A Ruby for Victor


Book Description

What will become of me if I were to decline?' Aurea frowns. 'We here would not raise a hand against you. However... there are those who will regard you as a threat. Without being a porfo, you will not have any protection from them, and we will not be able to raise a hand against them. You've been outed, Victor. Many eyes would be looking your way, and a lot of them would not be friendly.' 'That is about what I expected you would say.' Victor Trent is stuck in a dead-end job at a secondhand store, living with parents who don't respect him and dealing with a kid brother who mooches off him. Hopeless, Victor is on autopilot through life, quite displeased with how it's going. A chance sighting by a vampire at a nightclub changes his life forever. Soon after, Victor is offered a position in Washington DC, working for a congressman. Given his political views, this is hardly his dream job. He is a fish out of water, an honorable man in a city that does not know the meaning of the word. After settling in DC, Victor finally encounters something similar to that night at the club-another vampire. Realizing he can hear her thoughts and vice versa, Victor realizes there may be much more to his past-and future-than he thought possible. Once the Ruby Order, a clan of vampires, learns about Victor, he will be put to the test, to see if he can be trusted and become one of them. Join in this odyssey of self-discovery and seek the truth about vampires while searching for A Ruby for Victor.




This Dark Endeavour (with Bonus Material)


Book Description

WITH BONUS MATERIAL: Pages from Victor Frankenstein's sketchbook and an excerpt from the upcoming sequel, Such Wicked Intent, available August 2012. Victor Frankenstein leads a charmed life. He and his twin brother, Konrad, and their beautiful cousin Elizabeth take lessons at home and spend their spare time fencing and horseback riding. Along with their friend Henry, they have explored all the hidden passageways and secret rooms of the palatial Frankenstein chateau. Except one. The Dark Library contains ancient tomes written in strange languages, and filled with forbidden knowledge. Their father makes them promise never to visit the library again, but when Konrad becomes deathly ill, Victor knows he must find the book that contains the recipe for the legendary Elixir of Life. The elixir needs only three ingredients. But impossible odds, dangerous alchemy and a bitter love triangle threaten their quest at every turn. Victor knows he must not fail. But his success depends on how far he is willing to push the boundaries of nature, science and love—and how much he is willing to sacrifice.




Recreating Jane Austen


Book Description

Recreating Jane Austen is a book for readers who know and love Austen s work. Stimulated by the recent crop of film and television versions of Austen s novels, John Wiltshire examines how they have been transposed and recreated in another age and medium. Wiltshire illuminates the process of recreation through the work of the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, and offers Jane Austen s own relation to Shakespeare as a suggestive parallel. Exploring the romantic impulse in Austenian biography, Jane Austen as a commodity, and offering a re-interpretation of Pride and Prejudice, this book approaches the central question of the role Jane Austen plays in the contemporary cultural imagination.




Ruby (Oprah's Book Club 2.0)


Book Description

A New York Times bestseller and Oprah Book Club 2.0 selection, the epic, unforgettable story of a man determined to protect the woman he loves from the town desperate to destroy her. This beautiful and devastating debut heralds the arrival of a major new voice in fiction. Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby Bell, “the kind of pretty it hurt to look at,” has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city—the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village—all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother. When a telegram from her cousin forces her to return home, thirty-year-old Ruby finds herself reliving the devastating violence of her girlhood. With the terrifying realization that she might not be strong enough to fight her way back out again, Ruby struggles to survive her memories of the town’s dark past. Meanwhile, Ephram must choose between loyalty to the sister who raised him and the chance for a life with the woman he has loved since he was a boy. Full of life, exquisitely written, and suffused with the pastoral beauty of the rural South, Ruby is a transcendent novel of passion and courage. This wondrous page-turner rushes through the red dust and gossip of Main Street, to the pit fire where men swill bootleg outside Bloom’s Juke, to Celia Jennings’s kitchen, where a cake is being made, yolk by yolk, that Ephram will use to try to begin again with Ruby. Utterly transfixing, with unforgettable characters, riveting suspense, and breathtaking, luminous prose, Ruby offers an unflinching portrait of man’s dark acts and the promise of the redemptive power of love. Ruby was a finalist for the PEN America Robert Bingham Debut Novel Award, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and an Indie Next Pick.




