Brand new Wilbur Smith series for readers of 10+ - starring fourteen-year-old Jack Courtney. Jack Courtney has lived in the UK his whole life. But this summer his parents are travelling to the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a gorilla conference, and they've promised to take Jack and his friends with them. When his parents go missing in the rainforest, abducted by mercenaries, nobody seems to have any answers. Jack is pretty sure that it's got something to do with the nearby tantalum mines, but he needs to prove it. Along with Amelia and Xander, Jack must brave the jungle to save his parents. Standing in his way is a member of his own family - Caleb Courtney. There are western gorillas, forest elephants and hippos. But there are also bandits, mercenaries and poachers. The three friends will need their wits about them if they are not only to save Jack's parents, but their own lives too.

ONE OF THE WALL STREET JOURNAL'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR For more than four decades, Thomas McGuane has been heralded as an unrivaled master of the short story. Now the arc of that achievement appears in one definitive volume--forty-five stories, including two new and six previously uncollected pieces. Set in the seedy corners of Key West, the remote shore towns of the Bahamas, and McGuane's hallmark Big Sky country with its vast and unforgiving landscape, these are stories of people on the fringes of society, whose twisted pasts meddle with their chances for companionship. Moving from the hilarious to the tragic and back again, McGuane writes about familial dysfunction, emotional failure, and American loneliness, celebrating the human ability to persist through life's absurdities.

The followup to Family Storms, this book follows Sasha Porter, now a senior in high school, as new troubles unfold with her foster family. Since being taken in by wealthy Mrs. Jordan March and living in her exquisite home like a daughter, Sasha Porter’s traumatic past—destitute on the streets, and the shattering accident that killed her mother—seems like a fading nightmare. Beautiful and sophisticated, as bold and daring as her “sister,” Kiera March, Sasha still keeps her mother’s wise words close to her heart: never fully trust anyone. Inside her privileged new world, it’s advice that will prove more precious than gold. Against the wishes of Jordan’s husband, Donald, Sasha attracts the attention of Duane Banks, a shy, handsome athlete, and maneuvers her way into his heart. But Duane’s hidden torment soon explodes in a horrific tragedy that pulls Sasha into a flood of guilt and despair. And when someone she thought she could trust targets her vulnerability, Sasha recalls her mother’s warnings—and a violent storm of dark deceptions and shocking family secrets is unleashed. Will she sink or swim?

"Splendidly entertaining."—Kirkus Reviews ★ "A delightfully quirky story with nuance, depth, and a colorful cast of characters, this book begs for multiple readings." —School Library Journal (starred) ★ "Like a middle-grade version of Terry Pratchett's Discworld—fantasy adventure steeped in humor, with a touch of satire, and set in a whimsical secondary world of the highest order." —Booklist (starred) "The tale crescendos to an uplifting close that promotes honesty, bravery, and self-confidence." —Publishers Weekly Twelve-year-old Esther Mettlestone-Staranise loves reading books and writing stories but is troubled by low self-esteem and recurring bad dreams. When she starts the year at boarding school in earnest, she quickly notices something isn't quite right. Her two best friends are mysteriously missing. There are rumors her new teacher is secretly an actual ogre. And the scenic mountains of her quaint little town are teeming with Shadow Mages and danger. As secrets and dangers escalate, Esther must find the answers to several puzzles. Why is her teacher behaving so oddly? Which of Esther's classmates is the Spellbinder, and can they really protect the school from gathering hordes of Shadow Mages? Could the Stolen Prince of Cloudburst be connected? How can Esther – who is not talented like her sisters, nor an adventurer like her cousin, but just Esther – save her family, her school and possibly her entire world?

This IBM® Redbooks® publication gives an overview of Cloud solutions, followed by detailed information and usage scenarios for IBM CloudBurst® in a System x® environment. Cloud computing can be defined as a style of computing in which dynamically scalable resources, such as CPU, storage, or bandwidth, are provided as a service over the Internet. Cloud computing represents a massively scalable, self-service delivery model where processing, storage, networking, and applications can be accessed as services over the Internet. Enterprises can adopt cloud models to improve employee productivity, deploy new products and services faster and reduce operating costs—starting with workloads, such as development and test, virtual desktop, collaboration, and analytics. IBM provides a scalable variety of cloud solutions to meet these needs. This IBM Redbooks publication helps you to tailor an IBM CloudBurst installation on System x to meet virtualized computing requirements in a private cloud environment. This book is intended for IT support personnel who are responsible for customizing IBM CloudBurst to meet business cloud computing objectives.

Three cultures, Native American, Euro-American and Metis come together in this 1934-2010 historical fiction. Setting: Great Lakes region, a pristine wilderness community. Dynamic interplay in love and conflicts, the story features Baby boomers in thier formative years. Thisn is the follow up companion to the book, Hawk Dancer. The Elder prtagonists, Jacob Hawk Dancer (Ojibwe/Norwegian), and Job (Potawatomi)promote conciliation among races and classes of people. They mentor the youth of the 1960s through the Great American Civil Rights movement, American Indian Movement, and the Vietnam war era. The first ever Native American Franciscan Order is established, the Congregation of St. James. The kids come of age in the 70s and continue the work of inculturation, promotion of Indigenous cultures in the Churches and society. Eventualy, they are the elders. They see the passage of the American Indian Freedom of Religion Law, Aug. 11, 1978. Endearing but not soft and cuddly. Exciting, dramatic.

The first in a new series by New York Times bestselling author V.C. Andrews is a classic story featuring the dark side of jealousy—and the cruelty of deception. In the eye of the storm...is anywhere truly safe? Living on the streets with her destitute mother, selling knickknacks and trinkets just to survive, Sasha Porter dreams of someday having a normal life, with a real house and family. But she never dreamed a devastating tragedy would bring her those very things: on a stormy night by a rainspattered highway, a speeding car veers out of control, striking and killing her mother and badly injuring Sasha. In the hospital, Sasha is whisked off to a fancy private suite at the request of wealthy Mrs. Jordan March, a complete stranger who keeps watch by Sasha’s bedside and insists she come live at her family’s sprawling, luxurious mansion. Sasha soon learns Mrs. March never recovered from the loss of her daughter Alena, and with nowhere else to go, Sasha agrees to use Alena’s room, sleep in her bed, and wear her clothes. But someone will make sure that Sasha never takes Alena’s place: a jealous sister dead set on making Sasha’s life a living hell.