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When the dust settles in this Texas town, who will be left standing?It’s been six weeks since Jack McBride’s life went to hell: the resolution of his first case as chief sparked a countywide drug war, his brother Eddie rode into town with a pocket full of cocaine and trouble on his mind, his estranged wife returned from her one-year sabbatical determined to win him back, and Ellie Martin ended their brief affair.To the Stillwater natives, the increase in local crime can be traced directly back to the day the outsider McBride took the job, and they’re gunning to get rid of him. One particular group is led by Joe Doyle, a successful local businessman who’s running for city council against Ellie and her plan to revitalize downtown. Now Jack has discovered proof Doyle is the biggest crime lord in the county, and, with murders piling up and the drug war intensifying, Jack suspects the crimes aren’t business, but personal—and he’s the target.The bitter election and Jack’s investigation spark old rivalries and new jealousies, making Ellie and those who love Stillwater most wonder if it’s even worth saving.

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For the first time in book form, The Short News is bringing funny, offbeat and lighthearted news stories, one brick at a time.

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Have you read everything George R.R. Martin has every written? Do you know what in Game of Thrones is based in real history?A young pretender raises an army to take the throne. Learning of his father’s death, the adolescent, dashing and charismatic and descended from the old kings of the North, vows to avenge him. He is supported in this war by his mother, who has spirited away her two younger sons to safety. Against them is the queen, passionate, proud, and strong-willed and with more of the masculine virtues of the time than most men. She too is battling for the inheritance of her young son, not yet fully grown but already a sadist who takes delight in watching executions.Sound familiar? It may read like the plot of Game of Thrones. Yet that was also the story of the bloodiest battle in British history, fought at the culmination of the War of the Roses. George RR Martin’s bestselling novels are rife with allusions, inspirations, and flat-out copies of real-life people, events, and places of medieval and Tudor England and Europe. The Red Wedding? Based on actual events in Scottish history. The poisoning of Joffrey Baratheon? Eerily similar to the death of William the Conqueror’s grandson. The Dothraki? Also known as Huns, Magyars, Turks, and Mongols.Join Ed West, as he explores all of Martin’s influences, from religion to war to powerful women. Discover the real history behind the phenomenon and see for yourself that truth is stranger than fiction.

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A comprehensive examination of Hitler's military strategies.

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It's time to face the music.Seventeen-year-old Mira has always danced to her own beat. A music prodigy in a family of athletes, she'd rather play trumpet than play ball—and with her audition to a prestigious jazz conservatory just around the corner (and her two best friends at music camp without her), she plans to spend the summer focused on jazz and nothing else. She only goes to the warehouse party in a last-ditch effort to bond with her older sister. Instead, she falls in love with dance music, DJing... and Derek, a gorgeous promoter who thinks he can make her a star. Suddenly, trumpet practice and old friendships are taking a back seat to packed dance floors and sun-soaked music festivals, outsized personalities and endless beats. But when a devastating tragedy plunges her golden summer into darkness, Mira discovers just how little she knows about her new boyfriend, her old friends, and even her own sister. Music brought them together. Will it also tear them apart?

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After searching biome after biome for the lost shards of an enchanted Ender crystal that, in the wrong hands, could ensure the destruction of the entire Overworld, Stevie and Alex have tracked down all but one piece of the crystal. The magical book they’ve been using as a guide is finally fully readable—but several pages are missing!Following the one clue the book still holds, the friends travel through the portal to Earth, where the last shard may be hidden. There they reunite with Maison, who’s just about to celebrate her twelfth birthday. When Maison’s family reveals a secret about her ancestors, the friends realize that Maison may be the only one who can track down the final clues that will lead them to the last Ender shard.Can Stevie, Alex, and Maison uncover long-hidden knowledge and put the clues together in time to reassemble the crystal—and stop the Ender Dragon from breaking free of the End?Fans of Minecraft will rush to put the clues together in the fifth Unofficial Overworld Heroes Adventure!

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Exciting adventures from characters at home on the range.

