Learn effective C++ network programming with Boost.Asio and become a proficient C++ network programmer About This Book Learn efficient C++ network programming with minimum coding using Boost.Asio Your one-stop destination to everything related to the Boost.Asio library Explore the fundamentals of networking to choose designs with more examples, and learn the basics of Boost.Asio Who This Book Is For This book is for C++ Network programmers with basic knowledge of network programming, but no knowledge of how to use Boost.Asio for network programming. What You Will Learn Prepare the tools to simplify network programming in C++ using Boost.Asio Explore the networking concepts of IP addressing, TCP/IP ports and protocols, and LAN topologies Get acquainted with the usage of the Boost libraries Get to know more about the content of Boost.Asio network programming and Asynchronous programming Establish communication between client and server by creating client-server application Understand the various functions inside Boost.Asio C++ libraries to delve into network programming Discover how to debug and run the code successfully In Detail Boost.Asio is a C++ library used for network programming operations. Organizations use Boost because of its productivity. Use of these high-quality libraries speed up initial development, result in fewer bugs, reduce reinvention-of-the-wheel, and cut long-term maintenance costs. Using Boost libraries gives an organization a head start in adopting new technologies. This book will teach you C++ Network programming using synchronous and asynchronous operations in Boost.Asio with minimum code, along with the fundamentals of Boost, server-client applications, debugging, and more. You will begin by preparing and setting up the required tools to simplify your network programming in C++ with Boost.Asio. Then you will learn about the basic concepts in networking such as IP addressing, TCP/IP protocols, and LAN with its topologies. This will be followed by an overview of the Boost libraries and their usage. Next you will get to know more about Boost.Asio and its concepts related to network programming. We will then go on to create a client-server application, helping you to understand the networking concepts. Moving on, you will discover how to use all the functions inside the Boost.Asio C++ libraries. Lastly, you will understand how to debug the code if there are errors found and will run the code successfully. Style and approach An example-oriented book to show you the basics of networking and help you create a network application simply using Boost.Asio, with more examples for you to get up and running with Boost.Asio quickly.

Discover tips and trick for Dynamics NAV report building About This Book Create and customize reports in Dynamics NAV 2015 using RDLC, Word, Power BI, and Reporting Services Work with different elements in the toolbox such as tablix, which can be used as a List, Table, or Matrix and understand the differences between them and when to use which This book is a pragmatic guide with clear instructions and real-world examples to teach you about the reporting capabilities of Dynamics NAV 2015 Who This Book Is For If you are a consultant, developer, customer, user, or just interested in the reporting capabilities of Dynamics NAV, then this book is for you. Basic knowledge of Dynamics NAV will be helpful. What You Will Learn Understand why reports are designed in a specific way and then apply this knowledge to your advantage Develop document reports using different techniques Apply filtering and sorting, and create groups Use RDLC to visualize information Visualize information, KPIs, and trends using expressions, Gauges, Charts, Data bars, Indicators, and Spark lines Create and optimize your dataset for RDLC and for Word layouts Use Power BI with Dynamics NAV to bring your data to life Build Reporting Services reports on top of Dynamics NAV In Detail Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a multi-lingual, multi-currency business management solution that organizations use to manage their accounts, supply chain, sales, payroll, and HR. It is an ERP tool for organizations that is fast to implement, easy to configure, and simple to use. It is widely used because simplicity is a part of its development, product design, usability, and implementation. This book will help you to master, analyze, and deliver the most challenging reporting requirements in Dynamics NAV 2015. The book starts by explaining report development and it's different phases such as data model, layout, and testing you go through. It introduces you to RDLC and the different controls in the toolbox, such as the Tablix, in its many forms. You will learn to use expressions to make your layout dynamic and to overcome typical problems. Moving on, the book will teach you to visualize data and be able to understand and read a report as it is intended. You will also learn to use Microsoft Word to create a layout for a report. With Power BI and Power Pivot, Power View, and Power Map, you will learn how easy and powerful it is to bring your data to life, so you can spot trends and perform in depth analysis of your business. Reporting Services is also explained as another way that you can apply the knowledge you have about RDLC to build RDL layouts outside of Dynamics NAV. By the end, you will create different types of charts so you can visualize key performance indicators inside the Dynamics NAV application. Style and approach This book is an essential guide in to understanding what is involved in creating reports in Dynamics NAV and its reporting capabilities.

