow, and CNTK along with the availability of big data have made it easier to implement solutions to problems in the areas of text, vision, and advanced analytics. This book will get you up and running with one of the most cutting-edge deep learning libraries—PyTorch. PyTorch is grabbing the attention of deep learning researchers and data science professionals due to its accessibility, efficiency and being more native to Python way of development. You'll start off by installing PyTorch, then quickly move on to learn various fundamental blocks that power modern deep learning. You will also learn how to use CNN, RNN, LSTM and other networks to solve real-world problems. This book explains the concepts of various state-of-the-art deep learning architectures, such as ResNet, DenseNet, Inception, and Seq2Seq, without diving deep into the math behind them. You will also learn about GPU computing during the course of the book. You will see how to train a model with PyTorch and dive into complex neural networks such as generative networks for producing text and images. By the end of the book, you'll be able to implement deep learning applications in PyTorch with ease. Style and approach An end-to-end guide that teaches you all about PyTorch and how to implement it in various scenarios.

Highly available microservice-based web apps for Cloud with Java About This Book ? Take advantage of the simplicity of Spring to build a full-fledged application ? Let your applications run faster while generating smaller cloud service bills ? Integrate your application with various tools such as Docker and ElasticSearch and use specific tools in Azure and AWS Who This Book Is For Java developers who want to build secure, resilient, robust and scalable applications that are targeted for cloud based deployment, will find this book helpful. Some knowledge of Java, Spring, web programming and public cloud providers (AWS, Azure) should be sufficient to get you through the book. What You Will Learn ? See the benefits of the cloud environment when it comes to variability, provisioning, and tooling support ? Understand the architecture patterns and considerations when developing on the cloud ? Find out how to perform cloud-native techniques/patterns for request routing, RESTful service creation, Event Sourcing, and more ? Create Docker containers for microservices and set up continuous integration using Jenkins ? Monitor and troubleshoot an application deployed in the cloud environment ? Explore tools such as Docker and Kubernetes for containerization and the ELK stack for log aggregation and visualization ? Use AWS and Azure specific tools to design, develop, deploy, and manage applications ? Migrate from monolithic architectures to a cloud native deployment In Detail Businesses today are evolving so rapidly that they are resorting to the elasticity of the cloud to provide a platform to build and deploy their highly scalable applications. This means developers now are faced with the challenge of building build applications that are native to the cloud. For this, they need to be aware of the environment, tools, and resources they’re coding against. If you’re a Java developer who wants to build secure, resilient, robust, and scalable applications that are targeted for cloud-based deployment, this is the book for you. It will be your one stop guide to building cloud-native applications in Java Spring that are hosted in On-prem or cloud providers - AWS and Azure The book begins by explaining the driving factors for cloud adoption and shows you how cloud deployment is different from regular application deployment on a standard data centre. You will learn about design patterns specific to applications running in the cloud and find out how you can build a microservice in Java Spring using REST APIs You will then take a deep dive into the lifecycle of building, testing, and deploying applications with maximum automation to reduce the deployment cycle time. Gradually, you will move on to configuring the AWS and Azure platforms and working with their APIs to deploy your application. Finally, you’ll take a look at API design concerns and their best practices. You’ll also learn how to migrate an existing monolithic application into distributed cloud native applications. By the end, you will understand how to build and monitor a scalable, resilient, and robust cloud native application that is always available and fault tolerant. Style and approach Filled with examples, this book will build you an entire cloud-native application through its course and will stop at each point and explain in depth the functioning and design considerations that will make a robust, highly available application

Build fast, scalable, and high performing applications with Delphi About This Book ? Build efficient and concurrent applications in Delphi with focused examples ? Identify performance bottlenecks and apply the correct algorithm to increase the performance of applications. ? Delve into parallel programming and memory management to optimize your code Who This Book Is For This book is for Delphi developers who would like to build high performance applications with Delphi. Prior knowledge of Delphi is assumed. What You Will Learn ? Find performance bottlenecks and easily mitigate them ? Discover different approaches to fix algorithms ? Understand parallel programming and work with various tools included with Delphi ? Master the RTL for code optimization ? Explore memory managers and their implementation ? Leverage external libraries to write better performing programs In Detail Delphi is a cross-platform Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that supports rapid application development for Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, Google Android, iOS, and now Linux with RAD Studio 10.2. This book will be your guide to build efficient high performance applications with Delphi. The book begins by explaining how to find performance bottlenecks and apply the correct algorithm to fix them. It will teach you how to improve your algorithms before taking you through parallel programming. You’ll then explore various tools to build highly concurrent applications. After that, you’ll delve into improving the performance of your code and master cross-platform RTL improvements. Finally, we’ll go through memory management with Delphi and you’ll see how to leverage several external libraries to write better performing programs. By the end of the book, you’ll have the knowledge to create high performance applications with Delphi. Style and approach This book will take a step-by-step approach with focused examples to teach you how to increase the performance of applications.

