A cultural satire, McKenzie Rising follows the MegaMax Corporation’s venture to turn the upper McKenzie Valley into an upscale development, the Estates at Rancho Rio. Having already bought out the regional state university, MegaMax is poised to complete its acquisition of the upper McKenzie, and its efforts are overseen by Marta Juggernaut, Wharton School MBA graduate and project manager at Rancho Rio, and by Mark Neighbors, Northwest Acquisitor for MegaMax. Their work is countered by a Dickensian ensemble of characters, many of whom are chronically sidetracked from the heroic community purpose by various amatory diversions. Given that the protesters include such locals as D.B. Cooper (the long-vanished airplane hijacker) and Sasquatch, in all his odoriferous glory, the reader is in for a rollicking but powerfully thought-provoking journey. A lusty, environmental picaresque, McKenzie Rising satirizes our shortfalls, while celebrating our resilience and the triumph of community. The book offers a corrective to some of the amendable follies we lug with us as we careen into the (post)-Trump, (post)-COVID era.
Sorrow Point High's witchiest have returned in this conclusion to the thrilling B*Witch duology—and this time, the danger is even closer to home. Two rival covens, led by frenemies Greta and Div, are investigating a radical anti-magic faction—the New Order—for the murder of a sister witch. In fact, Div and her coven mate Mira are pretend-dating a couple of New Order members to infiltrate it and bring it down for good. But when the president of the United States aligns himself with the dangerous group and local police ramp up their search for suspected witches, the covens must be more careful than ever. Even outside of politics, complications abound as Iris and the new witch, Torrence, fight for Greta's affections...and Ridley can't get over her crush on a dead girl...and Binx's own crush turns out to be harboring deadly secrets. If the covens wish to solve their friend's murder and protect their kind, they'll have to rise above their problems, big and small. But as they grow closer to the truth, one thing becomes certain—trust no witch.
"Pleiades Rising" is an eclectic blend of seven stories: "The Nightfield Murders" Even a flock of crows needs detectives. "Jenny on the Milk Carton" The new girl in town has a secret and doesn't even know it. "The Revelation of Pastor Henry" Question belief. "The Good Life" Sci-fi, romance, and even a little bromance. "Sirens' Fade" Life, love, and the apocalypse. "Father McKenzie's Kitchen" Nightmare in a bowl of soup. "Zulu Operator" For a spy, retirement can be a killer.
When the new girl in school joins a group of teen witches, she and her friends must team up with a rival coven to take down a mysterious killer. New girl and secret witch Iris just wants to get through her first day of school without a panic attack. The last thing she expects is to be taken in by a coven of three witches: soft-spoken Greta, thoughtful and musical Ridley, and fiery and spirited Binx. They may be the first witches Iris has met IRL, but their coven is not alone in their small northwestern town. The Triad is the other coven at their school. When the Triad's not using spells to punish their exes or break up happy couples for fun, they practice dark magic. The two covens have a rivalry stretching all the way back to junior high. When tragedy strikes and one of their own is murdered, the rival covens must band together to find out who is responsible before it's too late. Someone's anti-witch ideology has turned deadly . . . and one of them is next. With an inclusive cast of teen witches who leap off the page with style, attitude, and charm, B*Witch is a perfectly bingeable read for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Mean Girls alike.
A study of political and social issues posed by the rise of CIDs (common interest housing developments) in the US. The work explores the consequences of CIDs on government and argues that private, residential government has serious implications for civil liberties.
This volume presents a broad documentary coverage of the rebellions and material on areas of Upper Canada not directly threatened by them. A judicious reading should provide a sound knowledge of the uprisings.
A New York Times bestseller The Haunting of Sunshine Girl,in active development for television by The Weinstein Company, a hit paranomal YA series based on the wildly popular YouTube channel about an "adorkable" teenager living in a haunted house. Shortly after her sixteenth birthday, Sunshine Griffith and her mother Kat move from sunny Austin, Texas, to the rain-drenched town of Ridgemont, Washington. Though Sunshine is adopted, she and her mother have always been close, sharing a special bond filled with laughter and inside jokes. But from the moment they arrive, Sunshine feels her world darken with an eeriness she cannot place. And even if Kat doesn't recognize it, Sunshine knows that something about their new house is just ... creepy. In the days that follow, things only get stranger. Sunshine is followed around the house by an icy breeze, phantom wind slams her bedroom door shut, and eventually, the laughter Sunshine hears on her first night evolves into sobs. She can hardly believe it, but as the spirits haunting her house become more frightening-and it becomes clear that Kat is in danger-Sunshine must accept what she is, pass the test before her, and save her mother from a fate worse than death.
James II. and VII. died on 5th September 1701 (16th Sept. N.S.), and immediately on his death LouisXIV. acknowledged his son as king, and promised to further his interests to the best of his power. The first opportunity of putting the altruistic intention of the King of France into operation occurred within a year of King James’s death, and the evil genius of the project was Simon Fraser, the notorious Lord Lovat. Lovat, whose scandalous conduct had shocked the people of Scotland, was outlawed by the courts for a criminal outrage, and fled to France in the summer of 1702. There, in spite of the character he bore, he so ingratiated himself with the papal nuncio that he obtained a private audience with Louis XIV., an honour unprecedented for a foreigner. To him he unfolded a scheme for a Stuart Restoration. He had, he said, before leaving Scotland visited the principal chiefs of the Highland clans and a great number of the lords of the Lowlands along with the Earl Marischal. They were ready to take up arms and hazard their lives and fortunes for the Stuart cause, and had given him a commission to represent them in France. The foundation of his scheme was to rely on the Highlanders. They were the only inhabitants of Great Britain who had retained the habit of the use of arms, and they were ready to act at once. Lord Middleton and the Lowland Jacobites sneered at them as mere banditti and cattle-stealers, but Lovat knew that they, with an instinctive love of fighting, were capable of being formed into efficient and very hardy soldiers. He proposed that the King of France should furnish a force of 5000 French soldiers, 100,000 crowns in money, and arms and equipment for 20,000 men. The main body of troops would land at Dundee where it would be near the central Highlands, and a detachment would be sent to western Invernessshire, with the object of capturing Fort William, which overawed the western clans. The design was an excellent one, and was approved by King Louis. But before putting it into execution the ministry sent Lovat back to obtain further information, and with him they sent John Murray, a naturalised Frenchman, brother of the laird of Abercairney, who was to check Lovat’s reports. It is characteristic of the state of the exiled Court, that it was rent with discord, and that Lord Middleton, Jacobite Secretary of State, who hated Lovat, privately sent emissaries of his own to spy on him and to blight his prospects. Lovat duly arrived in Scotland, but the history of his mission is pitiful and humiliating. He betrayed the project to the Duke of Queensberry, Queen Anne’s High Commissioner to the Scots Estates, and, by falsely suggesting the treason of Queensberry’s political enemies, the Dukes of Hamilton and Atholl, befooled that functionary into granting him a safe conduct to protect him from arrest for outlawry.