Over 50 recipes to help you build dynamic and powerful real-time Java Hibernate applications About This Book Learn to associate JDBC and Hibernate with object persistence Manage association mappings, implement basic annotations and learn caching Get to grips with Hibernate fundamentals from installation to developing a business application with this step-by-step guide Who This Book Is For This is book for Java developers who now want to learn Hibernate. Good knowledge and understanding of Java is preferred to allow efficient programming of the core elements and applications; it would be helpful if readers are familiar with the basics of SQL. What You Will Learn Set up and install Hibernate on your system and explore different ways in which Hibernate can be configured Learn the basic concepts and fundamentals of Java Hibernate Define mappings without a use of XML file using Annotations Persist collection elements such as list, map, set and array Explore the various mapping options and learn to work with Hibernate associations Understand advanced Hibernate concepts such as caching and inheritance Develop an engaging and robust real-world hibernate application based on a common business scenario Integrate Hibernate with other frameworks to develop robust enterprise applications In Detail Hibernate is a database independent technology, so the same code will work for all databases. It helps a Java developer write a query by mapping Java bean to database tables and help create tuned queries that boost performance. Even with limited SQL knowledge one can easily perform database operations. This makes the development faster and more accurate than JDBC. Hibernate supports useful features like connection pooling, caching, and inheritance etc. This book will provide a useful hands-on guide to Hibernate to accomplish the development of a real-time Hibernate application. We will start with the basics of Hibernate, which include setting up Hibernate – the pre-requisites and multiple ways of configuring Hibernate using Java. We will then dive deep into the fundamentals of Hibernate such as SessionFactory, session, criteria, working with objects and criteria. This will help a developer have a better understanding of how Hibernate works and what needs to be done to run a Hibernate application. Moving on, we will learn how to work with annotations, associations and collections. In the final chapters, we will see explore querying, advanced Hibernate concepts and integration with other frameworks. Style and approach This book is a practical guide filled with carefully organized step-by-step instructions. All recipes are arranged in an easy-to understand and clear manner allowing you to apply the solutions to other situations.

Build real-world computer vision applications and develop cool demos using OpenCV for Python About This Book Learn how to apply complex visual effects to images using geometric transformations and image filters Extract features from an image and use them to develop advanced applications Build algorithms to help you understand the image content and perform visual searches Who This Book Is For This book is intended for Python developers who are new to OpenCV and want to develop computer vision applications with OpenCV-Python. This book is also useful for generic software developers who want to deploy computer vision applications on the cloud. It would be helpful to have some familiarity with basic mathematical concepts such as vectors, matrices, and so on. What You Will Learn Apply geometric transformations to images, perform image filtering, and convert an image into a cartoon-like image Detect and track various body parts such as the face, nose, eyes, ears, and mouth Stitch multiple images of a scene together to create a panoramic image Make an object disappear from an image Identify different shapes, segment an image, and track an object in a live video Recognize an object in an image and build a visual search engine Reconstruct a 3D map from images Build an augmented reality application In Detail Computer vision is found everywhere in modern technology. OpenCV for Python enables us to run computer vision algorithms in real time. With the advent of powerful machines, we are getting more processing power to work with. Using this technology, we can seamlessly integrate our computer vision applications into the cloud. Web developers can develop complex applications without having to reinvent the wheel. This book will walk you through all the building blocks needed to build amazing computer vision applications with ease. We start off with applying geometric transformations to images. We then discuss affine and projective transformations and see how we can use them to apply cool geometric effects to photos. We will then cover techniques used for object recognition, 3D reconstruction, stereo imaging, and other computer vision applications. This book will also provide clear examples written in Python to build OpenCV applications. The book starts off with simple beginner’s level tasks such as basic processing and handling images, image mapping, and detecting images. It also covers popular OpenCV libraries with the help of examples. The book is a practical tutorial that covers various examples at different levels, teaching you about the different functions of OpenCV and their actual implementation. Style and approach This is a conversational-style book filled with hands-on examples that are really easy to understand. Each topic is explained very clearly and is followed by a programmatic implementation so that the concept is solidified. Each topic contributes to something bigger in the following chapters, which helps you understand how to piece things together to build something big and complex.