Take your application development skills to the next level by implementing Spring Boot features effectively About This Book ? This collection of effective recipes serves as guidelines for Spring Boot application development ? Get up to date with features of the latest version of Spring Boot 2.0 ? Tips and tricks to improve your efficiency through the stages of software development Who This Book Is For This book is for Java Developers who have good knowledge and understanding of Spring and Java application development. What You Will Learn ? Get to know Spring Boot Starters and create custom auto-configurations ? Work with custom annotations that enable bean activation ? Use DevTools to easily develop and debug applications ? Learn the effective testing techniques by integrating Cucumber and Spock ? Observe an eternal application configuration using Consul ? Move your existing Spring Boot applications to the cloud ? Use Hashicorp Consul and Netflix Eureka for dynamic Service Discovery ? Understand the various mechanisms that Spring Boot provides to examine an application’s health In Detail The Spring framework provides great flexibility for Java development, which also results in tedious configuration work. Spring Boot addresses the configuration difficulties of Spring and makes it easy to create standalone, production-grade Spring-based applications. This practical guide makes the existing development process more efficient. Spring Boot Cookbook 2.0 Second Edition smartly combines all the skills and expertise to efficiently develop, test, deploy, and monitor applications using Spring Boot on premise and in the cloud. We start with an overview of the important Spring Boot features you will learn to create a web application for a RESTful service. Learn to fine-tune the behavior of a web application by learning about custom routes and asset paths and how to modify routing patterns. Address the requirements of a complex enterprise application and cover the creation of custom Spring Boot starters. This book also includes examples of the new and improved facilities available to create various kinds of tests introduced in Spring Boot 1.4 and 2.0, and gain insights into Spring Boot DevTools. Explore the basics of Spring Boot Cloud modules and various Cloud starters to make applications in “Cloud Native” and take advantage of Service Discovery and Circuit Breakers. Style and approach This practical guide follows a recipe-based approach and provides extremely helpful guidelines to build, configure, and customize your Spring Boot applications.

Discover best practices and troubleshooting solutions when working on ROS About This Book ? Develop complex robotic applications using ROS to interface robot manipulators and mobile robots ? Gain insight into autonomous navigation in mobile robots and motion planning in robot manipulators ? Discover best practices and troubleshooting solutions Who This Book Is For If you are a robotics enthusiast or researcher who want to learn more about building robot applications using ROS, this book is for you. In order to learn from this book, you should have a basic knowledge of ROS, GNU/Linux, and C++ programming concepts. The book is also excellent for programmers who want to explore the advanced features of ROS. What You Will Learn ? Create a robot model with a seven-DOF robotic arm and a differential wheeled mobile robot ? Work with Gazebo and V-REP robotic simulator ? Implement autonomous navigation in differential drive robots using SLAM and AMCL packages ? Explore the ROS Pluginlib, ROS nodelets, and Gazebo plugins ? Interface I/O boards such as Arduino, robot sensors, and high-end actuators ? Simulate and motion plan an ABB and universal arm using ROS Industrial ? Explore the latest version of the ROS framework ? Work with the motion planning of a seven-DOF arm using MoveIt! In Detail In this day and age, robotics has been gaining a lot of traction in various industries where consistency and perfection matter. Automation is achieved via robotic applications and various platforms that support robotics. The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a modular software platform to develop generic robotic applications. This book focuses on the most stable release of ROS (Kinetic Kame), discusses advanced concepts, and effectively teaches you programming using ROS. We begin with aninformative overview of the ROS framework, which will give you a clear idea of how ROS works. During the course of this book, you’ll learn to build models of complex robots, and simulate and interface the robot using the ROS MoveIt! motion planning library and ROS navigation stacks. Learn to leverage several ROS packages to embrace your robot models. After covering robot manipulation and navigation, you’ll get to grips with the interfacing I/O boards, sensors, and actuators of ROS. Vision sensors are a key component of robots, and an entire chapter is dedicated to the vision sensor and image elaboration, its interface in ROS and programming. You’ll also understand the hardware interface and simulation of complex robots to ROS and ROS Industrial. At the end of this book, you’ll discover the best practices to follow when programming using ROS. Style and approach This is a simplified guide to help you learn and master advanced topics in ROS using hands-on examples.

