Disgraced cop Henrik Vance is having a shit year. Banished to a derelict undercover squad, he’s been tasked with hunting down the daughter of Chicago’s most dangerous criminal. His obsession with saving the beautiful girl destroyed his career. And this time, it might cost his life. Ailish O’Kelly doesn’t need a hero. She’ll save herself from her father’s violent criminal dynasty, thank you very much. Unfortunately, the sexy as sin cop who crashes her hideout isn’t hearing reason—especially not after the kiss that becomes much more. His boss wants her as an informant. Ailish wants Henrik to keep whispering filthy things against her skin. But she knows too well the evil they’re up against, and when it comes down to protecting the man who owns her body and soul, she only has one choice... Each book in the Crossing the Lines series is a standalone, full-length story that can be enjoyed out of order. Series Order: Prequel Novella: His Risk to Take Book .5: Riskier Business Book 1: Risking it All Book 2: Up In Smoke Book 3: Boiling Point Book 4: Raw Redemption
Collecting is usually understood as an activity that bestows permanence, unity, and meaning on otherwise scattered and ephemeral objects. In The Redemption of Things, Samuel Frederick emphasizes that to collect things, however, always entails displacing, immobilizing, and potentially disfiguring them, too. He argues that the dispersal of objects, seemingly antithetical to the collector's task, is essential to the logic of gathering and preservation. Through analyses of collecting as a dialectical process of preservation and loss, The Redemption of Things illustrates this paradox by focusing on objects that challenge notions of collectability: ephemera, detritus, and trivialities such as moss, junk, paper scraps, dust, scent, and the transitory moment. In meticulous close readings of works by Gotthelf, Stifter, Keller, Rilke, Glauser, and Frisch, and by examining an experimental film by Oskar Fischinger, Frederick reveals how the difficulties posed by these fleeting, fragile, and forsaken objects help to reconceptualize collecting as a poetic activity that makes the world of scattered things uniquely palpable and knowable.
1904, Chudniv, Ukraine. Playing hide-and-seek in bucolic fields of sunflowers, young Jakob never imagines the horrific secrets he will carry as he and his brother escape through genocide-ridden Eastern Europe. 1994, South Haven, Michigan. At age 94, time is running out for any hope that Jakob can be free from his burden of guilt. When Jakob's wife dies, he and his daughter, Nel, are forced to face the realities of his worsening dementia--including a near-naked, midnight jaunt down the middle of main street--as well as emerging shadows Nel had no idea lay beneath her father's beloved, curmudgeonly ways. While Nel navigates the restoration and sale of Jakob's dilapidated lake house, her high school sweetheart shows up in town, along with unexpected correspondence from Ukraine. And when she discovers a mysterious gemstone in Jakob's old lapidary room, Jakob's condition worsens as he begins having flashbacks about his baby sister from nearly a century past. As father and daughter race against time to discover the truth behind Jackob's fragmented memories, the God they have both been running from shows that he redeems not only broken years, but also the future.
A century after Appomattox, the civil rights movement won full citizenship for black Americans in the South. It should not have been necessary: by 1870 those rights were set in the Constitution. This is the story of the terrorist campaign that took them away. Nicholas Lemann opens his extraordinary new book with a riveting account of the horrific events of Easter 1873 in Colfax, Louisiana, where a white militia of Confederate veterans-turned-vigilantes attacked the black community there and massacred hundreds of people in a gruesome killing spree. This was the start of an insurgency that changed the course of American history: for the next few years white Southern Democrats waged a campaign of political terrorism aiming to overturn the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and challenge President Grant'ssupport for the emergent structures of black political power. The remorseless strategy of well-financed "White Line" organizations was to create chaos and keep blacks from voting out of fear for their lives and livelihoods. Redemption is the first book to describe in uncompromising detail this organized racial violence, which reached its apogee in Mississippi in 1875. Lemann bases his devastating account on a wealth of military records, congressional investigations, memoirs, press reports, and the invaluable papers of Adelbert Ames, the war hero from Maine who was Mississippi's governor at the time. When Ames pleaded with Grant for federal troops who could thwart the white terrorists violently disrupting Republican political activities, Grant wavered, and the result was a bloody, corrupt election in which Mississippi was "redeemed"—that is, returned to white control. Redemption makes clear that this is what led to the death of Reconstruction—and of the rights encoded in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. We are still living with the consequences.
