AN EARTH WOMAN / MERMAN ROMANCE. Eighteen-year-old Mariam El-Kashef is about to get married to a man ten years older than her own father. There is nothing she can do about it. Her father owes the man more money than he can repay. In a last ditch effort, she goes to Sunny Sands Beach with a large mirror in the hope of transporting herself into an alternate universe as she’d once dreamed she had done as a child. Merman Lucius Archer’s life feels as though it’s spinning out of control. He never imagined that he and his identical twin Lucas would ever live separate lives: one on MerLand and the other on Earth. Like all merman twins, they had hoped to share one Intended mate, but the Fates have decided against it. Lucas has found his mate on Earth; if Lucius doesn’t find his too, he will have no choice but to return to MerLand. They have grown up so incredibly close, that would feel like losing an arm. Then Lucius finds Mariam, his Intended, less than a week before she marries a man she has no desire to wed. He will do whatever it takes to get her out of the sticky situation, but is either of them prepared for the repercussions of messing with a man dangerous enough to kill?

A BBW EARTH WOMAN / MERMAN ROMANCE. Twenty-year-old Erin Murphy isn’t the slim, blonde, model-type woman that men prefer. Once she’d dyed her dark hair a shocking shade of red and worn green contact lens in order to attract attention and it had ended disastrously. She has decided that she wouldn’t ever change herself again in order to find love, but is there any man who will love her as she is? Merman Jacob Spellman has always been attracted to fuller curves. None of the women on MerLand suit his taste. He’d wondered if he was destined to settle for less than his heart’s desire, until his older brother Adam finds happiness with an Earth woman and makes Jacob realize that he has to explore further afield. He sees Erin walking along Portobello Beach, senses her loneliness and longing to be loved, and decides that she will be his. All Erin needs is to believe that a handsome prince wants her just as she is. All Jacob needs to do is convince her that the Kingdom of MerLand is a better place than Earth.

FIVE EXCITING EARTH WOMAN / MERMAN ROMANCES THE MERMAN’S JEWEL When she discovers that her husband has been unfaithful, Niamh O’Sullivan casts herself into Kinnagoe Bay and expects it to be the end. Instead she’s rescued by merman Adam Spellman and taken to MerLand, an underwater kingdom. Within a year she’s borne him twins and been loved deeply, but she’s wracked with guilt at the thought of the pain she caused her loved ones on Earth. Adam has the power to facilitate a return trip, but it means that Niamh has to leave him and her children behind. Can she take the chance of losing all she holds dear just to lay the ghosts of her past to rest? THE MERMAN’S DESIRE Twenty-year-old Erin Murphy is a curvy woman and has decided that she wouldn’t change herself in order to find love. But she despairs that any man will want her as she is. Merman Jacob Spellman has always been attracted to fuller curves. He’d wondered if he was destined to settle for less than his heart’s desire, until he sees Erin walking along Portobello Beach and decides that she will be his. All Erin needs is to believe that a handsome prince wants her just as she is. All Jacob needs to do is convince her that the Kingdom of MerLand is a better place than Earth. THE MERMAN’S HEART For twenty-two-year-old Eithne McCarthy life is a series of endless days and nights. She is married to the man who fathered her son, but their marriage is in name only. Merman Joseph Spellman feels as though his life is spinning out of control. He’s feeling a dangerous and inappropriate attraction for the wife of his cousin Adam, King of MerLand Kingdom. Joseph contemplates living on Earth. Life on the planet would be better than staying on MerLand and fighting the attraction that gets stronger every day. Then he’s informed that it’s Eithne, Niamh’s younger sister, who is his Intended mate and not the Queen. The only problem is that she lives on Earth and is married with a young son. Will she be willing to leave everything behind and move to MerLand? THE MERMAN’S PRIZE Twenty-year-old Angela Braithwaite has grown up with parents who are both Rastafarians. Instead of being attracted to the men of her own race as a dutiful daughter, she’s had an eye for tall, blond men; the very last type of men that her parents would allow her to date or marry. Lucas Archer feels battle weary and exhausted from the events that have occurred over the last six years. He was lead guard responsible for ensuring the safety of the future King of MerLand and had failed miserably. He redeems himself by capturing the traitor and bringing him to justice. He’s rewarded handsomely for his efforts but is left still feeling dissatisfied. Then he sees Angela and realizes that she is his Intended mate, and a prize just waiting for him to claim. THE MERMAN’S CONQUEST Eighteen-year-old Mariam El-Kashef is about to get married to a man ten years older than her own father whom he owes more money than he can repay. In a last ditch effort, she goes to Sunny Sands Beach with a large mirror in the hope of transporting herself into an alternate universe as she’d once dreamed she had done as a child. Merman Lucius Archer’s life feels as though it’s spinning out of control. He never imagined that he and his identical twin Lucas would ever live separate lives: one on MerLand and the other on Earth. Lucas has found his mate on Earth; if Lucius doesn’t find his too, he will have to return to MerLand alone. They have grown up so incredibly close, that would feel like losing an arm. Then Lucius finds Mariam, his Intended and he will do whatever it takes to get her out of the sticky situation, but is either of them prepared for the repercussions of messing with a man dangerous enough to kill?

