(Book One of the Seven Gods) By the King's Edict, men have been banned from performing on stage. Everyone else is still out for blood. Sabajan Hollant, director and co-founder of the celebrated Lord Chancellor's Players, has one resolution: This time they're going to do it right. If they want to keep their noble patron-hell, if they want to stay in the theater business at all-they're going to have to keep their hands clean. No accidents, no rising to other troupes' provocations and taunts, and certainly no more duelling in the streets. But their arch-rivals have different plans, and soon enough, Saba and her troupe are caught up once again in an escalating drama of revenge, betrayal, and outright sabotage. The men may have started this war-but Saba and her remaining players are going to end it.

Love blooms when you least expect it . . . Juliet Shakespeare is done with love. With a growing floristry business and an adorable daughter to raise, life after separating from her husband is complicated enough. But when handsome single father, Ryan Sutherland, arrives in town, everything changes. As much as she tries to distract herself, Juliet can't help but be drawn to the easy-going Romeo next door and the way he makes her feel. Photographer Ryan is only back in his hometown for a few months. But he didn't account for Juliet - the intriguing and beautiful woman next door. And in her, he might just have found everything he ever wanted . . .

"Twenty-three years ago, four year old Elizabeth Banner witnessed her mother's brutal murder in her home in Virtue Falls, Washington, but has no memory of it. Her father was convicted of the crime, but he was innocent and the killer is still out there. And her investigation could provoke another bloody murder--her own"--

Many of us are so busy that we might be tempted to think we don’t have time to be patient. However, that idea involves a serious underestimation of what patience is and why it matters. In On Patience, Matthew Pianalto revives a richer understanding of what patience is and why it is centrally important in both virtue theory and everyday life. Drawing from a wide range of philosophical and religious sources, Pianalto shows that our contemporary tendency to equate patience with waiting fails to do justice to other aspects of patience such as tolerance, perseverance, and the opposition of patience to anger. With this broader understanding of patience, Pianalto further shows how patience supports the development of other moral strengths, such as courage, justice, love, and hope. In these ways, On Patience sheds light on Franz Kafka’s remark that, “Patience is the master key to every situation,” and Gregory the Great’s perhaps surprising claim that, “Patience is the root and guardian of all the virtues.” This first book-length contemporary philosophical examination of patience will be of interest to students and scholars not just of virtue ethics, but also of moral philosophy more broadly.

After sacrificing herself to protect a young boy from a death threat, Taylor endures a ruined life in the wilderness before seeking the help of an unlikely ally to defeat a man who would prevent her from reclaiming her life.

A denunciation of the credentialed elite class that serves capitalism while insisting on its own progressive heroism Professional Managerial Class (PMC) elite workers labor in a world of performative identity and virtue signaling, publicizing an ability to do ordinary things in fundamentally superior ways. Author Catherine Liu shows how the PMC stands in the way of social justice and economic redistribution by promoting meritocracy, philanthropy, and other self-serving operations to abet an individualist path to a better world. Virtue Hoarders is an unapologetically polemical call to reject making a virtue out of taste and consumption habits. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was originally classified as a comedy, but is now also classified as one of Shakespeare's problem plays.The play deals with the issues of mercy, justice, truth and their relationship to pride and humility: "Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall"Measure for Measure is among the most passionately discussed of Shakespeare's plays. In it, a duke temporarily removes himself from governing his city-state, deputizing a member of his administration, Angelo, to enforce the laws more rigorously. Angelo chooses as his first victim Claudio, condemning him to death because he impregnated Juliet before their marriage.Claudio's sister Isabella, who is entering a convent, pleads for her brother's life. Angelo attempts to extort sex from her, but Isabella preserves her chastity. The duke, in disguise, eavesdrops as she tells her brother about Angelo's behavior, then offers to ally himself with her against Angelo.