Aftertime


Book Description

In a dystopian California, a woman searches for her daughter with the help of an enigmatic outlaw in this “evocative, sensual, harrowing” zombie thriller (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Awakening in a bleak landscape, Cass Dollar vaguely recalls enduring something terrible. With no idea of how many days or weeks have passed, she slowly realizes the horrifying truth: her daughter, Ruthie, has vanished—along with civilization as we know it. Instead of winding through the once-lush hills, the roads today see only cannibalistic Beaters: people turned hungry for human flesh by a government experiment gone wrong. In a broken, barren California, Cass will undergo a dangerous quest to get Ruthie back. Few people trust an outsider—much less one who bears the telltale scars of a Beater attack. But she finds safety with a mysterious stranger, Smoke. And she’ll need him more than ever when his ragged band of survivors learn that she and Ruthie have become the most feared, and desired, weapons in a brave new world . . .




If He Had Been with Me


Book Description

If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...




Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning


Book Description

Updated in its 3rd edition, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning presents quickly applied methods for analyzing and resolving planning and policy issues at state, regional, and urban levels. Divided into two parts, Methods which presents quick methods in nine chapters and is organized around the steps in the policy analysis process, and Cases which presents seven policy cases, ranging in degree of complexity, the text provides readers with the resources they need for effective policy planning and analysis. Quantitative and qualitative methods are systematically combined to address policy dilemmas and urban planning problems. Readers and analysts utilizing this text gain comprehensive skills and background needed to impact public policy.




School, Family, and Community Partnerships


Book Description

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.




How Hard Can It Be?


Book Description

A woman approaching fifty must rejoin the workforce as she juggles motherhood and her husband’s midlife crisis in this “brilliant, funny, and tender” novel (Booklist, starred review). Kate Reddy had it all: a nice home, two adorable kids, a good husband. Then her kids became teenagers (read: monsters). Richard, her husband, quit his job, taking up bicycling and therapeutic counseling: drinking green potions, dressing head to toe in Lycra, and spending his time—and their money—on his own therapy. Since Richard no longer sees a regular income as part of the path to enlightenment, it’s left to Kate to go back to work. Companies aren’t necessarily keen on hiring forty-nine-year-old mothers, so Kate does what she must: knocks a few years off her age, hires a trainer, joins a Women Returners group, and prepares a new resume that has a shot at a literary prize for experimental fiction. When Kate manages to secure a job at the very hedge fund she founded, she finds herself in an impossible juggling act: proving herself (again) at work, dealing with teen drama, and trying to look after increasingly frail parents as the clock keeps ticking toward her fiftieth birthday. Then, of course, an old flame shows up out of the blue, and Kate finds herself facing off with everyone from Russian mobsters to a literal stallion. Surely it will all work out in the end. After all, how hard can it be?




The Wolf and the Watchman


Book Description

“The Alienist set in eighteenth-century Stockholm: Brawny, bloody, intricate, enthralling—and the best historical thriller I’ve read in twenty years.” —A.J. Finn, #1 bestselling author of The Woman in the Window “Thrilling, unnerving, clever, and beautiful.” —Fredrik Backman, #1 bestselling author of A Man Called Ove “Chilling and thought-provoking. Relentless, well-written, and nearly impossible to put down.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) One morning in the autumn of 1793, watchman Mikel Cardell is awakened from his drunken slumber with reports of a body seen floating in the Larder, once a pristine lake on Stockholm’s Southern Isle, now a rancid bog. Efforts to identify the bizarrely mutilated corpse are entrusted to incorruptible lawyer Cecil Winge, who enlists Cardell’s help to solve the case. But time is short: Winge’s health is failing, the monarchy is in shambles, and whispered conspiracies and paranoia abound. Winge and Cardell become immersed in a brutal world of guttersnipes and thieves, mercenaries and madams. From a farmer’s son who is lead down a treacherous path when he seeks his fortune in the capital to an orphan girl consigned to the workhouse by a pitiless parish priest, their investigation peels back layer upon layer of the city’s labyrinthine society. The rich and the poor, the pious and the fallen, the living and the dead—all collide and interconnect with the body pulled from the lake. Breathtakingly bold and intricately constructed, The Wolf and the Watchman brings to life the crowded streets, gilded palaces, and dark corners of late-eighteenth-century Stockholm, offering a startling vision of the crimes we commit in the name of justice, and the sacrifices we make in order to survive.




