Losing a parent is never easy, and during the holidays the emptiness seems magnified. Local newspaper owner Neil Bailey knows that first-hand. That’s why he’s determined to help his neighbour, Dr. Charli Prescott, find the meaning of the season. Luckily he has enough cheer to go around—and the recipe for perfect cocoa. If that isn’t enough to get Charli into the spirit, the town also has a Secret Santa. Everyone's buzzing with news of the large anonymous donation and, once Neil promises to discover Santa’s identity, his paper’s circulation numbers sky-rocket. It’s his duty to report the truth. Except, as he gets closer to Charli, he’s sure she’s keeping something from him. All he can try to do is keep his journalistic integrity intact… while protecting the woman he thought was his Christmas miracle.

What I, engineer Frith Williams, know about weddings could fit on a piece of confetti… So how did workaholic me end up wedding planner for my tabloid-darling sister? Don’t ask! Time to make (yet another) To-Mess Up list: 1. Venue – surely the added distraction of unbearably charming venue manager George Challoner is a bonus?! 2. Seating Plan – it’s in disarray! I need a +1 and George is the only singleton around. Must remember not to fall for that lethally irresistible smile! 3. Catching the Bouquet – I might now be an expert on weddings, but broken hearts don’t mend easily. I’ll still never contemplate my own…

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.

A practical guide filled with case studies and easy solutions to solve the most common user experience issues About This Book ? Understand and fix the pain points of a bad UX design to ensure greater customer satisfaction. ? Correct UX issues at various stages of a UX Design with the help of different methodologies for fixing bad UXs ? See best practices and established principles in UX with case studies illustrating these practices and principles Who This Book Is For This book is for anyone confronted with a poorly designed UX. It is ideal for UX professionals who want to solve problems with existing UX designs, and UX designers who want to enhance their designs or analyze and rectify where they went wrong. What You Will Learn ? Learn about ROI and metrics in UX ? Understand the importance of getting stakeholders involved ? Learn through real cases how to fix bad UX ? Identify and fix UX issues using different methodologies ? Learn how to turn insights and finding into practical UX solutions ? Learn to validate, test and measure the UX solutions implemented ? Learn about UX refactoring In Detail Have your web applications been experiencing more hits and less conversions? Are bad designs consuming your time and money? This book is the answer to these problems. With intuitive case studies, you’ll learn to simplify, fix, and enhance some common, real-world application designs. You’ll look at the common issues of simplicity, navigation, appearance, maintenance, and many more. The challenge that most UX designers face is to ensure that the UX is user-friendly. In this book, we address this with individual case studies starting with some common UX applications and then move on to complex applications. Each case study will help you understand the issues faced by a bad UX and teach you to break it down and fix these problems. As we progress, you’ll learn about the information architecture, usability testing, iteration, UX refactoring, and many other related features with the help of various case studies. You’ll also learn some interesting UX design tools with the projects covered in the book. By the end of the book, you’ll be armed with the knowledge to fix bad UX designs and to ensure great customer satisfaction for your applications. Style and approach This book takes a practical approach, with case studies, best practices, and practical solutions to bad design

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

A laugh-out-loud new picture book from the author of Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs series and the illustrator of the Dinosaur that Pooped series. Uncle Fearless is sure he can look after the baby meerkats all by himself. But taking charge is not as easy as it seems – especially with Trouble about: that naughty meerkat! So, whatever will he do when the meerkats suddenly find themselves in danger?

