Belinda “Bee Cool” Cooley is back in Vegas for the World Series of Poker. Bee’s always played to win, but some sinister stranger has decided she needs an extra incentive. He’s kidnapped Bee’s goddaughter and has threatened to kill her if Bee doesn’t win the WSOP and hand over the pot: “Remember: If you bust out, so does she.” Toss in a bloody knife left on the poker table, a mysterious tattooed tough guy, a dead man floating in a lagoon, religious right protestors outside the casino, suspicious cops, and her brother Ben acting uncharacteristically serious, and Bee’s having a little trouble getting her game on. Time is running out as the Texas Hold ’Em champ uses all her sleuthing skills to track down the kidnapper—and all her poker prowess to go the distance.

12-16 yrs.

This book explores noun phrase (NP) complexity in English, showing that it is best accounted for both by a linear and a hierarchical parameter: its length and its type of postmodifier(s). The study is methodologically unique in that it combines univariate and multivariate analyses in an investigation of four different syntactic variables. Drawing on more than three billion words of British and American data, Eva Berlage shows that the length and the structure of the NPs, along with language-external factors such as the regional variety of English, work as powerful determinants of the variation. On a theoretical level, the book reveals that the structural complexity of NPs cannot be sufficiently captured by (phrasal) node counts but that we need to incorporate the degree to which NPs are sentential. The book is designed for researchers and students interested in syntax, language variation, sociolinguistics, structural complexity and the history of English.

"Feels like a blockbuster movie."—Lisa Jewell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone "Mackintosh is a pro...the final scene in the book almost made me sick as I read it. I mean that as a compliment of the highest order."—The New York Times You can save hundreds of lives. Or the one that matters most... From New York Times bestselling author Clare Mackintosh comes a claustrophobic thriller set over 20 hours on-board the inaugural nonstop flight from London to Sydney. Mina is trying to focus on her job as a flight attendant, not the problems with her five-year-old daughter back home, or the fissures in her marriage. But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination: "The following instructions will save your daughter's life..." Someone needs Mina's assistance and knows exactly how to make her comply. When one passenger is killed and then another, Mina knows she must act. But which lives does she save: Her passengers...or her own daughter and husband who are in grave distress back at home? It's twenty hours to landing. A lot can happen in twenty hours. For fans of the locked-room mystery of One by One and the heart-stopping tension The Last Flight, Hostage is an explosively addictive thriller about one flight attendant and the agonizing decision that will change her life—and the lives of everyone on-board—forever. Praise for Hostage: "A banger of a book with a truly agonizing 'what would you do?'" —Ruth Ware, #1 New York Times bestselling author of One by One "Hypnotically good. Should be a hit, could be a classic..." —Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series "Fiendishly clever." —Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before She Disappeared "A propulsive read." —Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Wife "A nail-biter of a thriller." —Shari Lapena, New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door

Girls in Space is a chronological tale of three women and their adventures in the dawn of space travel. On crude but powerful ships they venture out into space to risk it all for a chance at being the first to get into the wealth of of our slice of the galactic pie. First there is Shaniqua who is rescued from a wreck as an infant only to find at age five she is an heiress to all her parents ship carried. Wealthy beyond her dreams. Second there is Piglet whose mining colony has been sabotaged and now must exit With the help of the ship and crew that is Candide always looking for the best of all possible worlds. She joins the crew and her adventures begin there. Last There is Nikita Bowman whose Freewheeling Cowboy ways and Admiral father put her in places none would dare to tread. She is first officer of Candide and she loves to look after Piglets Miners. Three women. Three adventures.

- Introduction and recommendations to governments