The Last Kestrel

Under a blaze of chandeliers, in London's most fashionable club, Jack Kestrel is waiting. He hasn't come to enjoy the rich at play, he's there to uphold his family name. But first he has to get past the ice-cool owner: the beautiful Sally Bowes. And Jack wants her to warm his bed—at any price! Edwardian society flocks to Sally's club, but dangerous Jack Kestrel is the most sinfully sensual rogue she's ever met. Inexperienced with men, the wicked glint in Jack's eyes promises he'll take care of satisfying her every need….

Dauntsey Park: The Last Rake in London If you liked Downton Abbey, you'll love this book! Lady Ottoline cordially invites you to the party of the season...

Debuting on the New York stage, Zara is unprepared — for Eli, the girl who makes the world glow; for Leopold, the director who wants perfection; and for death in the theater. Zara Evans has come to the Aurelia Theater, home to the visionary director Leopold Henneman, to play her dream role in Echo and Ariston, the Greek tragedy that taught her everything she knows about love. When the director asks Zara to promise that she will have no outside commitments, no distractions, it’s easy to say yes. But it’s hard not to be distracted when there’s a death at the theater — and then another — especially when Zara doesn’t know if they’re accidents, or murder, or a curse that always comes in threes. It’s hard not to be distracted when assistant lighting director Eli Vasquez, a girl made of tattoos and abrupt laughs and every form of light, looks at Zara. It’s hard not to fall in love. In heart-achingly beautiful prose, Amy Rose Capetta has spun a mystery and a love story into an impossible, inevitable whole — and cast lantern light on two girls, finding each other on a stage set for tragedy.

In the depths of winter, with snow thick on the ground, Badger lies alone and injured. No one knows where he is, and the icy cold is tightening its grip every second. What will happen to Badger? And can the other animals of Farthing Wood survive the harsh cold and piercing hunger that winter has brought?

This is the first comprehensive field guide dealing exclusively with the birds of this spectacular region. Birds of the Atlantic Islands covers all resident, migrant and vagrant species found in Macaronesia which comprises the Canary Islands, Madeira, Azores and Cape Verde. Over 450 resident, migrant and vagrant species are illustrated with full details of all the plumages and major races likely to be encountered. Species accounts are accompanied with concise text outlining bird identification, status, range, distribution and voice. This authoritative book will not only be an indispensable guide to the visiting birder, but also a vital tool for those engaged in work to conserve and study the avifauna of this region. The Atlantic Islands shelter a remarkable diversity of birds, many seriously endangered with small and vulnerable ranges. It further covers the climate, geography and ornithological history of these incredible islands, as well as practical guidance on the best birdwatching areas.

Sarah Kozloff, author of A Queen in Hiding, continues the breathtaking and cinematic epic fantasy series The Nine Realms with book two, The Queen of Raiders, and all four books will be published within a month of each other, so you can binge your favorite new fantasy series. The soldiers of Oromondo have invaded the Free States, leaving a wake of misery and death. Thalen, a young scholar, survives and gathers a small cadre of guerilla fighters for a one-way mission into the heart of an enemy land. Unconsciously guided by the elemental Spirits of Ennea Mon, Cerulia is drawn to the Land of the Fire Mountains to join Thelan's Raiders, where she will learn the price of war. The Nine Realms Series #1 A Queen in Hiding #2 The Queen of Raiders At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Lady Kestrel's engagement to Valoria's crown prince calls for great celebration: balls and performances, fireworks and revelry. But to Kestrel it means a cage of her own making. Embedded in the imperial court as a spy, she lives and breathes deceit and cannot confide in the one person she really longs to trust ... While Arin fights to keep his country's freedom from the hands of his enemy, he suspects that Kestrel knows more than she shows. As Kestrel comes closer to uncovering a shocking secret, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. Lies will come undone, and Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them in this second book in the breathtaking Winner's trilogy.

A guide to discovering the hidden behaviors of ASP.NET Core that can be customized to optimize your .NET 5 applications Key FeaturesCustomize the default behavior of ASP.NET Core to get the most out of the frameworkEnhance the app configuration, change the default dependency injection, and build your own tag helpersDiscover best practices for configuring ASP.NET Core, from user interface design to hosting it on platformsBook Description ASP.NET Core is the most powerful Microsoft web framework. Although it’s full of rich features, sometimes the default configurations can be a bottleneck and need to be customized to suit the nature and scale of your app. If you’re an intermediate-level .NET developer who wants to extend .NET Core to multiple use cases, it's important to customize these features so that the framework works for you effectively. Customizing ASP.NET Core 5.0 covers core features that can be customized for developing optimized apps. The customization techniques are also updated to work with the latest .NET 5 framework. You’ll learn essential concepts relating to optimizing the framework such as configuration, dependency injection, routing, action filters, and more. As you progress, you’ll be able to create custom solutions that meet the needs of your use case with ASP.NET Core. Later chapters will cover expert techniques and best practices for using the framework for your app development needs, from UI design to hosting. Finally, you’ll focus on the new endpoint routing in ASP.NET Core to build custom endpoints and add third-party endpoints to your web apps for processing requests faster. By the end of this application development book, you’ll have the skills you need to be able to customize ASP.NET Core to develop robust optimized apps. What you will learnExplore various application configurations and providers in ASP.NET Core 5Understand dependency injection in .NET and learn how to add third-party DI containersDiscover the concept of middleware and write your own middleware for ASP.NET Core appsCreate various API output formats in your API-driven projectsGet familiar with different hosting models for your ASP.NET Core appDevelop custom routing endpoints and add third-party endpointsConfigure WebHostBuilder effectively for your web applicationsWho this book is for This .NET 5 book is for .NET developers who need to change the default behaviors of the framework to help improve the performance of their applications. Intermediate-level knowledge of ASP.NET Core and C# is required before getting started with the book.

