Sometimes the person you need is the last one you expect... When the Albanian mob shows up at her door, Cate Biscayne knows her father is up to his old tricks. Determined to force him out of hiding, the criminals he conned take her hostage. The clock is ticking and few options remain. She's forced to decide-risk her life and do what they want, or accept help from a man who might be even more dangerous. Brutal by nature, Scottish dragon-warrior Rannock has little patience for humans. But when the woman he longs for goes missing, he flies halfway around the world to investigate her disappearance. With few clues to follow, he infiltrates a network in the criminal underworld, only to discover a magic more sinister than his own. Can he find Cate before time runs out? Or will he lose the woman fated to be his forever?

"Captain Alicia DeVries, Imperial Cadre, has been many things in her life. An Imperial Marine, dedicated to the protection and preservation of the Terran Empire she loves. An Imperial Cadre drop commando, personal liegewoman of Emperor Seamus II, whom she honors and reveres. Hero of the Terran Empire, one of only three living holders of the Banner of Terra. And now, outcast, rogue, pirate ... and madwoman." "From the time she graduated from high school, Alicia DeVries knew what she wanted to do with her life, and she did it well. On planets like Gyangtse, Chengchou, Fuller, and Louvain - in cities like Zhikotse and Shallingsport - she's put her life on the line in defense of her Empire and Emperor again and again. She's given her blood, and the lives of men and women closer to her than brothers and sisters." "But her dead have been betrayed in the name of political expediency. The justice they deserved has been denied, and a brokenhearted Alicia DeVries has resigned her commission and retired to the colony world of Mathison with her family to begin a new life." "Yet Alicia is still a warrior, and the pirates who attacked Mathison, tortured and murdered her family, and left her for dead, are about to discover just how big a mistake they made." "Imperial Intelligence can't find them. The Imperial Fleet can't catch them. Local defenses can't stop them. But Alicia has stolen an imperial A1 starship from the bleeding edge of technology and set out to teach them what vengeance truly is." "Her fellow veterans think she's gone mad, the Fleet has shoot-on-sight orders, and the "pirates" have allies at the highest levels of the Imperial government. But Alicia DeVries has two allies of her own. Allies no one knows about. Allies as implacable as she is: a self-aware computer, and a creature from the mists of Old Earth's most ancient legends."--BOOK JACKET.

If you are among the growing number of families in which adults with grown children have remarried later in life, you are probably familiar with the conflicts and complicated emotional dynamics that can result. Parents expect that remarrying will be easier because the children are grown up. But the reality is that these remarriages can cause painful struggles between parents and their adult children. Based on in-depth research by a psychiatrist and a sociologist, Step Wars trains a revealing lens on the sources of these conflicts and teaches the skills required to manage them. Topics include: * Your Children and Mine: Can They Ever Become Ours? * What Will Happen to the "Family Home"? * Who Should Inherit My Property? Managing Financial Conflict Between Generations * Health and Illness: Thank Heaven the Caretaker Is on Duty * The Grandchildren: Pawns or Bridges? Written for both the couple getting married as well as their adult children, Step Wars is a road map for happily surviving remarriage later in life.

Lupine sorcerer Cullen Seabourne and FBI Agent Cynna Weaver are just coming to terms with having a baby, when they are lured to another realm where magic is commonplace and night never ends. Their only way home lies in tracking down a missing medallion-one also sought by powerful beings who will do anything to claim it.

In Furies of Calderon, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher introduced readers to a world where the forces of nature take physical form. But now, it is human nature that threatens to throw the realm into chaos… For centuries, the people of Alera have harnessed the furies—elementals of earth, air, fire, water, wood, and metal—to protect their land from aggressors. But no fury can save them from the dangers they face within. A mysterious attack from across the sea has weakened the First Lord. Should he fall, a bloody civil war is inevitable. The responsibility of fending off assassination attempts and treachery within the First Lord’s circle of spies falls on Tavi, the one man with no fury to call...