FROM THE AUTHOR OF NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER, FUNNY KID FOR PRESIDENT! Being funny is a good gig and it’s pretty much the only thing Max Walburt is good at. At least he thinks he’s good at it . . . . . . Max takes being funny very seriously. At home, he is the Chief-Walburt-Entertainer (CWE) and at school, he’s the funny kid. So when the Redhill Talent Quest comes to town, Max is confident that his jokes will make everyone laugh, win him the competition and a ten-million-pound book deal. That is until Tumbles the Clown auditions, who everyone thinks is hilarious. But who is the strange clown and why was he hiding in the bush on the day his granddad was kidnapped? With the help of his temporary best friend and life coach, Hugo, will Max solve the mystery of his grandfather’s whereabouts and overcome the pressures of fame and entertaining? For fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Tom Gates and Big Nate, comes FUNNY KID STAND UP, the hilarious sequel in the FUNNY KID series. By bestselling children’s author, Matt Stanton.

A charming, funny, poignant collection of twenty-three letters from Marcel Proust to his upstairs neighbour 102 Boulevard Haussmann, an elegant address in Paris’s eighth arrondissement. Upstairs lives Madame Williams, with her second husband and her harp. Downstairs lives Marcel Proust, trying to write In Search of Lost Time, but all too often distracted by the noise from upstairs. Written by Proust to Madame Williams between the years 1909 and 1919, this precious discovery of letters reveals the comings and goings of a Paris building, as seen through Proust’s eyes. You’ll read of the effort required to live peacefully with annoying neighbours; of the sadness of losing friends in the war; of concerts and music and writing; and, above all, of a growing, touching friendship between two lonely souls. ‘Delightful. Big news for Proustians’ Daily Telegraph ‘If you have suffered from noisy neighbours, you will sympathize with Marcel Proust’ Times Literary Supplement ‘A haunting portrait of a friendship between two people who lived within earshot of one another, separated only by a few inches of plaster and floorboard, but who scarcely ever met’ New Statesman

The thrilling, shocking and romantic sequel to the bestselling YA debut FLAWED is finally here. When we embrace all our flaws, that’s when we can finally become PERFECT… Celestine North lives in a society that demands perfection. After she was branded Flawed by a morality court, Celestine's life has completely fractured – all her freedoms gone. Since Judge Crevan has declared her the number one threat to the public, she has been a ghost, on the run with the complicated, powerfully attractive Carrick, the only person she can trust. But Celestine has a secret – one that could bring the entire Flawed system crumbling to the ground. Judge Crevan is gaining the upper hand, and time is running out for Celestine. With tensions building, Celestine must make a choice: save only herself, or risk her life to save all the Flawed. And, most important of all, can she prove that to be human in itself is to be Flawed…?

‘This will sweep you away for the summer. Lucy Foley blends a rich history, haunting secrets and a timeless love story’ Santa Montefiore, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Deverill series 1921 Each day Nur gazes across the waters of the Bosphorus to her childhood home, a grand white house, nestled on the opposite bank. Memories float on the breeze – the fragrance of the fig trees, the saffron sunsets of languid summer evenings. But now those days are dead. The house has been transformed into an army hospital, it is a prize of war in the hands of the British. And as Nur weaves through the streets carrying the embroideries that have become her livelihood, Constantinople swarms with Allied soldiers – a reminder of how far she and her city have fallen. The most precious thing in Nur’s new life is the orphan in her care – a boy with a terrible secret. When he falls dangerously ill Nur’s world becomes entwined with the enemy’s. She must return to where she grew up, and plead for help from Medical Officer George Monroe. As the lines between enemy and friend become fainter, a new danger emerges – something even more threatening than the lingering shadow of war.

‘If you find the subject of food to be both vexing and transfixing, you’ll love What She Ate’ Elle Dorothy Wordsworth believed that feeding her poet brother, William, gooseberry tarts was her part to play in a literary movement. Cockney chef Rosa Lewis became a favourite of King Edward VII, who loved her signature dish of whole truffles boiled in Champagne. Eleanor Roosevelt dished up Eggs Mexican – a concoction of rice, fried eggs, and bananas – in the White House. Eva Braun treated herself to Champagne and cake in the bunker before killing herself, alongside Adolf Hitler. Barbara Pym's novels overflow with enjoyment of everyday meals – of frozen fish fingers and Chablis – in midcentury England. Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown's idea of “having it all” meant having almost nothing on the plate except a supersized portion of diet gelatin. In the irresistible What She Ate, Laura Shapiro examines the plates, recipe books and shopping trolleys of these six extraordinary women, casting a new light on each of their lives – revealing love and rage, desire and denial, need and pleasure.

