Earth is dying, humanity borders on extinction. Our plight seems hopeless — until they come for us. The males of Ximera are in danger of being lost forever if they cannot replace the women the plague stole from them. One by one, each Ximeran is paired with a human female. Not all the women of Earth are fully human, however. Myself included. And when my transport is hijacked, I’m forced to show my true form to protect myself. Despite finding me amongst the shredded remains of my captors, my mate seems delighted by the tiger inside of me. But I fear the reality of being mated to a shifter may be more than he can stomach. And in the shadows, another threat lurks, waiting to strike again. If I cannot convince Rakon to accept my claiming bite, if he refuses to stand with me against this evil, both our species risk losing everything.

Murder, sex, and money intersect in this Southeast Asian thriller as Coco executes a strategy to get back an embarrassing painting, avoid being murdered by her enemy, and become really rich in the process. Ian Blakely, aged fifty-nine, a Singapore-based American expat and billionaire hedge fund manager, buys a painting of a near-nude Chinese girl. The painting until then had not been available to the public, and Ian has no idea who the model is. Ten years after posing for the painting, the girl, Coco, aged thirty, a Brown Phi Beta Kappa, a former Wall Streeter, but also somewhat of a fashionista, is now the respectable wife of the much older former head of the Army of Myanmar. The paintings existence is a threat, and Coco wants it back. Coco starts by getting Ian to invest in a natural gas project in Myanmar that she is involved with. Once he is an investor, getting the painting back from Ian will be easyand pleasurable. But along the way Coco will have to confront family intrigue, attempts to poison her and survive a jungle gunfight with a Major from the Myanmar army. Along the way, her elderly husband dies from a stroke, and she initiates a torrid relationship with Ian. Ian, who thought investing in a gas project in Myanmar was risky enough, finds himself drawn into Cocos world of Myanmar intrigue and danger. To make matters worse, the American tax authorities are threatening him with rendition back to the United States.

One of the most influential books on chess ever published – now in digital format. The Tiger is a vicious beast. He doesn't care about the aesthetic side of chess. He doesn't even care about making the 'best' moves. All he cares about is winning. Do you want to win more games? Then become a Tiger. 'Chess for Tigers' tells you how to make the most of your playing strength, how to play upon your opponent's weaknesses, how to steer the game into a position which suits you and not your opponent, how to get results against strong opposition and how to avoid silly mistakes. This is a cult classic that is as relevant to today's generation of chess players as the first edition was. Regularly voted in the top 10 best chess books of all time, this book should be read by all chess players, especially beginners who want to win at all costs. Author Information Mr Webb started to make an impact on the chess world in the 1960s. He learned the game at the age of seven and ten years later, in 1966, he was under-18 champion in Britain and fourth in the European junior Championship. He married and moved to Sweden in the 1970s and became one of the few correspondence chess Grand Masters. The first edition of Chess for Tigers was first published in 1978. The sad death of Simon Webb in March 2005 shocked the chess community.

The assembled crew from Napoleon's Gold is called to an encore performance. While the fragile Peace of Amiens still holds, it is become clear that the French and Dutch in the East Indies are using the great Dutch base at Batavia to supply and encourage pirates and privateers to molest and sink British shipping in the North Java Sea and Straits of Singapore. Once again Sir Phillip Hollis is entreated to embark his private warships on a covert mission to accomplish what the Government fears to do using the Royal Navy, lest Napoleon exploit it as a cause to resume the war. Phillip, engaged in preparations for his wedding, is at first less than enthused, yet the lure of an epic adventure, along with the prospect of financial advantage, is hard to resist. Accosted from the start by assassins, vandals, French frigates and pirates on the high seas, not to mention the Burmese navy, and most pressing of all, a determined young wife, Phillip is beset on all sides in trying to satisfy both military, political, financial, and domestic agendas. Adventure, humour, and romance mingle to the sound of naval cannon and whispered intrigue.

A 2022 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title "Baseball fans actively following the sport in the 1990s and 2000s will greatly appreciate this fantastic book and its detailed insight." —Library Journal Major League Baseball has had a long and storied history, but perhaps no era has been as competitive and unpredictable as the past 25 years, with an expanded postseason making for an unexpected and entertaining end to each season. In America’s Game in the Wild-Card Era: From Strike to Pandemic, Bryan Soderholm-Difatte provides a compelling examination of Major League Baseball since the 1994 players’ strike. He reveals how the last quarter century has been the most dynamic in MLB history and argues that bringing wild-card teams and the division-series round into the postseason mix have fundamentally changed how dynasties should be perceived. Following the major storylines for all 30 teams, along with the division races and state of dynasties over the past 25 years, America’s Game in the Wild-Card Era is a captivating look into a new age of baseball. America’s Game in the Wild-Card Era, together with Soderholm-Difatte’s America’s Game, Tumultuous Times in America’s Game, and The Reshaping of America’s Game, form the author’s complete, definitive history of Major League Baseball.

Peter Ryhiner — hero, adventurer, and romantic — was one of the world's most active wild animal collectors. Born in Basel, Switzerland, on January 1, 1920, Peter knew by the time he was eight years old that he wanted to be a naturalist and explorer — and thought about nothing else. His parents listened to him with good natured amusement, but were not so amused when his interests caused him to flunk out of two schools and precipitated his expulsion from a third for truancy. Eventually, throwing up their hands in frustration, his family cut off his funds, and Peter had to use all his ingenuity to figure out how to continue collecting and studying animals — including breeding and developing unusual strains of mice, taming adders, and holding tortoise races. By the age of twenty, after a brief stint in the calvary during WW II and some time spent working for Geigy, a Swiss chemical company, he and an associate from Geigy's began importing animals as a side venture and Peter was soon launched in the animal business. His journeys led him around the globe, straight through Europe, South America, Africa and Asia, where he captured and sold thousands of animals to zoos and wildlife parks. His adventures were astonishing — trampled, crushed, chased, bitten, and almost drowned — the animals he sought not only provided Peter with a lucrative, though unpredictable, career, but repeatedly inspired a greater and greater curiosity and love for the wild animals of the world. Peter Ryhiner rarely carried a gun, his intention was not to harm but to study and learn and to educate others, and, in fact, he was a man with a vision well ahead of his time. As his success grew he was sought as a lecturer and made many television appearances. Soon, however, currency restrictions, conservation laws, regulations against importing or exporting many species, and transportation costs took their toll. Although increased awareness and protection of wild animals was desperately needed, new laws and higher costs meant that Peter Ryhiner and other wild animal collectors of the time gradually faded into oblivion.

Perhaps like this author you have a retirement account with savings invested in a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds across industry sectors and financial markets. At the encouragement of your financial advisor, you may hold some international securities, including assets in emerging market economies like Hong Kong, which has long been one of the investment darlings of U.S. mutual fund managers. You would not be happy to learn, I suspect, that some of your foreign investment savings might be commingled with overseas money generated from illicit commerce, in particular Asian sex trafficking. That's the discovery of three Americans on vacation in Asia who get caught up in, and find themselves forced to thwart, a Hong Kong-based Chinese crime syndicate scheme to take control of Thailand's economy. The Hong Kong Gambit tells a fictional story based on the very real world of international illicit human trafficking that destroys lives of young girls and threatens the economic stability and progress of countries like Thailand.