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After solving the mystery of the stolen treasure, Edison is all set to return to his alchemy, when his friend Omar shows up at his door pleading for help. There is something or someone living beneath the blocks of Omar’s town, and things have started to take a treacherous turn. What started out as the theft of livestock and wheat has escalated, and now villagers have started to go missing as well.Edison tries to convince Omar that he’s not a good fit for the job—as he only solved a local robbery—and sends his friend on his way. But a few days later, Amira arrives with bad news—Omar is the latest villager to disappear. Consumed by guilt, Edison recruits Billy and they set off to rescue Omar and face the mysterious villain lurking beneath the blocks!Join Edison and Billy as they race to save the lost villagers in the second installment of the Unofficial Minecraft Mystery series!

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Owning and raising chickens doesn't have to be an expensive hobby. With imagination, simple tools, and salvaged or bargain materials, you can make everything your flock needs for their health and safety.Buying a chicken coop can be a major expense. Follow the steps provided in the book to retro fit an existing structure into a chicken palace fit for the fanciest hens. Brooders, grow out pens, and chicken runs can easily be pulled together and give your feathered family a safe place to scratch and peck. If your chickens want fun activities, create boredom busters with the directions for a chicken swing, dust bath, outdoor roosts, front porches, and resting perches. Are you planning to raise your own sustainable flock? Building a nesting box area fit for the best broody is included. You can even set up a maternity ward and brooder pen in the coop. Dropping boards to dust baths, feeding stations to first aid, read and learn the simplest ways to provide the infrastructure and fun that your chickens need to grow and thrive. After all the project building, and chores are done, treat your flock to a delicious seasonal recipe with one of the recipes included.From beak to talon, you're ready to tackle the needs of your flock with 50 DIY Projects you can create on a limited budget. Let's get started!

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On June 5th, 1968, at L.A.'s Ambassador Hotel, Robert F. Kennedy celebrated his victory in the California Democratic primary with a rousing victory speech anticipating a successful run for the presidency. Moments later, gunshots shattered that dream. The police quickly apprehended Sirhan Sirhan, who the world believed had single-handedly masterminded the shooting. But in Who Killed Bobby? Shane O'Sullivan makes a stunning case that will fundamentally alter the way the public views Bobby Kennedy's death. After an autopsy, LA County Coroner Thomas Noguchi concluded that the deadly shots had been fired from an inch behind Kennedy's right ear, but not a single witness placed Sirhan this close; most placed his gun several feet away, and in front of the senator. Moreover, Vincent Di Pierro, along with several other witnesses, saw Sirhan with a girl in a polka-dot dress in the pantry, exclaiming, "We shot him. We shot him." O'Sullivan presents new interviews with key witnesses the LAPD browbeat into changing their stories. He also presents a damning case against Sirhan’s psychological state. Sirhan repeatedly scrawled "RFK Must Die" in his notebook and recreated the same kind of automatic writing when later hypnotized by his defense team. O'Sullivan cites psychiatric evidence that Sirhan was an extremely susceptible hypnotic subject, whose behavior on the night of the shooting fit the profile of a programmed assassin. Was Sirhan programmed to be a decoy for the real killer?

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Following the success of Plants You Can’t Kill, Tornio now takes a look at those plants that can actually kill you if you’re not careful. This book will offer up information to gardening enthusiasts of all levels about common plants that are toxic, poisonous, and even deadly. While the level of toxicity varies from each plant, all are considered deadly in one way or another to wild animals, family pets, and even humans. With its colorful, easy-to-read format, Plants That Can Kill will introduce readers to what these plants look like, smell like, feel like, and sometimes even taste like. Fun facts, interesting tidbits, and history will combine to teach gardeners where these types of plants can be found, how poisonous each one is, and whether these plants are still okay to have in their gardens or if they should be gotten rid of immediately. Plants featured include many common and attractive species you may receive in bouquets or even decorate your homes with, including daffodils, irises, tulips, jasmine, witch hazel, mistletoe, poinsettias, buttercups, marigolds, and even fruits and vegetables like cherries, rhubarb, and some tomatoes.

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Time stops with this dazzling LGBT steampunk-fantasy.

