Balancing life as a vampire and human is harder than she thought… Ever since Sadie decided to hide her vampirism by masquerading as a normal sixteen-year-old high school student, her world has plunged into chaos. Still a clumsy mess who attracts trouble and embarrassment like bees to honey, she’s navigating a slew of challenges: the fallout from an explosive Homecoming queen showdown, knocking out the school’s newly returned golden girl in gym class, and falling head-over-heels in love with Cam, the supposed bad boy of the school. As a test subject in a secret experimental vampire program gone wrong, Sadie also has a target on her back. To erase all traces of the failed program, the elite vampire First Families want her dead and have gone to extreme measures to make it happen. Now Sadie must deal with a shadowy stalker who seems to relish the hunt, using her and her loved ones as pawns in a sinister game of his own making. Can she survive his schemes and protect her friends and family at the same time?

Leading governance theorist Jonathan S. Davies develops a rich comparative analysis of austerity governance and resistance in eight cities, to establish a conjunctural perspective on the rolling crises of neoliberal globalism. Drawing on a major international study of eight cities, Davies employs Gramscian regime analysis to consider the consolidation, weakening and transformation of urban governance regimes through the age of austerity. He explores how urban governance shapes variations in austere neoliberalism, tackling themes including collaboration, dominance, resistance and counter-hegemony. The book is a significant addition to thinking about how the era of austerity politics influences urban governance today, and the potential for alternative urban futures.

. . . (my grandfather) said his father had died during the war. When he said it, he suddenly got this look in his eyes. Like he wanted something he could never get. I sensed something painful inside of him. Vulnerable and broken. Instinctively, I wanted to reach out to him. But I had no concept of the depth of the ocean he was swimming in . . . And so, the moment passed. And then he was smiling again. Back on point. For a long time after that, I felt like a window had opened in that moment—a window through which terrible secrets could be seen. If only I had the courage to look and the wisdom to understand them. Clues that could unlock a mystery that throbbed in our familial blood and infiltrated our dreams. Joey Ter-Mitchell spent his early years caught up in vicious cycles of bad influence, including crime, drugs, abuse, and psychological damage. Unsurprisingly, his life went on to become laden with addictions, recovery, and relapses as well as physical abuse, toxic relationships, car wrecks, arrests, jail, probation, and other painful realities—including “dying” at least once. He spent years riding a roller coaster of shame, chaos, and pain. But, thankfully, this isn’t where Joey’s story ends. In The Wealthy Loser, Joey describes how he was spared from ultimate destruction by the grace of God, and how he was led to uncover a family mystery at the core of the madness that ruled his life. While searching for healing and answers, Joey takes a journey into the past, where he discovers secrets that he comes to understand were the catalysts for a multi-generational tragedy. Beautifully weaving two stories, The Wealthy Loser is a poignant memoir about survival, redemption, healing, and most of all, love.