The brilliant follow-up to David Walliams’ bestseller The World’s Worst Children! Ten more stories about a brand new gang of hilariously horrible kids from everyone’s favourite children’s author, illustrated in glorious full colour by Tony Ross. If you thought you had read about the World’s Worst Children already, you’re in for a rather nasty shock. The beastly boys and gruesome girls in this book are even ruder, even more disgusting and WORSE than you could ever imagine! This gorgeous collection of ten stories from the master himself, David Walliams, will make you snort with laughter and thank your lucky stars that you don’t know anyone like Gruesome Griselda or Fussy Frankie in real life. It also features a special appearance from fan-favourite Raj! Gloriously illustrated in full colour throughout by artistic genius Tony Ross, The World’s Worst Children 2 is a side-splitting companion to David’s blockbuster hit, The World’s Worst Children, and the perfect gift for kids aged 9 and up.

Book Three in the critically acclaimed The Fire Sermon trilogy—The Hunger Games meets Cormac McCarthy’s The Road in this richly imagined post-apocalyptic series by award-winning poet Francesca Haig. The apocalypse has come and gone, and now every person is born a twin: one a strong Alpha, one a mutated Omega. The Omegas live in segregation, cast out by their families as soon as their mutation becomes clear. Forced to live apart, they are ruthlessly oppressed by their Alpha counterparts. The only thing that keeps the Alphas at bay is the fact that whenever one twin dies, so does the other. In this thrilling conclusion to The Fire Sermon trilogy, Cass, Piper, and Zoe have discovered that Elsewhere exists, and it’s more real and more complicated than any of them could have imagined. Now, they must race to prevent the Alphas from destroying what might be the only salvation for the Omegas. The end to their lifelong discrimination is in sight, but before she can be free, Cass must overcome her loyalty to her Alpha twin, Zach, her most dangerous enemy. But if they’re not careful, both will die in the struggle for power.

Alice is a pint sized personal trainer with a passion for health and fitness. Having spent the majority of her formative years developing unhealthy habits through trying every diet there was, and gaining weight as a result, she decided to take matters into her own hands. Alice tracked her complete lifestyle change progress through her now hugely successful Instagram blog ‘Clean Eating Alice’. Now a fully qualified personal trainer, Alice wants to bring her message of balance and ditching the diet myths to the masses. The aim is to encourage everyone and anyone to readdress their eating habits and increase their activity levels to create a healthier, happier lifestyle that is ultimately sustainable. Find Alice posting regular updates of her day to day food and fitness videos on Instagram at clean_eating_alice, on twitter at alice_LDNM and on Facebook at /cleaneatingalice, where she creates a fuss and fad free approach to diet and exercise.

’Talley’s newest is sure to satisfy.’ – Kirkus Reviews Fifteen-year-old Aki Simon has a theory. And it’s mostly about sex. No, it isn’t that kind of theory. Aki already knows she’s bisexual–-even if, until now, it’s mostly been in the hypothetical sense. Aki’s theory is that she’s only got one shot at living an interesting life–-and that means she’s got to stop sitting around and thinking so much. It’s time for her to actually do something. Or at least try. So when Aki and her friend Lori set off on a trip to a small Mexican town for the summer, and Aki meets Christa–-slightly-older, far-more-experienced–-it seems her theory is prime for the testing. But something tells her its not going to be that easy…

’Brilliantly funny’ Paige Toon‘I loved it!’ Louise Pentland A wedding in Manhattan…and someone’s keeping a secret. The day her husband Alex picks up a backpack and goes travelling, Angela Clark promises to stay out of trouble and keep both Louboutins on the ground. So when her best friend’s boyfriend confides in her, it can’t hurt to help him pick out a ring at Tiffany’s surely? And when her fashion magazine announces major changes, being terminally late and arguing with your boss isn’t that bad, is it? Then suddenly there’s another big secret Angela’s got to keep – and the man she loves is still thousands of miles away. As the wedding of the year looms, Angela is going to need her friends by her side as her old life looks set to change forever.