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La Americana is the story of Melanie Bowden Simón, who, at the age of twenty-five, left her job at Tina Brown’s Talk magazine following the death of her mother and decided to take a vacation in Havana, Cuba, with a friend. Little did she know that she would meet and fall in love with a Cuban man named Luis and dive headlong into a culture defined by beauty, humor, and grace within the unnerving realities of Communism. In this memoir, Simón details her fascination with Cuban culture as she grapples with the death of her mother. She also covers the struggle to get in and out of Cuba at a time when the country is a pariah state. Yet over and over again, Simón manages to slip past international barriers and overcome language and cultural obstacles—all in the name of her love for Luis. This book makes a great read for those with an interest in Cuban history, a zest for romance, or a passion for travel.

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Frank Morgan, a young college grad raised on Army discipline, started his military career as a Phoenix Program assassin in Vietnam with nothing but faith, confidence, and belief in his country. In 1969, he boards the Freedom Bird and takes a seat next to a grizzled grunt. This is Morgan’s first hint of what may be coming his way—and what he, as a soldier, may become.Throughout his tour, Morgan struggles with his belief in his missions, though he pushes on and does his job. With less than a month to go before he heads home, Morgan leads a squad of South Vietnamese special forces in a massacre and mistakenly kills a beautiful innocent woman, Liem, in an old French plantation outside C?n Tho.The death of Liem haunts him and distracts him so that he barely survives an attempt on his own life—which he later learns was ordered by his CIA chief, a swashbuckling cowboy named Comer. This betrayal launches Morgan’s metamorphosis into an avenging assassin.Don’t Mean Nuthin’ reveals a war-torn Vietnam through a Conradian journey by a man who seeks a higher moral ground and then struggles to redeem himself in a sea of carnage and despair.

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Nearly three decades of secrets lie between Lola Ashby and the two daughters she reluctantly raised. So when the eldest, Frankie, agrees to visit her ailing mother, who abandoned the girls when they were in high school, Frankie doesn’t hold out much hope for a meaningful connection. But when her younger sister Callie announces that she’s moving to Los Angeles from the East Coast, Frankie badgers her sister into meeting up for an ill-formed family reunion—and to dilute any awkwardness with Lola. It’s a recipe for disaster the sisters know all too well. With Lola doing everything she can to keep them at arm’s length, any hope for reconciliation may just shrivel up and blow away—unless they can find a way to forgive themselves, and one another. Told from the perspectives of three different women—each facing her own hope and hardship—this tender, compelling narrative explores the kind of people we become when those who should love us most let us down, and what, if anything, we can do to heal the wounds of the past.

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As if seventh grade isn't hard enough, Truth Trendon learns she has to wear a back brace to help her worsening scoliosis. She decides gravity is to blame for curving her spine and ruining her life. Thanks for nothing, Isaac Newton!Truth's brace is hard plastic, tight, and uncomfortable. She has to wear a t-shirt under it and bulky clothes over it, making her feel both sweaty and unfashionable. She's terrified that her classmates are going to find out about it. But it's hard keeping it a secret (especially when gym class is involved), and secrets quickly turn into lies. When Truth's crush entrusts her with a big secret of his own, it leads to even more lying. Add to that a fight with her best friend, a looming school-wide presentation, and mean rumors, and it's a recipe for disaster. As Truth navigates the ups and downs of middle school, can she learn to accept her true self, curvy spine and all?

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Essential foundational texts of the American government in a unique, illustrated format.

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For fans of Victoria Aveyard's Read Queen and Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner's This Shattered World, Eros and Kora's story about grief, fighting to be recognized, and a fracturing society and relationships continues in this sequel.The world ruler is dead, technology foundational to their society destroyed, and Safara is on the brink of collapse. Half-human, half-alien Eros is the rightful heir to the world throne, but before he can return to the capital, he’s abducted by a rebel group of humans who call themselves The Remnant—and won’t release him until he swears to help them overthrow the very government he’s inheriting. With Eros missing, ex-queen Kora is determined to stave off mad grabs for the throne. But as royalty from across the territories flock to the capital, and a new charismatic candidate takes the spotlight, Kora sets off into the desert with a skilled prince-turned-bounty hunter to find Eros before it’s too late for both the future king and his kingdom.