A Shadow in Summer


Book Description

From debut author Daniel Abraham comes A Shadow in Summer, the first book in the Long Price Quartet fantasy series. The powerful city-state of Saraykeht is a bastion of peace and culture, a major center of commerce and trade. Its economy depends on the power of the captive spirit, Seedless, an andat bound to the poet-sorcerer Heshai for life. Enter the Galts, a juggernaut of an empire committed to laying waste to all lands with their ferocious army. Saraykeht, though, has always been too strong for the Galts to attack, but now they see an opportunity. If they can dispose of Heshai, Seedless's bonded poet-sorcerer, Seedless will perish and the entire city will fall. With secret forces inside the city, the Galts prepare to enact their terrible plan. In the middle is Otah, a simple laborer with a complex past. Recruited to act as a bodyguard for his girlfriend's boss at a secret meeting, he inadvertently learns of the Galtish plot. Otah finds himself as the sole hope of Saraykeht, either he stops the Galts, or the whole city and everyone in it perishes forever. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




Rabbits for Food


Book Description

Master of razor-edged literary humor Binnie Kirshenbaum returns with her first novel in a decade, a devastating, laugh-out-loud funny story of a writer’s slide into depression and institutionalization. It’s New Year’s Eve, the holiday of forced fellowship, mandatory fun, and paper hats. While dining out with her husband and their friends, Kirshenbaum’s protagonist—an acerbic, mordantly witty, and clinically depressed writer—fully unravels. Her breakdown lands her in the psych ward of a prestigious New York hospital, where she refuses all modes of recommended treatment. Instead, she passes the time chronicling the lives of her fellow “lunatics” and writing a novel about what brought her there. Her story is a brilliant and brutally funny dive into the disordered mind of a woman who sees the world all too clearly. Propelled by razor-sharp comic timing and rife with pinpoint insights, Kirshenbaum examines what it means to be unloved and loved, to succeed and fail, to be at once impervious and raw. Rabbits for Food shows how art can lead us out of—or into—the depths of disconsolate loneliness and piercing grief. A bravura literary performance from one of our most indispensable writers.




Welcome to Whitsborough Bay Boxset


Book Description

Welcome to Whitsborough Bay - a seaside town full of love, hope and friendship. This boxset contains all 4 books in the Welcome to Whitsborough Bay Series: 1. Making Wishes at Bay View 2. New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms 3. Finding Hope at Lighthouse Cove 4. Coming Home to Seashell Cottage ★ Also Bonus content included ★ - Exclusive additional chapter for each book - Whitsborough Bay Wonderings - book clubs questions for each book ----- Making Wishes at Bay View Callie Derbyshire has it all: her dream job as a carer at Bay View, finally she has found the love of her life. Everything is perfect. Well, almost. Callie’s favourite resident, Ruby, hasn’t been her usual self. But after discovering the truth about Ruby’s lost love, Callie is determined to give Ruby’s romantic story the happy ending it deserves. After all, it’s never too late to let love in again. Or is it? New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms For Sarah Peterson, it’s time for change. Coming out of a dead end relationship, she just needs to escape and have a fresh start. So when her Auntie Kay unexpectedly offers her the opportunity to take over her flower shop, Seaside Blooms, the timing could not be more perfect. But she isn't prepared for the discovery of a clairvoyant reading that's been missing for twelve years. All of the predictions have come true, except one: she's about to meet the man of her dreams. Oh, and his name is Steven... Sarah can’t help but wonder if Seaside Blooms could be a new beginning for love too? Finding Love at Lighthouse Cove Married to her childhood sweetheart for over twelve years, Elise feels like starting a family is the next natural step. However her husband, Gary, has other ideas... Suddenly single, Elise is completely heartbroken and struggling to start over on her own. But when she's enlisted to be bridesmaid to her best friend, Sarah, she has to put on a brave face, put her own feelings aside and find a way to get over Gary. Fast. Coming Home To Seashell Cottage Since the age of sixteen, Clare O'Connell has lived her life by four strict rules: 1. Don't talk about Ireland 2. Don't think about Ireland 3. Don't go to Ireland 4. Don't let anyone in And so far, it's worked well. However Clare is about to realise that you can run from the past, but you can't always hide from it... When she has to travel to Ireland for work, Clare finds herself drawn back to the village of Ballykielty – the home of her family, and the home of her secrets. The one place where vowed never to return to again...




Expositions of the Psalms 1-32 (Vol. 1)


Book Description

"As the psalms are a microcosm of the Old Testament, so the Expositions of the Psalms can be seen as a microcosm of Augustinian thought. In the Book of Psalms are to be found the history of the people of Israel, the theology and spirituality of the Old Covenant, and a treasury of human experience expressed in prayer and poetry. So too does the work of expounding the psalms recapitulate and focus the experiences of Augustine's personal life, his theological reflections and his pastoral concerns as Bishop of Hippo."--Publisher's website.