Everybody's best mate but nobody's soul mate. Milkman Peter Froggitt is stressed out and when life overwhelms him he always runs. Now he is terrified. In his new stealth-camper, he heads north, running from the memory of a dead woman, his fear of the Watcher on the scrubland and from his own interminable loneliness. In his possession is the heavy gold chain he has kept since childhood. The chain he took from The Blackened Man. At 4.30am, in an attempt to re-invent himself as a carefree man, Peter tosses his burden into a field; a bag containing the chain, along with letters from his father and his ex-wife, his phone, some keys and a mysterious photograph of a pale, scruffy child. But from a hotel balcony, Hugo Quin is watching. And when Hugo is watching, anything is possible. The Froggitt Chain is a story of ordinary people who long to belong. It is about brokenness, connection and hope. 'It's rare to come across such an original voice and to find a book that is both very funny and intensely moving.' K. Holmes

In the time it took me to ski from the crevasse to the foot of the mountain, I convinced myself that what happened wasn't my responsibility.' Duncan Wilde - extreme skiing enthusiast After an accident on a Swiss mountain, Duncan Wilde's life changes for ever. On the surface he is a respectable husband and father; inside he suppresses a burden of guilt and grief that can only be calmed by the thrill of a secret existence. Duncan's fantasies become reality but, when reality spirals out of control, there is no going back. Hitch-hiker Hugo Quin is a scruffy loner, an extraordinarily joyful man who lives in the moment. A chance meeting with Duncan Wilde leads Hugo to Cornwall, where he becomes Duncan's indispensable partner in a treacherous transaction. With its cast of rich characters, The Burglar's Baby examines the moral ambiguity that lies at the heart of us all. Sensitive, humorous and intensely moving, the book will leave you thinking long after you have turned the final page. 'A baby is not a can of baked beans. You can't simply pick one off a supermarket shelf and take it home for supper.' Terry O'Leary - host of the O'Leary Show

After Flin and Flowell get carried away inside the stomach of a giant jellyfish, Flin stumbles upon a leprechaun village just below the Earth's surface. A magical jadestone keeps this village, called Clover Cavern, alive with magic and hidden from others. This stone was once given to the leprechauns by Flin's great-grandfather, Hovgard Newby, hundreds of years earlier. When this precious jadestone is stolen, Flin is asked by Froggit, Head Leprechaun of Clover Cavern, to find it and save the village from death. While Flin is busy trying to find the stone, Flowell, one of his best friends, gets captured by Blade, an evil threat in the underworld, and must be rescued before it's too late.

Numerous organizations have embarked on their journey towards digital transformation, yet find themselves grappling to develop a coherent and effective strategy. In their quest for improvement, they often turn to a plethora of experts, harboring hopes of achieving success. Confronted with the imperative necessity to evolve and sustain their operational momentum, a pervasive sense of fatalism begins to take hold. In this situation, the DevOps movement emerges as a beacon of hope. Rooted in the principles that govern the world's most successful and expansive organizations, DevOps seeks to provide viable solutions to these pressing challenges. This book is designed to be your gateway to understanding this transformative movement, which has found its stronghold in the largest and most prosperous organizations of the world. Designed to be both accessible and insightful, this hands-on guide, enriched with illustrations, unfolds the opportunities that state-of-the-art DevOps technologies and methodologies have to offer. It demystifies the prerequisites for organizational adaptation and guides you on embarking on your own DevOps transformation, at any scale.

Winner of the 2016 World Fantasy Award for Best Collection Contains "The Bone Swans of Amandale," 2015 Nebula Award finalist for Best Novella "C. S. E. Cooney is one of the most moving, daring, and plainly beautiful voices to come out of recent fantasy. She's a powerhouse with a wink in her eye and a song in each pocket." —Catherynne M. Valente, New York Times-bestselling author of the Fairyland novels "These stories are a pure joy. C. S. E. Cooney's imagination is wild and varied, her stories bawdy, horrific, comic, and moving-frequently all at the same time. Her characters are wickedly appealing, and her language—O! her language. Lush, playful, poetic, but never obscure or stilted, it makes her magic more magic, her comedy more comic, and her tragic moments almost unbearable." —Delia Sherman, author of Young Woman in a Garden: Stories "Bone Swans is a joy of feathery bones & ghoulish clowns. I adored every word. Like an eyas cries for meat, I cry for more. C.S.E. Cooney's a major talent and these are major talent stories. Who can resist hero rats, pouting swans, feral children, flying carpets and the Flabberghast? So tongue-tied am I with delight I fall back on the usual cliches: gripping, delightful, insightful, rollicking & lyrical—and yet not one cliche is to be found in Bone Swans, only stories of surpassing delicacy and wit, told by a lady of rare talent. Please, ma'am, might I have some more?" —Ysabeau S. Wilce, Andre Norton Award wining author of Flora's Dare A swan princess hunted for her bones, a broken musician and his silver pipe, and a rat named Maurice bring justice to a town under fell enchantment. A gang of courageous kids confronts both a plague-destroyed world and an afterlife infested with clowns but robbed of laughter. In an island city, the murder of a child unites two lovers, but vengeance will part them. Only human sacrifice will save a city trapped in ice and darkness. Gold spun out of straw has a price, but not the one you expect. World Fantasy Award winner Ellen Kushner has called Cooney's writing "stunningly delicious! Cruel, beautiful and irresistible." Bone Swans, the infernally whimsical debut collection from C. S. E. Cooney, gathers five novellas that in the words of Andre Norton Award winner Delia Sherman are "bawdy, horrific, comic, and moving-frequently all at the same time." Cooney's mentor, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Gene Wolfe, proclaims in his introduction that her style is so original it can only be described as "pure Cooney," and he offers readers a challenge: "Try to define that when you've finished the stories in this book." More praise for Bone Swans "Cooney's brilliantly executed collection of five stories is a delicious stew of science fiction, horror, and fantasy, marked by unforgettable characters who plumb the depths of pathos and triumph. ... All of these stories could easily serve as the foundation for novels while also working beautifully at their current length. These well-crafted narratives defiantly refuse to fade from memory long after the last word has been read." —Publishers Weekly, starred review "In five beautifully crafted stories, Cooney builds imaginary worlds full of flying carpets, fairy-tale characters, and children confronted with a postapocalyptic Earth ... Each tale packs in enough plot for a novel, with adventurous characters who brim with wit." —Library Journal, starred review "Writing without ostentation and featuring characters who may be flippant, terse, or even tongue-tied, Cooney produces memorable prose propelled by extraordinary ideas ... Faced with such twisted genius, I'll say no more!" —Locus "A fascinating mashup between the tropes and resonances of the mythic tale with the sensibilities of contemporary action-oriented fantasy: simultaneously lighthearted and serious, full of consequences but also ubiquitous happy endings." —Tor.com

From the fantasies of Esau to the fantastic tale of Diamondman, "Being Forgotten" shines a spotlight on the lives of eight 21st-century teenagers. These fact-based stories include a discussion section ideal for resource material in an educational setting.