A highly detailed guide to performing powerful attack vectors in many hands-on scenarios and defending significant security flaws in your company's infrastructure About This Book ? Advanced exploitation techniques to breach modern operating systems and complex network devices ? Learn about Docker breakouts, Active Directory delegation, and CRON jobs ? Practical use cases to deliver an intelligent endpoint-protected system Who This Book Is For If you are a system administrator, SOC analyst, penetration tester, or a network engineer and want to take your penetration testing skills and security knowledge to the next level, then this book is for you. Some prior experience with penetration testing tools and knowledge of Linux and Windows command-line syntax is beneficial. What You Will Learn ? Exposure to advanced infrastructure penetration testing techniques and methodologies ? Gain hands-on experience of penetration testing in Linux system vulnerabilities and memory exploitation ? Understand what it takes to break into enterprise networks ? Learn to secure the configuration management environment and continuous delivery pipeline ? Gain an understanding of how to exploit networks and IoT devices ? Discover real-world, post-exploitation techniques and countermeasures In Detail It has always been difficult to gain hands-on experience and a comprehensive understanding of advanced penetration testing techniques and vulnerability assessment and management. This book will be your one-stop solution to compromising complex network devices and modern operating systems. This book provides you with advanced penetration testing techniques that will help you exploit databases, web and application servers, switches or routers, Docker, VLAN, VoIP, and VPN. With this book, you will explore exploitation abilities such as offensive PowerShell tools and techniques, CI servers, database exploitation, Active Directory delegation, kernel exploits, cron jobs, VLAN hopping, and Docker breakouts. Moving on, this book will not only walk you through managing vulnerabilities, but will also teach you how to ensure endpoint protection. Toward the end of this book, you will also discover post-exploitation tips, tools, and methodologies to help your organization build an intelligent security system. By the end of this book, you will have mastered the skills and methodologies needed to breach infrastructures and provide complete endpoint protection for your system. Style and approach Your one-stop guide to mastering the skills and methodologies of breaching infrastructures and providing complete endpoint protection to your system.

A pragmatic companion guide to your Agile journey About This Book ? Make your team Agile by implementing industry-standard Agile techniques ? Assess scope, scale up efficiently ? Create the correct roles and identify the right candidates for your team ? Finish your projects faster and stay ahead of the curve Who This Book Is For If you’re a software developer or a project manager with little to no experience of Agile, but you want to efficiently implement it, this is the book for you. What You Will Learn ? Create a solid foundation that gives your team an Agile jumpstart ? Understand how to select and evolve practices to increase your team’s agility ? Use experiments to accelerate your team’s understanding ? Fine-tune your approach by incorporating aspects of Lean and Lean Startup ? Know how to foster an environment of continuous improvement and learning that will become self-sustaining In Detail This book will help you overcome the common challenges you’ll face when transforming your working practices from waterfall to Agile. Each chapter builds on the last, starting with easy-to-grasp ways to get going with Agile. Next you’ll see how to choose the right Agile framework for your organization. Moving on, you’ll implement systematic product delivery and measure and report progress with visualization. Then you’ll learn how to create high performing teams, develop people in Agile, manage in Agile, and perform distributed Agile and collaborative governance. At the end of the book, you’ll discover how Agile will help your company progressively deliver software to customers, increase customer satisfaction, and improve the level of efficiency in software development teams. Style and approach Think of this book like a manual, rather than a theoretical textbook. It’s packed full of visual ways to understand Agile, helpful tips to get you set up quickly, tried and tested solutions when challenges arise, and heaps of support to get the day-to-day tasks in Agile done. You’ll want to keep a copy on your desk, right next to your coffee cup.