Make life at the office easier for server administrators by helping them build resilient Ubuntu server systems About This Book Tackle the issues you come across in keeping your Ubuntu server up and running Build server machines and troubleshoot cloud computing related issues using Open Stack Discover tips and best practices to be followed for minimum maintenance of Ubuntu Server 3 Who This Book Is For This book is for a vast audience of Linux system administrators who primarily work on Debian-based systems and spend long hours trying fix issues with the enterprise server. Ubuntu is already one of the most popular OSes and this book targets the most common issues that most administrators have to deal with. With the right tools and definite solutions, you will be able to keep your Ubuntu servers in the pink of health. What You Will Learn Deploy packages and their dependencies with repositories Set up your own DNS and network for Ubuntu Server Authenticate and validate users and their access to various systems and services Maintain, monitor, and optimize your server resources and avoid tremendous load Get to know about processes, assigning and changing priorities, and running processes in background Optimize your shell with tools and provide users with an improved shell experience Set up separate environments for various services and run them safely in isolation Understand, build, and deploy OpenStack on your Ubuntu Server In Detail Ubuntu is becoming one of the favorite Linux flavors for many enterprises and is being adopted to a large extent. It supports a wide variety of common network systems and the use of standard Internet services including file serving, e-mail, Web, DNS, and database management. A large scale use and implementation of Ubuntu on servers has given rise to a vast army of Linux administrators who battle it out day in and day out to make sure the systems are in the right frame of operation and pre-empt any untoward incidents that may result in catastrophes for the businesses using it. Despite all these efforts, glitches and bugs occur that affect Ubuntu server's network, memory, application, and hardware and also generate cloud computing related issues using OpenStack. This book will help you end to end. Right from setting up your new Ubuntu Server to learning the best practices to host OpenStack without any hassles. You will be able to control the priority of jobs, restrict or allow access users to certain services, deploy packages, tackle issues related to server effectively, and reduce downtime. Also, you will learn to set up OpenStack, and manage and monitor its services while tuning the machine with best practices. You will also get to know about Virtualization to make services serve users better. Chapter by chapter, you will learn to add new features and functionalities and make your Ubuntu server a full-fledged, production-ready system. Style and approach This book contains topic-by-topic discussion in an easy-to-understand language with loads of examples to help you take care of Ubuntu Server. Plenty of screenshots will guide you through a step-by-step approach.

A complete guide for Python programmers to master scientific computing using Python APIs and tools About This Book The basics of scientific computing to advanced concepts involving parallel and large scale computation are all covered. Most of the Python APIs and tools used in scientific computing are discussed in detail The concepts are discussed with suitable example programs Who This Book Is For If you are a Python programmer and want to get your hands on scientific computing, this book is for you. The book expects you to have had exposure to various concepts of Python programming. What You Will Learn Fundamentals and components of scientific computing Scientific computing data management Performing numerical computing using NumPy and SciPy Concepts and programming for symbolic computing using SymPy Using the plotting library matplotlib for data visualization Data analysis and visualization using Pandas, matplotlib, and IPython Performing parallel and high performance computing Real-life case studies and best practices of scientific computing In Detail In today's world, along with theoretical and experimental work, scientific computing has become an important part of scientific disciplines. Numerical calculations, simulations and computer modeling in this day and age form the vast majority of both experimental and theoretical papers. In the scientific method, replication and reproducibility are two important contributing factors. A complete and concrete scientific result should be reproducible and replicable. Python is suitable for scientific computing. A large community of users, plenty of help and documentation, a large collection of scientific libraries and environments, great performance, and good support makes Python a great choice for scientific computing. At present Python is among the top choices for developing scientific workflow and the book targets existing Python developers to master this domain using Python. The main things to learn in the book are the concept of scientific workflow, managing scientific workflow data and performing computation on this data using Python. The book discusses NumPy, SciPy, SymPy, matplotlib, Pandas and IPython with several example programs. Style and approach This book follows a hands-on approach to explain the complex concepts related to scientific computing. It details various APIs using appropriate examples.

