In The Last Layer–the follow-up to Digital Alchemy, her successful book on alternative printmaking techniques–Bonny Lhotka teaches how to make prints that take their inspiration from early printmaking processes. In this book, Lhotka shows readers step-by-step how to create modern-day versions of anthotypes, cyanotypes, tintypes, and daguerreotypes as well as platinum and carbon prints. She also reinvents the photogravure and Polaroid transfer processes and explores and explains groundbreaking techniques for combining digital images with traditional monotype, collograph, and etching press prints. By applying these classic techniques to modern images, readers will be able to recreate the look of historical printmaking techniques and explore the limits of their creative voice. Best of all, the only equipment required is a desktop inkjet printer that uses pigment inks, and a handful of readily available materials and supplies–not the toxic chemicals once required to perform these very same processes. Leveraging her training as a traditional painter and printmaker, Bonny Lhotka brings new innovations and inventions that combine the best of centuries of printmaking technique with modern technology to create unique works of art and photography. After years of experimentation and development, these new processes allow alternative photographers, traditional printer makers, and 21st century digital artists to express their creative voice in ways never before possible.

Senior Inspector Gerard de Rochenoir of the elite French National Police is attempting to solve two daring jewelry robberies in the heart of Paris when one of the victims turns up murdered. Gerards investigation takes him to the glamorous Caribbean island of St. Barth where he crosses paths with Sofia Mostov, a striking jeweler with a mysterious past and a possible link to the crimes. While Gerard keeps a suspicious eye on Mostov, he meets Catherine York, an attractive American insurance executive twenty years his junior, who happens to be investigating the same two Paris robberies as well as others that may be related. When Pierre Abou, a Sherlock Holmes obsessed cop, makes a stunning discovery at a farmhouse on the Brittany coast, the mystery begins to unravel and leads Gerard and Catherine around the world and straight to another murder. As this unlikely couple becomes intertwined in the complexities of a passionate relationship, they soon discover that Sofia Mostov is not only mysterious and beautiful, but also very dangerous.

There are five layers of the ocean, though most of us alive will only ever see one. The deepest layer of the ocean is called by some the midnight zone. The only light comes from bioluminescence, created by animals themselves. In order to see, the creatures there must create their own light. They must move like solitary suns, encased in their own bubbles of freezing water. This layer is the most completely unexplored zone on the planet. Though it is hostile to humans, it also is fascinating beyond belief. If you had a chance to see it, wouldn't you want to go there? The year Mary is 38, the suicide of a stranger in a nearby reservoir compels her to make a change. She decides to strike out for Alaska and take a chance on love and home. She begins to learn how to travel in a small yellow kayak along the coast, contending with gales, high seas, and bears. She explores the different meanings of home: the perspectives of people who were born in this place and others who chose it, the first peoples who have been here for generations, and the ones who eventually leave. When she marries a man from another island, she is convinced that this time love will stick. She soon learns that navigating marriage is just as difficult as learning the ocean. Divided into sections detailing the main kayaking strokes, this memoir shows how each can be a metaphor for the lives we all pass through and the tools we need to stay afloat.