The bastard son of a viscount and a Cheyenne shaman's daughter, Wolfe Lonetree agrees to rescue the pampered Lady Jessica from an unwanted impending wedding but only if she will be his wife. Nave and shockingly innocent, Lady Jessica Charteris tricked a rugged, handsome stranger into a marriage in name only in order to escape a union with a vile British lord. Totally unprepared for the hardships awaiting her in America, she is terrified by the prospect of life in the harsh and magnificent land at the edge of the Rockies. But even more frightening is Wolfe himself a man whose raw sensuality leaves her breathless. Her proud, virile new "husband" is not one to be trifled with, nor will he be denied what his heart fervently desires for only in Wolfe Lonetree's arms can Jessica truly learn the unparalleled joy of becoming the right man's woman.

Sleeping with a monster At first, Linda Bergstrom's marriage to her husband James was idyllic. They were young and in love; he was about to enter the Navy and she was eager to start a family. But it wasn't long before the dream exploded. James became abusive and violent, prone to sudden bursts of anger, long silences, and unexplained disappearances. But Linda vowed to hold on, despite the pain and fear . . . and her disturbing suspicions about her husband's secret life.Then, not long after their move to Houston, Texas, she made a terrifying discovery: James's hidden cache containing duct tape, a ski mask, and handcuffs. No longer could Linda Bergstrom deny the hideous truth.The man she lived with, the man she married for love, was a dangerous psychopath. And there was no escape and nowhere to run. Because no one not her friends, the Navy, or the police would believe her.

A life can change in an instant . . .No one knows this better than Miss Cleopatra Hadley,who went from poverty to plenty when she discovered one of England's richest men was her true father whowanted her to share his wealth . . . if she married intothe upper echelons of Society. A high price to pay for someone whose mother taught her just howdangerous a marriage could be. An imposing yet impoverished Scots nobleman,Lord Logan McKinney knows he must wed some vapidtitle-hunter with a substantial dowry in order torestore his once-thriving estate. Having the vibrantCleo nearby, however, makes his task even moreunpalatable for she tempts him like no other woman . . .just as he's precisely the sort of man she most fears:exciting, unpredictable, fiercely passionate. But whenattraction proves too powerful, they succumbto a kiss that quickly leads to lessonstoo scandalous for even thedarkest nights . . .

Three young heirs, imprisoned by an unscrupulous uncle, escaped to the sea, to the streets, to faraway battle awaiting the day when they would return to reclaim their birthright. Once upon a time, he was Lord Tristan Easton now he is Crimson Jack, a notorious privateer beholden to none, whose only mistress is the sea. But all that will change when exquisite Lady Anne Hayworth hires his protection on a trip into danger and seduction. . .Desperation brought Anne to the bronzed, blue-eyed buccaneer. But after the Captain demands a kiss as his payment, desire will keep her at his side. She has never known temptation like this but to protect her heart, she knows she must leave him behind. Yet Tristan cannot easily forget the beauty and when they meet again in a London ballroom, he vows he won't lose her a second time, as fiery passion reignited takes them into uncharted waters that could lead the second lost lord home. . .

That this story is still unfolding makes it especially exciting to read. These men are still in their workshops, tinkering their way into orbit.David Gelles, FORBES On June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne, built by aircraft designer Burt Rutan, entered space and ushered in the commercial space age. Investment capital began to pour into the new commercial spaceflight industry. Richard Branson's VirginGalactic plans to ferry space tourists out of the atmosphere. Las Vegas hotelier Robert Bigelow is developing the world's first commercial space station (i.e., space hotel). These space entrepreneurs, including Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, now see space as the next big thing.In Rocketeers, Michael Belfiore goes behind the scenes of this nascent industry, capturing its wild-west, anything-goes flavor. Likening his research to hanging out in the Wright brothers barn, Belfiore offers an inspiring and entertaining look at the people who are not afraid to make their bold dreams a reality. The commercial space race is heating up so fast you need a cheat sheet to keep track of all the billionaires and gamblers vying to be the first private entrepreneur to blast paying customers into orbit. [Belfiore] does a stellar job introducing an intriguing cast of characters. Mark Horowitz, Wired The privatization of space travel is an essential step toward realizing our cosmic destiny. In his engaging, highly readable Rocketeers, Michael Belfiore tells the fascinating story of the entrepreneurs who have already made it happen. Buzz Aldrin A riveting, you-are-there account of how this ragtag collection of innovative thinkers, brave pilots, and bold visionaries is right now launching one of the most exciting new industries in history. Belfiore's eloquent writing and exhaustive reporting really bring this mysterious, secretive world to life.Eric Adams, Popular Science