Leverage the WiFi chip to build exciting Quadcopters About This Book ? Learn to create a fully functional Drone with Arduino and ESP8266 and their modified versions of hardware. ? Enhance your drone's functionalities by implementing smart features. ? A project-based guide that will get you developing next-level drones to help you monitor a particular area with mobile-like devices. Who This Book Is For If you are a programmer or a DIY enthusiast and keen to create a fully functional drone with Arduino and ESP8266, then this book is for you. Basic skills in electronics and programming would be beneficial. This book is not for the beginners as it includes lots of ideas not detailed how you can do that. If you are a beginner, then you might get lost here. The prerequisites of the book include a good knowledge of Arduino, electronics, programming in C or C++ and lots of interest in creating things out of nothing. What You Will Learn ? Includes a number of projects that utilize different ESP8266 and Arduino capabilities, while interfacing with external hardware ? Covers electrical engineering and programming concepts, interfacing with the World through analog and digital sensors, communicating with a computer and other devices, and internet connectivity ? Control and fly your quadcopter, taking into account weather conditions ? Build a drone that can follow the user wherever he/she goes ? Build a mission-control drone and learn how to use it effectively ? Maintain your vehicle as much as possible and repair it whenever required In Detail With the use of drones, DIY projects have taken off. Programmers are rapidly moving from traditional application programming to developing exciting multi-utility projects. This book will teach you to build industry-level drones with Arduino and ESP8266 and their modified versions of hardware. With this book, you will explore techniques for leveraging the tiny WiFi chip to enhance your drone and control it over a mobile phone. This book will start with teaching you how to solve problems while building your own WiFi controlled Arduino based drone. You will also learn how to build a Quadcopter and a mission critical drone. Moving on you will learn how to build a prototype drone that will be given a mission to complete which it will do it itself. You will also learn to build various exciting projects such as gliding and racing drones. By the end of this book you will learn how to maintain and troubleshoot your drone. By the end of this book, you will have learned to build drones using ESP8266 and Arduino and leverage their functionalities to the fullest. Style and approach This is an easy-to-follow guide with illustrations and technical de*ions to help you assemble your vehicle.

Discover new opportunities to empower your private cloud by making the most of the OpenStack universe About This Book ? This practical guide teaches you how to extend the core functionalities of OpenStack ? Discover OpenStack's flexibility by writing custom applications and network plugins ? Deploy a containerized environment in OpenStack through a hands-on and example-driven approach Who This Book Is For This book is for system administrators, cloud architects, and developers who have experience working with OpenStack and are ready to step up and extend its functionalities. A good knowledge of basic OpenStack components is required. In addition, familiarity with Linux boxes and a good understanding of network and virtualization jargon is required. What You Will Learn ? Explore new incubated projects in the OpenStack ecosystem and see how they work ? Architect your OpenStack private cloud with extended features of the latest versions ? Consolidate OpenStack authentication in your large infrastructure to avoid complexity ? Find out how to expand your computing power in OpenStack on a large scale ? Reduce your OpenStack storage cost management by taking advantage of external tools ? Provide easy, on-demand, cloud-ready applications to developers using OpenStack in no time ? Enter the big data world and find out how to launch elastic jobs easily in OpenStack ? Boost your extended OpenStack private cloud performance through real-world scenarios In Detail OpenStack is a very popular cloud computing platform that has enabled several organizations during the last few years to successfully implement their Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platforms. This book will guide you through new features of the latest OpenStack releases and how to bring them into production straightaway in an agile way. It starts by showing you how to expand your current OpenStack setup and how to approach your next OpenStack Data Center generation deployment. You will discover how to extend your storage and network capacity and also take advantage of containerization technology such as Docker and Kubernetes in OpenStack. Additionally, you'll explore the power of big data as a Service terminology implemented in OpenStack by integrating the Sahara project. This book will teach you how to build Hadoop clusters and launch jobs in a very simple way. Then you'll automate and deploy applications on top of OpenStack. You will discover how to write your own plugin in the Murano project. The final part of the book will go through best practices for security such as identity, access management, and authentication exposed by Keystone in OpenStack. By the end of this book, you will be ready to extend and customize your private cloud based on your requirements. Style and approach This guide is filled with practical scenarios on how to extend and enhance OpenStack's functionality. We will be covering various installation and configuration platforms along with a focus on plugins and extending OpenStack's core functionalities.