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A raw, unflinching literary debut for fans of Dennis Lehane and Tom Franklin examining the aftershocks of survival, and the price of salvation. In the blue-collar town of Chittenango, New York, two young boys are abducted from a local festival and taken to a cabin in the woods. One is kept; one is killed. When they are next seen, ten-year-old Dean has escaped by swimming across Oneida Lake holding his brother' s dead body.As the years pass, the people of Chittenango struggle to cope with the collateral damage of this unspeakable act of violence, reverberations that disrupt the community and echo far beyond. With nothing holding it together, Dean's family disintegrates under the twin weights of guilt and grief, and the unspoken acknowledgment that the wrong child survived. At the center of it all, Dean himself must find a place in a future that never should have been his.In a sweeping narrative spanning decades and told from alternating points of view, Where the Sun Shines Out tells the story of a town and the inevitable trauma we inflict upon each other when we're trying our best. Exploring the bonds, and breakdowns, of families, Kevin Catalano's fearless debut reminds us that although the path to redemption is pockmarked, twisted, and often hidden from view, somehow the sun makes it through.

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Former FBI agent Jack McBride took the job as Chief of Police for Stillwater, Texas, to start a new life with his teenage son, Ethan, away from the suspicions that surrounded his wife’s disappearance a year earlier.With a low crime rate and a five-man police force, he expected it to be a nice, easy gig; hot checks, traffic violations, some drugs, occasional domestic disturbances, and petty theft. Instead, within a week he is investigating a staged murder-suicide, uncovering a decades’ old skeleton buried in the woods, and managing the first crime wave in thirty years.For help navigating his unfamiliar, small-town surroundings, Jack turns to Ellie Martin, one of the most respected women in town—her scandal-filled past notwithstanding. Despite Jack's murky marriage status and the disapproval of Ethan and the town, they are immediately drawn to each other.As Jack and Ellie struggle with their budding relationship, they unearth shattering secrets long buried and discover the two cases Jack is working, though fifty years apart, share a surprising connection that will rattle the town to its core.

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Five years ago, Jennifer Jansch had a dream: to start her own environmentally-friendly business—but there was a slight problem. She didn’t have a concrete idea of where to begin. Dreamcatcher is her success story of her sustainable fashion startup, Bag-all, which she launched on a shoestring budget out of her living room in two short years. Today, Bag-all retails its customized, reusable bags throughout the United States, as well as in twenty-five countries around the world.Lavishly designed and deeply personal, Dreamcatcher is a hybrid how-to business guide and inspirational book that provides an invaluable roadmap for any lay person with a passion who may not have business training—it presumes only that you begin with a dream (even if you have no idea what it looks like), and takes on the journey from there. Through the story of Bag-all, learn the tips and tricks behind:• Discovering the right idea for your business• Starting on a shoestring budget• Creating products without prior knowledge• Marketing and selling your brand• Having the courage to do business your way, and more.This intimate and step-by-step account of the challenges and joys of launching one’s own business encourages readers to chart their own course, trust their own instinct, realize their dream, and discover their life purpose.

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This adventure series is created especially for readers who love the fight of good vs. evil, magical academies like Hogwarts in the Harry Potter saga, and games like Minecraft, Terraria, and Pokemon GO. It’s graduation week at Minecrafters Academy, but a battle is brewing between the top five students at the school. With the school’s top five students wrapped up in an endless prank war as they compete over the coveted position of class speaker, one of their classmates finds a solution: the students will travel to an End city and hunt for treasure; the student who not only survives, but returns with the most treasures, will be chosen. The students set off on their journey, but they quickly learn that the End is no joke. Face-to-face with shulkers, the deadly Void, and the mighty Ender Dragon, the school’s top students learn there’s more to success than making the grade. They must learn to fight together—or no one will make it back alive. In this final installment of the Unofficial Minecrafters Academy series, the risks—and the potential rewards—are greater than ever.

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