Until the summer of 2007, the word Asperger's, was not a part of Shonda Schilling's vocabulary, but that summer changed everything. By then, her household was in chaos as her son Grant spiraled out of control. His acting out and refusal to listen had grown to epic proportions, but even worse was his apparent inability to relate to the people around him. None of the Schillings' other three kids ever acted like Grant; his behavior wasn't just unruly, it was irrational. Complicating matters was the fact that Shonda's husband, Curt, was constantly on the road pitching for the Boston Red Sox, so he wasn't always around to see Grant's behavior firsthand. Seemingly everyone Shonda encountered had an opinion "he's too spoiled," "he needs a good spanking," "he needs more discipline" but it was a disastrous first attempt at summer camp that told Shonda something was definitely wrong. It was then that a neurologist diagnosed Grant with Asperger's syndrome a form of high-functioning autism that, in recent years, has been found in children who at first glance appear disruptive and difficult. Now in The Best Kind of Different, Shonda details every step of her family's journey with Asperger's, offering a parent's perspective on this complicated and increasingly common condition. Looking back on Grant's early years, she describes the signals she missed in his behavior and confronts the guilt that engulfed her after she came to understand just how misguided her parenting had been before the diagnosis. In addition, she talks about the harsh judgment she's faced from people who don't buy into the diagnosis and how she's used passion and information to fight the ignorance of others.Celebrating Grant's successes and learning from his setbacks, Shonda demonstrates how Asperger's forced her and her husband to reconsider everything they thought they knew about their son and each other, but in the end, it has made their marriage and their family stronger and happier. A tribute to Grant's strength and a candid glimpse into a family coming to terms with its differences, The Best Kind of Different is an intimate portrait of two parents struggling to understand the complex beauty of their son.

For more than thirty years, Pat Benatar has been one of the most iconic women in rock music, with songs like "Heartbreaker," "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," and "Love Is a Battlefield" becoming anthems for multiple generations of fans. Now, in this intimate and uncompromising memoir, one of the bestselling female rock artists of all time shares the story of her extraordinary career, telling the truth about her life, her struggles, and how she won things her way.From her early days in the New York club scene of the 1970s to headlining sold-out arena tours, Benatar offers a fascinating account of a life spent behind the microphone. As the first female artist ever to be played on MTV, she speaks candidly about the realities of breaking into the boys' club of rock and roll at a time when people everywhere still believed a woman's only place in popular music was as a girlfriend, a groupie, or a sex symbol. And though her fiery edge and aggressive swagger produced instant success, they also led to fights over her image that would linger for years to come.Going backstage and into the studio, Benatar sets the record straight about how her music evolved, illustrating the visionary role that her guitarist, producer, and eventual husband, Neil "Spyder" Giraldo, played in combining her classically trained voice with razor-sharp guitar to create her unique hard-rock sound. Together they formed a musical and spiritual bond that would last a lifetime, helping her stay true to herself while avoiding the pitfalls and excesses of rock stardom.Written with the attitude and defiance that embodies Pat Benatar's music, Between a Heart and a Rock Place is a rock-and-roll story unlike any other, a remarkable tale of playing by your own rules, even if that means breaking a fewof theirs.

In twenty-nine provocative essays, Joyce Carol Oates maps the "rough country" that is both the treacherous geographical and psychological terrain of the writers she so cogently analyzes Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, E. L. Doctorow, and Margaret Atwood, among others and the emotional terrain of Oates's own life following the unexpected death of her husband, Raymond Smith, after forty-eight years of marriage. "As literature is a traditional solace to the bereft, so writing about literature can be a solace, as it was to me when the effort of writing fiction seemed beyond me, as if belonging to another lifetime," Oates writes. "Reading and taking notes, especially late at night when I can't sleep, has been the solace, for me, that saying the Rosary or reading The Book of Common Prayer might be for another." The results of those meditations are the essays of In Rough Country balanced and illuminating investigations that demonstrate an artist working at the top of her form.