Annabel is about to marry the perfect man . . .The last thing Miss Annabel Wheaton desires is true love. She learned the hard way that love makes a woman foolish and leads only to heartache. That's why she agreed to marry an earl who needs her money. He's got a pedigree and a country estate, and he won't ever break her heart. There's only one problem . . .Christian isn't about to let her marry that pompous prig . . .Christian Du Quesne, Duke of Scarborough, thinks the stubborn heiress is about to make the biggest mistake of her life, and he's determined to stop her. Tempting beautiful women is Christian's forte, after all. When her family offers him a nice sum of money to stop the wedding, he's happy to accept.Falling in love with Annabel was never supposed to be part of the bargain . . .

Andreas Merrick is the king of London's dark underworld, having amassedunimaginable wealth and power . . . and afierce reputation that leaves even thebravest men quaking in their boots. Yet one person is maddeningly unintimidated byhis fearsome presence: the persistent Miss Phoebe Pace. And one kiss always leads to another . . .Equal parts honey and steel, Phoebe willstop at nothing to find her missing brotherand save her family. Though associatingwith Andreas means peril and scandal,she never expects to experience a passionso intense that it threatens to consume her. But enigmatic Andreas is no ordinary manto love. He brings dangers from all sides without and within while tempting herbeyond her wildest dreams . . .

This holiday season, join two of today's most popular paranormal authors for a special look into their worlds, where creatures are always stirring and no one sleeps through the night. . . . The Bite Before Christmas The Gift by Lynsay SandsTeddy Brunswick knows about the immortals among us. He's worked with them, called them friend but he never counted on being snowed in with one over Christmas. Katricia Argeneau is a tasty little bundle and she seems to feel the same way about him. Problem is, he's not sure she feels quite the same way. After all, the snowstorm has derailed her blood delivery, which leaves him the only available meal on the menu. . . .Home for the Holidays by Jeaniene FrostCat and Bones are looking forward to a normal holiday at least as normal as it gets for the combustible vampire couple and their otherworldly friends and family. But their yuletide plans are shattered when a stranger shows up and reveals long-buried family secrets that threaten to take a bite out of their holiday cheer . . . and lives.

Theirs was a Passion as Fierce as the Land that Claimed ThemBlack-eyed Damian de la Sola was like no man Katherine Maxwell had ever known. Powerful and seductive, the aristocratic Spaniard unleashed a passion the Boston beauty vowed to resist. De la Sola's blood ran hot for the bewitching widow of his most trusted American ally.Consumed by love and honor-bound to protect her, he relentlessly pursued her into the California wilderness.Together, they followed their destinies. From a magnificent hacienda to a glittering cave carved deep in the mountainside, they searched for a golden treasure--and discovered a priceless love.A Magnificent Novel of Love and Adventure in the Untamed American West

In the scorching finale of Anna Randol's wickedly tempting Trio series, the Wraith takes on a mission and a princess he'll never forget . . .Ian Maddox, aka the Wraith, is happy to leave his life as a spy as soon as he discovers who's been trying to kill his friends. All clues lead him to the bedroom of an exiled princess. Yet Princess Juliana isn't the simpering royal he expects, and this irresistible beauty agrees to give him the information he seeks . . . for a price.Princess Juliana has never cowered not even as she fled her burning castle in the midst of a rebellion so she won't tremble before the darkly charismatic man who appears in her bedchamber and holds a knife to her throat. Instead, she bargains with the infamous spy to help her retrieve sensitive documents and restore her kingdom. But Juliana quickly finds that Ian is no humble servant, and she never imagines that lessons in thievery will lead to schooling in seduction.

Sophie Barnes does it again in this sizzling Regency-set romance where anything can happen at the Kingsborough BallLucien Marvaine never thought he was good enough for Katherine. As the younger son of an earl, he didn't have a title or prospects. Then fate steps in and gives him a second chance, and this new Earl of Roxbury is determined to make the beautiful Kate his own . . . one touch . . . one kiss at a time.Katherine never thought of herself as a temptress, certainly not with Lucien. Why, she's known him almost all her life! Yet as she waltzes in Lucien's arms at the Kingsborough Ball, she can't help but be drawn to him. Has he always been this hard and masculineAnd where did those dimples come fromKate is not looking for a husband . . . but how can she not surrender to Lucien's charms when love is at stake?