Learn to design and implement reliable Python applications on the Raspberry Pi using a range of external libraries, the Raspberry Pis GPIO port, and the camera module About This Book Learn the fundamentals of Python *ing and application programming Design user-friendly command-line and graphical user interfaces A step-by-step guide to learning Python programming with the Pi Who This Book Is For This book is designed for those who are unfamiliar with the art of Python development and want to get to know their way round the language and the many additional libraries that allow you to get a full application up and running in no time. What You Will Learn Fundamentals of Python applications Designing applications for multi-threading Interacting with electronics and physical devices Debugging applications when they go wrong Packaging and installing Python modules User interface design using Qt Building easy to use command-line interfaces Connecting applications to the Internet In Detail The Raspberry Pi is one of the smallest and most affordable single board computers that has taken over the world of hobby electronics and programming, and the Python programming language makes this the perfect platform to start coding with. The book will start with a brief introduction to Raspberry Pi and Python. We will direct you to the official documentation that helps you set up your Raspberry Pi with the necessary equipment such as the monitor, keyboard, mouse, power supply, and so on. It will then dive right into the basics of Python programming. Later, it will focus on other Python tasks, for instance, interfacing with hardware, GUI programming, and more. Once you get well versed with the basic programming, the book will then teach you to develop Python/Raspberry Pi applications. By the end of this book, you will be able to develop Raspberry Pi applications with Python and will have good understanding of Python programming for Raspberry Pi. Style and approach An easy-to-follow introduction to Python *ing and application development through clear conceptual explanations backed up by real-world examples on the Raspberry Pi.

Design a complete workflow with Blender to create stunning 3D scenes and films step-by-step! About This Book Give life to a character within a full animated short film by learning the rigging and animation process Make use of the powerful tools available in Blender to produce professional-quality 3D characters and environments Discover advanced techniques by adding fur to a character, creating a grass field, and fine-tuning a shot with post-processing effects to enhance your creations Who This Book Is For This book will give any beginner the necessary skills and knowledge to create own 3D projects with Blender. You don't need to have any previous experience in 3D modeling, but if you do, then this book is a great way get you started with Blender. This book is for anyone who wants to learn Blender by creating concrete projects. What You Will Learn Understand the basics of 3D and how to navigate your way around the Blender interface Create a 3D robot toy model from start to finish using the basic modeling tools of Blender Make a full alien character using the skin mesh modifier and the sculpting tools with an artistic approach Use re-topology techniques to create a clean 3D version of the previously sculpted alien Model a full haunted house and its environment using more advanced modeling tools and techniques such as the Array Modifier, Instance duplication, or Curves Discover the power of the texture paint tool in order to add color to the haunted house Get to know the Cycles render engine by creating different materials for the house and the environment In Detail Blender is a powerful tool, stable, with an integral workflow that will allow you to understand your learning of 3D creation with serenity. Today, it is considered to be one of the most complete 3D packages on the market and it is free and open source! It is very efficient for many types of productions, such as 3D animated or live action films, architecture, research, or even game creation with its integrated game engine and its use of the Python language. Moreover, Blender has an active community that contributes to expanding its functionalities. Today, it is used in many professional products and by many companies. Through this book, you will create many types of concert projects using a step-by-step approach. You will start by getting to know the modeling tools available in Blender as you create a 3D robot toy. Then, you will discover more advanced techniques such as sculpting and re-topology by creating a funny alien character. After that, you will create a full haunted house scene. For the last project, you will create a short film featuring a rat cowboy shooting cheese in a rat trap! This will be a more complex project in which you learn how to rig, animate, compose advanced material, composite, and edit a full sequence. Each project in this book will give you more practice and increase your knowledge of the Blender tools. By the end of this book, you will master a workflow that you will be able to apply to your own creations. Style and approach This is an easy-to-follow book that is based on four concrete projects, with increasing levels of difficulty. Each chapter will teach you how to create these projects step-by-step. New tools and techniques are introduced in a theoretical and practical way, so you can apply them in your own projects later.