The new Death in Paradise mystery Two dead bodies. A family of suspects. One grumpy detective. Reluctantly stationed on the sweltering Caribbean island of Saint-Marie, Detective Inspector Richard Poole dreams of cold winds, drizzly rain and a pint in his local pub. Just as he is feeling as fed up as can be, a mysterious vagrant is found dead in the grounds of the historic Beaumont plantation. Immediately assumed to be suicide, DI Poole is not so convinced and determined to prove otherwise. Never mind that the only fingerprints on the murder weapon belong to the victim. Or that the room was locked from the inside. Before long, death knocks twice and a second body turns up. The hunt is on to solve the case – despite the best efforts of the enigmatic Beaumont family… Praise for Robert Thorogood: ‘Very funny and dark with great pace. I love Robert Thorogood’s writing’ Peter James ‘This second DEATH IN PARADISE NOVEL is a gem’ DAILY EXPRESS ‘Deftly entertaining … satisfyingly pushes all the requisite Agatha Christie-style buttons’ Barry Forshaw, THE INDEPENDENT ‘For fans of Agatha Christie’ MAIL ON SUNDAY ‘A treat’ RADIO TIMES ‘This brilliantly crafted, hugely enjoyable and suitably goosebump-inducing novel is an utter delight from start to finish’ HEAT ‘Plenty of red herrings and twists to keep readers guessing’ DAILY EXPRESS 'Fans will enjoy returning to DI Richard Poole… just switch off and relax' LOVE READING

‘Superb, gritty and realistic’ MEL SHERRATT, million copy bestseller How long do you hunt for the missing? A horrible vanishing act… When a young Josie Masters sees a boy wearing a red football shirt, Dylan Jones, being taken by a clown at a carnival, she tries to alert the crowds. But it’s too late. Dylan has disappeared… Thirty years later, Josie is working as a police officer in Bath. The remains of the body of a child have been found – complete with tatters of a torn red football shirt. Is it the boy she saw vanish in the clutches of the clown? Or is it someone else altogether? And then another child disappears…

Lose yourself in a sweeping love story this summer - perfect for fans of Dinah Jeffries and Santa Montefiore Northern France, 1917 Virginia Fortescue has thrown convention and her respected upbringing to the wind to drive ambulances for the American Red Cross across northern France. Grinding through the mud and the trenches to bring injured and dying men back from the front, the last thing she expects to find is a handsome English doctor who won’t let her go – in spite of a wife waiting for him at home in Cornwall. Florida, 1922 In the humid heat of Florida, Virginia Fitzwilliam must tackle the estate of her late estranged husband. After the plantation house burned to the ground with Simon Fitzwilliam inside, the shipping business he built from scratch has foundered and the mangroves have started to take back the land. The more Virginia learns about Simon and the secrets of his life, the more she fears that the dangers surrounding Simon now threaten her as well…

Born in Ireland in 1898, Clives Staples Lewis gained a triple First at Oxford and was Fellow and Tutor at Magdalen College from 1925-54, where among others he was a contemporary of Tolkien. In 1954 he became Professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge. C. S. Lewis was for many years an atheist, until his conversion which he memorably described in his autobiography Surprised by Joy: “I gave in, and admitted that God was God … perhaps the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” He is also celebrated for his famous series of children’s books, the Narnia Chronicles (which have been filmed and broadcast many times), as well as his literary criticism and science fiction. C. S. Lewis died on 22nd November 1963.