On January 14, 1993, a team of scientists descended into the crater of Galeras, a restless Andean volcano in southern Colombia, for a day of field research. As the group slowly moved across the rocky moonscape of the caldera near the heart of the volcano, Galeras erupted, its crater exploding in a barrage of burning rocks and glowing shrapnel. Nine men died instantly, their bodies torn apart by the blast.While others watched helplessly from the rim, Colombian geologist Marta Calvache raced into the rumbling crater, praying to find survivors. This was Calvache's second volcanic disaster in less than a decade. In 1985 Calvache was part of a group of Colombia's brightest young scientists that had been studying activity at Nevado del Ruiz, a volcano three hundred miles north of Galeras. They had warned of the dire consequences of an eruption for months, but their fledgling coalition lacked the resources and muscle to implement a plan of action or sway public opinion. When Nevado del Ruiz erupted suddenly in November 1985, it wiped the city of Armero off the face of the earth and killed more than twenty-three thousand people -- one of the worst natural disasters of the twentieth century.No Apparent Danger links the characters and events of these two eruptions to tell a riveting story of scientific tragedy and human heroism. In the aftermath of Nevado del Ruiz, volcanologists from all over the world came to Galeras -- some to ensure that such horrors would never be repeated, some to conduct cutting-edge research, and some for personal gain. Seismologists, gas chemists, geologists, and geophysicists hoped to combine their separate areas of expertise to better understand and predict the behavior of monumental forces at work deep within the earth.And yet, despite such expertise, experience, and training, crucial data were ignored or overlooked, essential safety precautions were bypassed, and fifteen people descended into a death trap at Galeras. Incredibly, expedition leader Stanley Williams was one of five who survived, aided bravely by Marta Calvache and her colleagues. But nine others were not so lucky.Expertly detailing the turbulent history of Colombia and the geology of its snow-peaked volcanoes, Victoria Bruce weaves together the stories of the heroes, victims, survivors, and bystanders, evoking with great sensitivity what it means to live in the shadow of a volcano, a hair's-breadth away from unthinkable natural calamity, and shows how clashing cultures and scientific arrogance resulted in tragic and unnecessary loss of life.

Girls to the Front is the epic, definitive history of Riot Grrrl the radical feminist uprising that exploded into the public eye in the 1990s and included incendiary punk bands Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, and Huggy Bear. A dynamic chronicle not just a movement but an era, this is the story of a group of pissed off girls with no patience for sexism and no intention of keeping quiet.

No man can resist Jemma's sensuous allure . . . Except her own husband!Wedding bells celebrating the arranged marriage between the lovely Duchess of Beaumont and her staid, imperturbable duke had scarcely fallen silent when a shocking discovery sent Jemma running from the ducal mansion. For the next nine years she cavorted abroad, creating one delicious scandal after another (if one is to believe the rumors).Elijah, Duke of Beaumont, did believe those rumors.But the handsome duke needs an heir, so he summons his seductive wife home. Jemma laughs at Elijah's cool eyes and icy heart but to her secret shock, she doesn't share his feelings. In fact, she wants the impossible: her husband's heart at her feet.But what manner of seduction will make a man fall desperately in love . . . with his own wife?

Prim, plain, desperately virtuous Lady Mary Fairchild stared at the seductive gentleman and wondered -- did he remember the elements of the night they metSurely not. In the ten years since, she had abandoned her youthful impetuousness and transformed herself into a housekeeper -- disguising her beauty beneath a servant's dour clothing determined to conquer the passions of the past.But Sebastian Durant, Viscount Whitfield, did recognize her as a Fairchild, one of his family's bitter enemies. When he demanded her help recovering a stolen diary, she dared not refuse him. When he proposed they masquerade as a betrothed couple, loyalty forced her to agree. And when the restraint between them shattered and pleasure became an obsession, Mary had to trust a powerful man who could send her to the gallows ... or love her through eternity.

Sir Richard Kenworthy has less than a month to find a bride. He knows he can't be too picky, but when he sees Iris Smythe-Smith hiding behind her cello at her family's infamous musicale, he thinks he might have struck gold. She's the type of girl you don't notice until the second—or third—look, but there's something about her, something simmering under the surface, and he knows she's the one. Iris Smythe–Smith is used to being underestimated. With her pale hair and quiet, sly wit she tends to blend into the background, and she likes it that way. So when Richard Kenworthy demands an introduction, she is suspicious. He flirts, he charms, he gives every impression of a man falling in love, but she can't quite believe it's all true. When his proposal of marriage turns into a compromising position that forces the issue, she can't help thinking that he's hiding something . . . even as her heart tells her to say yes.

Her marriage of convenience seems far too convenient . . .Desperation drove Cecilia Mallory to seek a union with a stranger one who would wed her sight unseen and grant her full access to her inheritance with no expectations whatsoever. She anticipated, perhaps, an older, undesirable, equally desperate husband never the young, vibrant, and devastatingly attractive man who answered her call. What could such a man really be afterUnknown to Cecilia, Viscount Michael Blackthorne, a soldier and gentleman, owes a debt of honor to Lady Cecilia's father, and granting her unusual request to wed seemed a worthy way to repay it. But an unseen threat perilously close at hand is convincing Michael thathis true responsibility is to protect the beautiful, warm-hearted lady he has married . . . the woman he is unexpectedly coming to love.

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.