Develop complete web applications from scratch through practical examples and tips for beginners and more advanced users About This Book Improve your programming experience and become a full stack developer Master real-life web applications, and create and manage four different projects Step-by-step guidance to develop real-world web applications smoothly Who This Book Is For This book is for anyone who wants to discover and explore Yii Framework. Basic programming experience with PHP and object oriented programming is assumed. What You Will Learn Understand basic concepts, along with the installation and customization of Yii Discover models, controllers, and views—concepts applied in a web context—and how they are employed in Yii Use ActiveRecord to manipulate a database Add access control to your web application through authentication and authorization Install and customize an advanced template for multiple applications in the same project Create a RESTful Web Service to allow remote access to data Develop a console application to launch a command in the console as an automated task (cron job) Make code reusable through widgets and components and localize text messages to make a multilanguage web app In Detail Yii is a high-performance PHP framework best for developing Web 2.0 applications. It provides fast, secure, and professional features to create robust projects, however, this rapid development requires the ability to organize common tasks together to build a complete application. It's all too easy to get confused; this is where this book comes in. This book contains a series of practical project examples for developers starting from scratch. Each section contains the most relevant theories for every topic as you walk through developing each project, focusing on key aspects that commonly confuse users. The book starts with all the framework’s basic concepts, such as controllers and views, to introduce you to Yii and creating your first application, a simple news reader. You will be learn to configure URL rules to make a pretty URL, essential for search engine optimization. Next, you will walk through Model and ActiveRecord, key concepts in database interaction. The second application you will develop is a reservation system that allows you to manage rooms, customers, and reservations. For this, you will use database connection through SQL and ActiveRecord. More complex than the first one, this application will introduce you to the advanced template of Yii 2, splitting the app into two parts: a frontend for all visitors and a backend for the admin. Finally, you will move on to the last two applications: one that allows connections from remote clients, through RESTful components of Yii 2, and another that creates and organizes automatic tasks using the console application structure of Yii 2. Style and approach This is a step-by-step guide with each topic introduced in the context of real-world applications, highlighting common cases where users may encounter difficulties.

Concoct dynamic business intelligence dashboards for financial analysis with QlikView About This Book Get accustomed to QlikView features for effective data analysis and visualization in Finance Employ the Memory data store, which refreshes data in real time, providing a faster response to business financial information A step-by step guide to using Qlikview features such as key performance indicators, interactive charts, and tables for financial analysis Who This Book Is For If you are a finance professional with basic knowledge of QlikView functions and wish to increase your knowledge of QlikView to apply it in the field of finance, then this book is for you. A good knowledge of financial aspects is an must-have. What You Will Learn Design Key Performance Indicators and extend your revenue ratio reporting Set up actions within a Text Object and create variables to make a chart toggle between visible and not visible Merge data from multiple sources to get more asset management options Examine good and bad practices in dashboard design and create a Group button to make more data available in less space Analyse the sales dashboard by adding tending lines and forecasting Create input boxes and use the input in formulas to perform “What If” analysis Examine the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) and Inventory Turnover, and investigate the usefulness of Pivot Create a QlikView analysis document and add data to it to gain deep insights In Detail This book is an effective step-by-step tutoring guide for financial analysis using Qlikview. It begins by teaching you the crucial concepts of Qlikview Finance to help you develop an effective understanding of financial data analysis and finance. The book then goes on to cover real-world, practical examples on the use of Qlikview for financial planning and analysis, expense management, risk management, and more. Moving on, topics such as Asset Management QlikView Dashboard and Retail Sales Analysis are covered in a strategic way. We then shift the focus to deal with the concepts of Inventory, Supply Chain, and Plant Coverage Dashboards. The book then reaches its conclusion by dealing with ways to share your QlikView insights. By the end of this book, you will have a good understanding of how to use Qlikview for numerous applications in finance. Style and approach This book is designed to explore what can be done in QlikView to facilitate Financial Analysis. It follows a step-by-step approach and each chapter has easy-to-follow, hands-on examples of important concepts.

After years of caring for her ailing father, the Earl of Medwin, the ethereally beautiful young Lady Ancella Winn is pale, drawn and exhausted now that he has died and she is devastated. Worse still, she has nowhere to go, except for the home of her strait-laced and disapproving aunts. So when family friend and doctor, Sir Felix Johnson, suggests that it would be good for her health to travel to the French Riviera to work as the nurse-companion to an ageing Russian Princess, she nervously agrees. Although her new employer is difficult and demanding, Ancella is bewitched, first by the beauty of the C?te d’Azur and then by the Princess’s ineffably handsome son, Prince Vladimer. Caught up in the glamour of the Monte Carlo Casino, the den of iniquity against which her aunts had warned her in no uncertain terms, it seems that she has won the Prince’s heart as the feckless aristocrats around her lose fortunes at Roulette and Baccarat. But then to her horror her hopes of the love she has always dreamt about are dashed when it she finds that Prince Vladimer has betrayed her with the grasping but alluring Marchioness of Chiswick.

