JACOBS: For the last three years, I've lived and breathed hockey with one goal: team captain. There's only one thing standing in my way.TJ Beckett. Beck is irresponsible and immature, and I've hated him since the moment we met freshman year. Yet, the coaches see something in him I obviously can't, and they refuse to choose between us. The captain spot is going to a team vote. And the team thinks that what we need are a bunch of challenges to prove our worth. Challenges that have nothing to do with hockey. Challenges that are throwing me and Beck together. And he's still as infuriating as ever. BECK: I have no idea why Christopher Jacobs hates me, and I can't say I care. I like pushing his buttons, but the guy needs to loosen up. I'm going to win these stupid challenges easily and spend my senior year as hockey king on this campus. Tormenting Jacobs at the same time will just be a bonus. Even if I'm getting confusing feelings toward him, I won't let it hold me back. When it comes to competing, I'm all in, and nothing will get between me and the W.

Discover the fast, fun art of drawing comic portraits! Face Off shows you how to draw life like never before. Caricaturist Harold Hamernik shares the secrets to capturing the sillier side of friends, family, celebrities, strangers—any face that crosses your path. 40 step-by-step demonstrations show you how to sketch whimsical and expressive likenesses while developing your own quick, loose, improvisational style. You'll get expert instruction on: • Drawing eyes, noses, mouths and other features. • Creating portraits in front, three-quarter and profile views. • Adding color to your caricatures, either by hand or via computer—instruction you won't find in any other book! • Tips for making a likeness more masculine (skip the eyelashes), more feminine (lengthen the neck), younger, older, sexier, goofier—all while making a portrait your subject will love. • How to draw hair as two simple lines, why drawing the parts of a face in the same order every time can cut minutes off your work, and tons of other handy tricks of the craft! Practice the simple techniques in this book, then start drawing! It's the most fun you can have with paper, pencils and markers!

Taiwan's first presidential election, in 1996, sparked a Sino-U.S. military showdown that resulted in the biggest show of U.S. naval force in East Asia since the Vietnam War. This book is the first to explore the origins and triangular dynamics of that historic confrontation. Analyzing the key decisions and misperceptions that led to the Taiwan Strait crisis, Garver warns that it may usher in a more confrontational era of Sino-U.S. relations. China is already emerging as an economic powerhouse and fears of its becoming an expansionist military power have grown in recent years as China has rapidly built up its armed forces since 1989. It has also adopted a more assertive stance in several territorial disputes with its neighbors, arousing new security concerns for Asia as a whole. When China tried to intimidate Taiwan's voters by firing missiles and conducting large-scale military exercises off its coasts in the period preceding the 1996 election, the U.S. dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to Taiwan. The prestige of all sides was fully engaged as powerful do domestic interests demanded an assertive posture. Eventually, China adopted a more cautious stance and the crisis passed. But it marked the first instance of Chinese nuclear coercion of the U.S. and gave the "China threat" new credence in the U.S. and elsewhere in Asia. The author has studied the Taiwan question for more than 30 years and has witnessed first-hand the growth and culmination of Taiwan's democratization. This sober, mature reflection of decades of thought is certain to inform the debate on the "China threat" and the future of Sino-U.S. relations.

From New York Times bestselling author Brenda Novak comes Face Off, the next installment of Dr. Evelyn Talbot and her murderous home for psychopaths. SHE VOWED NEVER TO BE A VICTIM AGAIN. BUT NOW A KILLER HAS HER IN HIS SIGHT. . . Tortured and left for dead at sixteen, Evelyn Talbot turned her personal nightmare into her life’s work—studying the disturbing psychopathy of some of the world’s most vicious serial killers. Now a leading psychiatrist at Hanover House in a small Alaskan town, she tries to believe the past will never come back to haunt her—until a woman goes missing from a cabin nearby, and every clue points to the man who once brutalized her... As her boyfriend, who is the area’s only police, begins to investigate—and finds not one but two bodies—Evelyn can’t forget that her would-be killer, Jasper Moore, was never caught. But there are no new faces in tiny Hilltop, no one who seems suspicious or potentially violent. In this twisted game of cat and mouse, Evelyn is certain of only one thing—Jasper must be hiding in plain sight. And if she can’t find him before he comes for her, she won’t be lucky enough to survive twice... “Novak is a master of suspense.”—RT Book Reviews

A New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller! Edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci and including stories by Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, and more, this one-of-a-kind anthology pulls together the most beloved characters from the best and most popular thriller series today. Worlds collide! In an unprecedented collaboration, twenty-three of the world’s bestselling and critically acclaimed thriller writers have paired their series characters—such as Harry Bosch, Jack Reacher, and Lincoln Rhyme—in an eleven-story anthology curated by the International Thriller Writers (ITW). All of the contributors to FaceOff are ITW members and the stories feature these dynamic duos: · Patrick Kenzie vs. Harry Bosch in “Red Eye,” by Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly · John Rebus vs. Roy Grace in “In the Nick of Time,” by Ian Rankin and Peter James · Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy vs. Aloysius Pendergast in “Gaslighted,” by R.L. Stine, Douglas Preston, and Lincoln Child · Malachai Samuels vs. D.D. Warren in “The Laughing Buddha,” by M.J. Rose and Lisa Gardner · Paul Madriani vs. Alexandra Cooper in “Surfing the Panther,” by Steve Martini and Linda Fairstein · Lincoln Rhyme vs. Lucas Davenport in “Rhymes With Prey,” by Jeffery Deaver and John Sandford · Michael Quinn vs. Repairman Jack in “Infernal Night,” by Heather Graham and F. Paul Wilson · Sean Reilly vs. Glen Garber in “Pit Stop,” by Raymond Khoury and Linwood Barclay · Wyatt Hunt vs. Joe Trona in “Silent Hunt,” by John Lescroart and T. Jefferson Parker · Cotton Malone vs. Gray Pierce in “The Devil’s Bones,” by Steve Berry and James Rollins · Jack Reacher vs. Nick Heller in “Good and Valuable Consideration,” by Lee Child and Joseph Finder So sit back and prepare for a rollicking ride as your favorite characters go head-to-head with some worthy opponents in FaceOff—it’s a thrill-a-minute read.

Twelve-year-old Delilah James is one of the top reporters at Brighton Junior Academy and dreams of becoming a Junior Global Journalist. But when an international rival named Ava invades her newsroom and takes over her crush, Delilah finds an unlikely ally in the Debutantes - a.k.a. the Little Debbies.

FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) must go undercover to investigate the location of a lethal biological weapon planted by his arch rival, terrorist-for-hire Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage). After undergoing a radical surgical procedure, Archer literally "borrows" Troy's face and identity to carry out his mission. But things go awry when Troy, emerging from a coma, is transformed into Archer and wreaks havoc upon his life, both at work and at home.