The name Elizabeth Lowell has become synonymous with electrifying fiction that seamlessly combines suspense, intrigue, and passion. And now the phenomenal New York Times bestselling author brilliantly displays her incomparable talents in a story of treachery, greed, conspiracy, and murder that will hold the reader spellbound until the final word.It is the opportunity of a lifetime for Kate Chandler, the chance to cut seven rare, priceless sapphires and solidify her reputation as a world-class jewel cutter. But something goes horribly, tragically wrong during what should have been a simple transfer of goods. The sapphires vanish without a trace. Missing also is the man Kate trusted to transport the gems: her half brother, Lee, who now, quite possibly, is dead. And suddenly she is on the run, pursued by federal agents who suspect her of being the criminal mastermind of a cunning bait-and-switch scheme.Special agent Sam Groves is one of the best of the best, an essential member of the FBI's elite crime strike force and the perfect man to lead the hunt, since he could never be scammed by a beautiful confidence woman. But something is troubling about this assignment, because someone else is chasing Kate Chandler as well.Only Kate suspects the awful truth: She's unwittingly stumbled into a conspiracy of deceit, betrayal, and cold-blooded murder that goes far beyond a simple jewel heist. And a chilling, threatening voice on the telephone only confirms her worst suspicions. Getting Sam Groves, the FBI agent who's her constant shadow, to believe her is a step in the right direction -- but it may be one that's too little too late in a bloody game where terror dictates her every move and the rules are constantly changing. Because the order has already been passed down to a ruthlessly efficient assassin: Kate Chandler must not be allowed to live ...

On a dark and dangerous road a daring British adventurer saves the life of a countess of royal blood. In all his travels Colonel Tyrone Rycroft has never encountered a woman as breathtaking alluring and inscrutably mysterious as the bewitching Synnovea. But his selfless bravery has drawn him into peril and into an inescapable web of intrigue and seduction. In an opulent and treacherous imperial court the proud headstrong lady's dashing champion has become a pawn in a dangerous game of power and influence and only his great courage and wits will enable him to survive it. But Rycroft's enflamed desire will not let him escape to the safety of his own world not until his dream is realized and the enigmatic highborn beauty has given herself to him freely honestly and forever.

He was a man exiled from society handsome unpredictable and proud. Dark rumours surrounded his name. But Anne Burnett had signed a marriage contract binding her to Aiden Black the Earl of Tiebauld. And although she'd never met him she's determined to keep her word and make theirs a marriage in truth. Because a well bred lady with little fortune to recommend her has no choice. From the moment she arrived Anne fell in love with Kelwin Castle and its roguishly handsome laird. By day he instils a fierce loyalty in his people with his masterful ways...and by night he tempts Anne to surrender her innocence to him. But while he is willing to offer his body Aiden refuses to give Anne his heart...making her wonder what prevents him from truly claiming her as his wife.

Lily Langdon has finally grown up. Now that her brother the duke's completely malleable best friend Edward Wallis has been brutally (and luckily) rebuffed by his intended, Lily knows her chance for a very permissive and entirely convenient husband is here. In fact, he is staying in her very own home for a house party.But this promising party's tone is quickly changed by a horrible twist of fate that threatens Edward's very life. Nothing but luck can save Edward, but Lily's heart is lost for good when she sees what a strong and devoted man he can be in times of trouble. Lily has set her cap on a man who should be unlovable and fallen more in love than she ever thought possible. Their passion brings great risk, but when a man and a woman prove to be so much more together than they were apart, is there anything that their love cannot overcome?

An anonymous author has turned English society upside down, and only one man can protect her identity from being revealed, and her life from being destroyed, in this sexy new romance from reader favourite Jacquie D Alessandro.The scandalous book, A Ladies Guide to the Pursuit of Personal Happiness and Marital Fulfilment has taken English society by storm. The slim but erotically explicit volume was penned by an unknown author, and now all of London is trying to discover the mysterious writer's true identity. But the search doesn't scare Catherine Ashfield, Viscountess Bickley, the proper woman who transcribed the book for her dear friend, a very elderly and experienced widow. Disgusted by the shallow values and morals of the town, Catherine was excited to help her friend and set the uppity nobility on its ear. And maybe by giving women a little more knowledge they could finally have happier marriages, instead of loveless unions as she had her with her own late husband.But Catherine didn't anticipate the violent backlash against the book. With threats being made against the unknown author, Catherine fears for her safety and that of her son. When she is the victim of a near fatal accident, she wonders how hidden her identity truly is.Knowing she needs protection, she turns to her brother's best friend, an accomplished pugilist and fencer. She invites him to stay at her country estate under the guise of a simple visit, not realizing that she has invited a fugitive with a dangerous past into her home--a man she soon finds herself powerfully attracted to...

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cathy Maxwell delivers another passionate romance that is sure to delight her dedicated fans and increase her readership.When three impoverished young ladies brought up in America decide to fulfill their late mother's dream of successful marriages and seasons, they concentrate their resources on sending the prettiest to London to make a brilliant match. But whom does she see but the man who had broken her heart years beforeAlexander Haddon is no longer the rough and tumble man she once fell for, but a wealthy gentleman whose passionate nature is only just hidden under a veneer of sophistication ...