Hugo, the Duke of Wynchester enjoys many affaires de coeur and his latest lover, the beautiful but scheming and spoilt Olive Lady Brandon, is trying to blackmail him into marriage by forcing her husband to divorce her. Storming angrily from her house, Hugo finds a strange stowaway aboard his carriage. It transpires that this frail elfin beauty is none other that Janeta Brandon, Olive’s step-daughter, and that she is fleeing the marriage her stepmother has arranged to an old man known to beat not only his servants and horses but also his late wife. When the Duke realises that Janeta means to kill herself rather than face a loveless marriage, he is struck by a cunning way to rescue them both by announcing their ‘engagement’. They are then married in a quiet ceremony in the Duke’s private Chapel. It is only when Janeta saves him from death by poisoning by the hand of her stepmother that the Duke realises that he has been in love with her from the moment he first saw her. But surely the scorned Olive’s fury will ensure their love is doomed before it can blossom.

Young Tristran Thorn will do anything to win the cold heart of beautiful Victoria even fetch her the star they watch fall from the night sky. But to do so, he must enter the unexplored lands on the other side of the ancient wall that gives their tiny village its name. Beyond that old stone wall, Tristran learns, lies Faerie where nothing, not even a fallen star, is what he imagined. From #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman comes a remarkable quest into the dark and miraculous in pursuit of love and the utterly impossible.

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind reveals the missing link between wanting success and achieving it! Have you ever wondered why some people seem to get rich easily, while others are destined for a life of financial struggleIs the difference found in their education, intelligence, skills, timing, work habits, contacts, luck, or their choice of jobs, businesses, or investmentsThe shocking answer is: None of the above! In his groundbreaking Secrets of the Millionaire Mind , T. Harv Eker states: Give me five minutes, and I can predict your financial future for the rest of your life! Eker does this by identifying your money and success blueprint. We all have a personal money blueprint ingrained in our subconscious minds, and it is this blueprint, more than anything, that will determine our financial lives. You can know everything about marketing, sales, negotiations, stocks, real estate, and the world of finance, but if your money blueprint is not set for a high level of success, you will never have a lot of money and if somehow you do, you will most likely lose it! The good news is that now you can actually reset your money blueprint to create natural and automatic success. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind is two books in one. Part I explains how your money blueprint works. Through Eker rare combination of street smarts, humor, and heart, you will learn how your childhood influences have shaped your financial destiny. You will also learn how to identify your own money blueprint and revise it to not only create success but, more important, to keep and continually grow it. In Part II you will be introduced to seventeen Wealth Files, which describe exactly how rich people think and act differently than most poor and middle-class people. Each Wealth File includes action steps for you to practice in the real world in order to dramatically increase your income and accumulate wealth. If you are not doing as well financially as you would like, you will have to change your money blueprint. Unfortunately your current money blueprint will tend to stay with you for the rest of your life, unless you identify and revise it, and that exactly what you will do with the help of this extraordinary book. According to T. Harv Eker, it simple. If you think like rich people think and do what rich people do, chances are you'll get rich too!

The handsome Viscount Trent finally makes up his mind to accede to the pleadings of his family and get married. He is twenty-seven and for a long time they have been begging him to take a wife and produce an heir to his illustrious title, his famous stately home and his vast estate. On the whole he finds debutantes extremely boring and has enjoyed a number of affaires-de-coeur with older married women. However there is one girl, Marigold Marlow, he considers outstanding and she is the acknowledged great beauty of the Season. As she is so beautiful, the Viscount is convinced that Marigold will make him a perfect wife, but he is astonished when, having proposed to her, she tells him that she has not quite made up her mind. She will let him know on Wednesday if she accepts his proposal of marriage. As the Viscount expects her to fall immediately into his arms, he is surprised, but content to wait until Wednesday for her answer, which he is certain will be ‘yes’. As he drives away from Marigold’s house, a young girl holding a white Pekingese in her arms begs him to give her a lift to London. He sees no reason to refuse and finds as they drive off that she is Salvia, a cousin of the beautiful Marigold. He then learns that Marigold has her eyes on the son of the Duke of Northerncliff, who is seriously ill. In fact if he dies as expected, she intends to marry his heir as one day soon he will be a Duke. Feeling surprised and angry, he is even more astonished to learn that Marigold is cruel to animals and that Salvia is running away because she is so unkind to her dog as well as to her. How the Viscount dreams up a way to avenge himself on Marigold and, if the Duke does recover, how he can escape marrying her as he has now changed his mind. How the Viscount’s plan succeeds. And how Salvia takes London by storm, faces appalling danger and finally finds the love of her life is all told in this unusual story by BARBARA CARTLAND.

