Nine-year-old Polly and her younger brother, Sam, find a corked bottle at the beach. Inside is an ancient parchment promising three wishes. Before their adventure is over, older brother Joe will disappear and Polly and Sam will have to journey under the sea to get him back! This first book in the new Magic Elements quartet combines magic and adventure in an easy-to-read format perfect for the in-between reader.

“I was always told never to wish on the first star at night. If everyone wishes on one star, how will the star keep up? A star with too many wishes will just fall out of the sky. Rain drops are plentiful, and there are thousands. They wash away the filth and carry it to a better place. So when you make a wish, wish on the water and let it carry your problems away.” Candice-Leigh Carson, a New York City best-selling author, was engaged to one of NYPD's finest. She was living the dream until she lost her fiancé, quit her job and moved, leaving behind the only family she ever knew. She left her best friend Jaxson, without saying goodbye. In her quest to find herself, would she ever find love again? Jaxson Monroe, one of NYPD's finest, lost his partner when an undercover job went south. After spending a night with his partner's lover, Candice, she flees into the night. He loved Candice and had promised his partner he would protect her. It was his fault she ran, but he quickly found himself in the arms of another. Would Jaxson ever convince Candice to come home or did he prefer another woman? Would their love survive his betrayal and her abandonment?

This volume brings together diverse voices relating to the critical issue of water management in one of the world’s most politically volatile areas: the Middle East. The book collects the opinions of Palestinians, Israelis, Jordanians as well as international experts on creating a holistic and comprehensive view of water management challenges and strategies in the Middle East.

The concept of “environmental security” has emerged as one basis for understanding international conflicts. This phrase can mean a variety of things. It can signify security issues stemming from environmental concerns or conflicting needs, or it can mean that the environment is treated as a resource for the long term, and the question is what should be done today to preserve the quality of the environment in the future. In the same way that energy security is about ensuring access to energy for the long run, it can also mean that pressing environmental concerns create a situation where different countries and communities are forced to collaboratively design a unified response, even if cooperation is not generally in the logic of their relations. Over the last several years, the authors of this book and their colleagues have tried to demonstrate the power of risk assessment and decision analysis as valuable tools that decision makers should use for a broad range of environmental problems, including environmental security. Risk analysis is almost more a state of mind or a way of looking at problems than it is a kind of algorithm or a set of recipes. It projects a kind of rationality on problems and forces a certain degree of quantitative rigor, as opposed to the all too common tendency of making environmental recommendations based on anecdotal evidence.