In photography, every decision, creative and technical, rides on achieving a good exposure. When shooting portraits or products, landscapes or architecture, we must control our camera’s settings to ensure that just the right amount of light is allowed into the camera. When we strike the right balance in our exposure, we have a full range of tones, from pure white to deep blacks. We have rich visual detail. We have a sense of dimension. The colors and tones and contrast in our images weave the visual story of our subject and scene in a way that visually computes. As a result, we see just the image we strove to create, rendered perfectly in a way that satisfies our creative vision. In this book, Mark Chen shows you how to take full control over the science of exposure, providing you with the foundational skill-set you need to maximize your artistic vision.
Amid open fields and empty pews, small towns can crush big dreams. Abandoned by his no-good father and forced to grow up too soon, Noble Burden has set his dreams aside to run the family farm. Meanwhile, James Horton, the pastor of the local church, questions his own calling as he prepares to close the doors for good. As a severe storm rolls through, threatening their community and very livelihood, both men fear losing what they care about most . . . and reconsider where they truly belong.
Four of Amy Sorrells’s novels in one e-book! Before I Saw You In a southern Indiana town ravaged by the heroin epidemic, Jaycee Givens lives with little more than a thread of hope. Jaycee is carrying grief and an unplanned pregnancy she conceals because she trusts no one, including kind, handsome Gabe, who is new to town and to the local diner where she works. Jaycee nurses her broken heart among a collection of unlikely friends, the closest thing to family that she has. Eventually, she can’t hide her pregnancy—not even from the baby’s abusive father, who is furious when he finds out. The choices Jaycee must make for the safety of her unborn child threaten to derail any chance she ever had for hope and redemption. Ultimately, she must decide whether the truest form of love means hanging on or letting go. How Sweet the Sound Anniston Harlan cares little for high society and the rigid rules and expectations of her grandmother, Princella. She finds solace working the orchards alongside her father and grandfather, and relief in the cool waters of Mobile Bay. Anniston’s aunt, Comfort Harlan, has never lived up to the family name, or so her mother Princella’s scowl implies. When she gleefully accepts her boyfriend Solly’s proposal, a flood tide of tragedy ensues, stripping Comfort of her innocence and unleashing generations of family secrets. While Comfort struggles to recover, Anniston discovers an unlikely new friend from the seedy part of town who helps her try to make sense of the chaos. Together, they and the whole town of Bay Spring, Alabama discover how true love is a risk, but one worth taking. Then Sings My Soul When Jakob’s wife dies, he and his daughter, Nel, must face the realities of his worsening dementia and emerging shadows Nel didn’t know lay beneath her father’s beloved, curmudgeonly ways. While Nel navigates the restoration and sale of Jakob’s dilapidated lake house, her high school sweetheart shows up in town, along with unexpected correspondence from Ukraine. And when she discovers a mysterious gemstone in Jakob’s old lapidary room, Jakob’s condition worsens as he begins having flashbacks about his baby sister from nearly a century past. As father and daughter race against time to discover the truth behind Jackob’s fragmented memories, the God they have both been running from shows that he redeems broken years and also the future. Lead Me Home Amid open fields and empty pews, small towns can crush big dreams. Abandoned by his no-good father and forced to grow up too soon, Noble Burden has set his dreams aside to run the family farm. Meanwhile, James Horton, the pastor of the local church, questions his own calling as he prepares to close the doors for good. As a severe storm rolls through, threatening their community and very livelihood, both men fear losing what they care about most . . . and reconsider where they truly belong.
After his partner was murdered, Simon Dunn was done with MI6. But the cold, violent world of British intelligence never lets anyone go free. Now Simon has been blackmailed into a new job...with a beautiful new partner who's going to get them both killed. Robotics expert Cassie Watson is a newbie field agent with as much sophistication as...well, a pacifist, vegan computer nerd. Now she's abruptly thrust into the cutthroat world of espionage with a partner who is as cold as he is brutally-and brutishly-handsome. But when their mission is betrayed from the inside, Cassie will be forced to place her life in the hands of the one man who's anything but trustworthy...