When Isabel Allende's daughter, Paula, became gravely ill and fell into a coma, the author began to write the story of her family for her unconscious child. In the telling, bizarre ancestors appear before our eyes; we hear both delightful and bitter childhood memories, amazing anecdotes of youthful years, and the most intimate secrets passed along in whispers. With Paula, Allende has written a powerful autobiography whose straightforward acceptance of the magical and spiritual worlds will remind readers of her first book, The House of the Spirits.

An orphan raised in Valparaiso, Chile, by a Victorian spinster and her rigid brother, vivacious young Eliza Sommers follows her lover to California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Entering a rough-and-tumble world of new arrivals driven mad by gold fever, Eliza moves in a society of single men and prostitutes with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chien. California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence to the young Chilean, and her search for her elusive lover gradually turns into another kind of journey. By the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her true love really is.

Once again Alexander Cold and his indomitable journalist grandmother, Kate, are braving the mystical unknown, this time in the heart of Africa. Along with Alex's friend Nadia Santos and a photographic crew from International Geographic magazine, they have travelled to Kenya to work on an article about the continent's first elephant-led safaris. But when a missionary approaches their camp in search of companions who have mysteriously disappeared, Alex, Nadia, and their group find themselves embarking on a dangerous mission to Africa's equatorial forest to aid a clan of Pygmies. For the Cold expedition is the tribe's last hope for survival in a world where poaching, corruption, and slavery run rampant.Forest of the Pygmies is the concluding volume of acclaimed author Isabel Allende's celebrated trilogy, which begins with City of the Beasts and continues with Kingdom of the Golden Dragon.

The author of The Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking shows you how to love your kitchen and learn to make creative, delicious food without breaking your budget.You can become a confident cook—even if the drawer with the take-out menus is the only part of your kitchen you currently use! Kate Payne shows you how to master basic cooking techniques—boiling, baking, and sautéing—and simplifies the process of fancy ones, like jamming and preserving, dehydrating, braising, roasting, infusing, and pickling. With this straightforward and fun guide, you can stock up your kitchen with the ingredients, tools, and appliances you'll actually use. You'll also learn how to decode recipes and alter them to make them gluten-free, dairy-free, or vegan. The Hip Girl's Guide to the Kitchen includes advice and instructions on how to make both classic meals and foods that are typically bought, such as yogurt; ice cream; flavored salt; oil and vinegar infusions; kimchi; aioli; jam; granola; bread; and fruit leather—even liqueurs, iced teas, and vegetable juices. With fun line drawings, sidebars full of tips and tricks, and lists of resources, Kate Payne sets you up for success and shows you how to unlock your inner kitchen prowess.

What shall we do, all of usAll of us passionate girls who fear crushing the boys we love with our mouths like caverns of teeth, our mushrooming brains, our watermelon hearts?What's real is what's imagined in nine tales of transformation by Francesca Lia Block.

In the fall of '73, Brooklyn, New York, is home to worn-down hotels, wiseguys, immigrants, the disturbed, the disenfranchised, and a few people just trying to make an honest buck. When Silvano Iurata's troubled brother, Noonie, rumored to be living in Brooklyn Heights, goes missing, Silvano returns to a place he swore he'd never set foot in again.Silvano left Brooklyn a long time ago -- wanting to leave behind his family and their seedy mob connections, and a past that just won't stay buried. The jungles of Viet Nam felt more hospitable to him than his own hometown; now that he's back, he doesn't intend to stay for long. His cousin Domenic has harbored a deadly grudge against him for something that happened when they were teenagers, but they aren't kids anymore, and his cousin has some dangerous friends. Silvano needs to find out what happened to his brother and get out -- fast.A tale of revenge and redemption, The Angel of Montague Street has the same vivid characters, razor-sharp detail, and dead-on dialogue that made Norman Green's debut novel, Shooting Dr. Jack , an unforgettable snapshot of life on the streets of Brooklyn. With its perceptive, poignant heart and gripping plot, this is literary suspense at its best.