Learn Game Programming with Ruby


Book Description

Level up your programming skills while making fast-paced, arcade-style video games. Make enemy spaceships explode in balls of fire, and escape from a pit while dodging falling boulders. You'll use the fun and approachable Ruby programming language and the Gosu 2D game library, which makes making games a breeze. Gain the skills and techniques you need to bring your own video game ideas to life with moving images and thumping sounds. If you have a little experience programming in Ruby or another language, then you're ready to start making your own video games. In this book you'll learn concepts such as animation, keyboard and mouse movement, sounds and music, and physics as you build four exciting games. Your first game will test your reflexes as you try to click on a ruby that pops in and out of your screen. Learn how to draw images and text, and how to make objects move around the screen. You'll make a space-shooter where you defend your home base from a seemingly endless stream of enemies, as you discover how to use keyboard input, add music and sounds, an opening title screen, and scrolling end-credits. Next up: make a sliding number puzzle game where you'll learn to incorporate more complicated logic and user interaction into your game. Learn all about game physics as you build a game where a bold adventurer must climb out of a pit while dodging bouncing, spinning rocks. Finally, package up your games as Windows and Mac apps so you can share them with your friends. When you're done with this book, you'll have improved your programming skills, and you'll have all the tools you need to make your own arcade-style games. What You Need: You'll need a computer running Windows 7 or later, or Mac OS X 10.7 or later. All the other software you need is free, and the first chapter will get you up and running.




Opening the Road


Book Description

"Hungry? Check the Green Book. Tired? Check the Green Book. Sick? Check the Green Book." In the late 1930s when segregation was legal and Black Americans couldn't visit every establishment or travel everywhere they wanted to safely, a New Yorker named Victor Hugo Green decided to do something about it. Green wrote and published a guide that listed places where his fellow Black Americans could be safe in New York City. The guide sold like hot cakes! Soon customers started asking Green to make a guide to help them travel and vacation safely across the nation too. With the help of his mail carrier co-workers and the African American business community, Green's guide allowed millions of African Americans to travel safely and enjoy traveling across the nation. In the first picture book about the creation and distribution of The Green Book, author Keila Dawson and illustrator Alleanna Harris tell the story of the man behind it and how this travel guide opened the road for a safer, more equitable America.




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Book Description










90 Masterpieces of World Literature (Vol.I)


Book Description

90 Masterpieces of World Literature (Vol.I) is an expansive anthology that traverses the landscape of global literary achievement, offering readers a comprehensive survey of seminal works that have shaped the ethos of world literature. This collection is marked by an incredible diversity of genres, styles, and themes, reflecting the wide-ranging experiences and historical contexts of its authors. From the existential questions pursued by Dostoevsky and the introspective journey of Proust, to the pioneering adventures penned by Verne and the critical social commentary of Dickens, this anthology showcases the multifaceted nature of human thought and expression. Standout pieces within the volume capture the essence of their time while also speaking to universal themes of love, struggle, freedom, and morality, making the anthology a vibrant tapestry of human experience. The contributors to this volume represent a whos who of historical literary giants, each bringing their unique voice to the collective table. Authors such as Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë offer keen insights into the gender dynamics of their time, while the visionary science fiction of H.G. Wells and the dark romanticism of Edgar Allan Poe present radical departures from the realist tradition, challenging readers to explore new psychological and societal frontiers. The anthology, thereby, not only aligns with various historical, cultural, and literary movements but also weaves a dialogue between these movements, highlighting the evolution of narrative and thought across ages and geographies. These varied voices together enrich the readers understanding of the broad spectrum of human expression and the complexity of the human condition. 90 Masterpieces of World Literature (Vol.I) is an essential volume for anyone seeking to explore the depth and breadth of literary genius across the ages. It offers a unique opportunity to delve into the works that have not only defined but also continuously reshaped the landscape of world literature. Readers are encouraged to immerse themselves in the richness of this collection, discovering within its pages a world of ideas, stories, and perspectives that are at once enlightening, provocative, and boundlessly imaginative. This anthology serves as both a gateway and a guide for those eager to embark on a comprehensive literary journey, making it an invaluable addition to any personal library.