In the tradition of David Pelzer's A Child Called 'It' comes the unsettling story of a mute, almost catatonic seven year old and the special education teacher who tries to save her from the silence and abuse of her world.Hayden has chronicled experiences from her long career as a special education teacher in several books, including One Child and The Tiger's Child. Successes in this difficult and often frustrating field can be few and hard won, a fact which Hayden deftly illustrates while simultaneously offering hope and joy in small victories. This time she brings to life the story of a scruffy seven year old, Venus, who is so unresponsive that Hayden searches for signs of deafness, brain damage or mental retardation. The author is relentless in her attempt to diagnose the cause of Venus's 'almost catatonic' state, which is punctuated by occasional violent outbursts. In this first person narrative, Hayden also shares her own thoughts, worries and reflections on the strained relationship with a mismatched classroom aide, creating a rich tapestry of the dynamics of a group of special needs youngsters and the adults who try to help them.

After a grueling assignment with the black ops force known as the Alliance, Weston Brown is craving downtime. Instead, he's pulled into his deadliest operation, in the one place he never wanted to see again. No-nonsense and so damn hot, Lexi Turner lied to get him to her mountain clinic in Pakistan. But the threat is terrifyingly real.Lexi has been asking too many questions, drawing the wrong kind of attention. As soon as she lays eyes on West, she can tell he's quiet yet tough and has a rescue complex which will come in handy for going up against the world's most ruthless gunrunners.Cut off from the rest of the Alliance, Lexi and West navigate the brutal terrain and a primal sexual attraction. Sticking around has never been West's way, but now he'll use every resource to keep Lexi by his side, safe from a killer who leaves no loose ends behind.

Bound by centuries of bad blood, England's two most powerful families maintain a veneer of civility . . . until the heir to the staggering Redmond fortune disappears, reviving rumors of an ancient curse: a Redmond and an Eversea are destined to fall disastrously in love once per generation.An Enduring Legend Rumor has it she broke Lyon Redmond's heart. But while many a man has since wooed the dazzling Olivia Eversea, none has ever won her which is why jaws drop when she suddenly accepts a viscount's proposal. Now London waits with bated breath for the wedding of a decade . . . and wagers on the return of an heir.An Eternal LoveIt was instant and irresistible, forbidden . . . and unforgettable. And Lyon now a driven, dangerous, infinitely devastating man decides it's time for a reckoning. As the day of her wedding races toward them, Lyon and Olivia will decide whether their love is a curse destined to tear their families apart . . . or the stuff of which legends are made.

In New York Times bestselling author Jennifer McQuiston's enticing new Seduction Diaries entry, a mysterious journal may provide a potential spinster with instruction or lead her to her heart's desireFree-spirited Lucy Westmore isn't yet a spinster, although she fully intends to be. Fortunately, an eccentric aunt has left her both a diary detailing the secrets to spinsterhood and a cottage in Cornwall. Unfortunately, an insufferable marquess is angling for her prize! Turning Lord Thomas Branston down flat should be easy. So why does this man who won't take no for an answer make Lucy's body and soul sigh yesThomas knows the real value of Heathmore Cottage, and he has no intention of letting some silly Society miss get her hands on it. He'll simply have to charm Lucy into selling. But the clever young woman he encounters, first in London, then en route to Cornwall, stands stubbornly on her own two (quite lovely) feet. And now, Thomas can think only of sweeping her off them.

In New York Times bestselling author Karen Ranney's second novel in her breathtaking series, an unconventional woman and a former scoundrel embark on a daring mission of desireOnce the ton's most notorious rake, Dalton MacIain has returned from his expedition to America during the Civil War wounded and a changed man. Instead of returning to his old haunts, he now spends his time at home. But Dalton's peace is disturbed when Minerva Todd barges into his London townhouse, insisting he help search for her missing brother Neville. Though Dalton would love to spend more time with the bewitching beauty, he has no interest in finding Neville, whom he blames for his injury.Minerva has never met a more infuriating man than the Earl of Rathsmere, yet she is intrigued by the torrid rumors she has heard about him . . . and the fierce attraction pulling her toward him.Dalton does not count on Minerva's persistence, or the desire she awakens in him, compelling him to discover her brother's fate. But when danger surrounds them, Dalton fears he will lose the tantalizing, thoroughly unpredictable woman he has come to love.