As allegiances shift and new powers align for Alexandra Ivy’s Guardians of Eternity, one immortal defender knows the sweep of change brings danger—and possibility . . . On the edge of the Mojave desert, out of the lights of Las Vegas, even a werewolf can expect a share of peace and solitude. For Ulric, the last surviving member of a pack hunted through centuries, it’s one of few places he’s willing to drop his guard. Until he spots Brigette, a beautiful wolf-woman he thought dead long ago. When he gives chase, he loses her—and discovers he’s being followed himself. His pursuer is a zephyr sprite, Rainn, on the trail of a frightening prophecy she can’t predict or understand. All she knows is that Ulric is at its center. If he’s determined to find Brigette, she’ll do what she must to keep him with her. When the search leads them to a place where Ulric’s ghosts and Rainn’s portents intertwine, a lurking evil waits to swallow them both. But as they fight for survival, their need for each other will become impossible to deny . . .

Is it possible to reconcile human excellence with a dedication to equality? Equality and Excellence in Ancient and Modern Political Philosophy explores the meaning, conflict, and potential resolution of the tension between human excellence and equality in the thought of philosophers from Greek antiquity to modern times. Each chapter is devoted to the thought of a particular thinker, and the chapters are arranged chronologically. Interpretations offered here rely on close readings of the major texts by critically important thinkers from Plato, Aristotle and Xenophon in antiquity to a broad range of modern thinkers from Spinoza to Rawls.

“Kellow’s chronology is dishy and seamless; he understands the dynamics of the theater world and makes you feel the exhilaration of an evolving hit and the frustrations inherent in working with a performer like Merman.”—The New York Times Book Review “[Kellow] has painted a vivid portrait of a Broadway diva who shone brighter and sang louder than anyone else.”—The Washington Post BookWorld More than twenty years after her death, Ethel Merman continues to set the standard for American musical theater. The stories about the supremely talented, famously strong-willed, fearsomely blunt, and terrifyingly exacting woman are stuff of legend. But who was Ethel Agnes Zimmermann, really? Brian Kellow’s definitive biography of the great Merman is superb, and the first account to examine both the artist and the woman with as much critical rigor as empathy. Through dozens of interviews with her colleagues, friends, and family members, Kellow (author of Can I Go Now?: The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywood's First Superagent) traces the arc of her life and her thirty-year singing career to reveal many surprising facts about Broadway’s biggest star.

Johannes de Silentio, Kierkegaard's pseudonymous author of Fear and Trembling, argues that the knight of faith is the paradox, is the individual, absolutely nothing but the individual, without connections or pretensions. The knight of faith is the individual who is able to gracefully embrace life: Kierkegaard put it this way in Either/Or, "When around one everything has become silent, solemn as a clear, starlit night, when the soul comes to be alone in the whole world, then before one there appears, not an extraordinary human being, but the eternal power itself, then the heavens open, and the I chooses itself or, more correctly, receives itself. Then the personality receives the accolade of knighthood that ennobles it for an eternity.