Young Seth Kish, last Finder of the Elves, continues his journey into the wilderness of the west as he searches for ancient elf magic to save his nation and the southland realms. But he discovers that the magic comes with a terrible price and Seth must overcome the dangers that guard it. With new perils in his path, the elf travels far from his quiet farming life. Seth complicates his quest by coming to the defense of the lovely Isaboe. His brief act of chivalry places him in the path of first love, and earns him an implacable foe. Aided by his brave warrior companions and an enigmatic ranger, Seth journeys through hazardous lands to thwart the dark forces gathering to destroy them. With sinister enemies in pursuit, Seth learns about his race, the history of his family, and the mysteries behind the magic he possess. As he grows nearer to the confrontation that terrifies him, Seth must battle his own fears and doubts as he begins to understand the obligations of friendship, and the demands and sacrifices of honor. In this exciting fantasy tale, a young elf and his companions must race against time to uncover an ancient magic and battle a powerful wizard as their nations future hangs in the balance.

At the dawn of history, an epic war is about to begin in the deadly quest for honour. The city of Sumer, ruled by a brutal murderer and his vicious, power hungry sister, is poised to give birth to the mightiest empire in history. No one stands a chance as it brings a bloody war to all those who stand in its way, determined to crush and enslave those on its borders. The little city state of Akkad must prepare its fledgling nation to fight for its very survival. Akkad's warriors are a loyal and courageous brotherhood, but this is not a battle of villages or of roving warrior bands; it is a battle for Empire and a fight to the death...

In the first, desperate days of the Human-Covenant War, the UNSC has enacted the Cole Protocol to safeguard Earth and its inner colonies from discovery by a merciless alien foe. Many are called upon to rid the universe of lingering navigation data that would reveal the location of Earth. Among them is Navy Lieutenant Jacob Keyes. Thrust back into action after being sidelined, Keyes is saddled with a top secret mission by ONI. One that will take him deep behind enemy lines, to a corner of the universe where nothing is as it seems. Out beyond the Outer Colonies lies the planet Hesiod, a gas giant surrounded by a vast asteroid belt. As the Covenant continues to glass the human-occupied planets near Hesiod, many of the survivors, helped by a stronghold of human Insurrectionists, are fleeing to the asteroid belt for refuge. They have transformed the tumbling satellites into a tenuous, yet ingenious, settlement known as the Rubble—and have come face-to-face with a Covenant settlement of Kig-Yar . . . yet somehow survived. News of this unlikely treaty has spread to the warring sides. Luckily for the UNSC, this uneasy alliance is in the path of the Spartan Gray Team, a three-man renegade squad whose simple task is to wreak havoc from behind enemy lines in any way they see fit. But the Prophets have also sent their best—an ambitious and ruthless Elite, whose quest for nobility and rank is matched only by his brutality. . . and who will do anything to secure his Ascendancy and walk the Path.

Contemporary High Performance Computing: From Petascale toward Exascale focuses on the ecosystems surrounding the world’s leading centers for high performance computing (HPC). It covers many of the important factors involved in each ecosystem: computer architectures, software, applications, facilities, and sponsors. The first part of the book examines significant trends in HPC systems, including computer architectures, applications, performance, and software. It discusses the growth from terascale to petascale computing and the influence of the TOP500 and Green500 lists. The second part of the book provides a comprehensive overview of 18 HPC ecosystems from around the world. Each chapter in this section describes programmatic motivation for HPC and their important applications; a flagship HPC system overview covering computer architecture, system software, programming systems, storage, visualization, and analytics support; and an overview of their data center/facility. The last part of the book addresses the role of clouds and grids in HPC, including chapters on the Magellan, FutureGrid, and LLGrid projects. With contributions from top researchers directly involved in designing, deploying, and using these supercomputing systems, this book captures a global picture of the state of the art in HPC.

Fred Van Dyke’s new textbook, Conservation Biology: Foundations, Concepts, Applications, 2nd Edition, represents a major new text for anyone interested in conservation. Drawing on his vast experience, Van Dyke’s organizational clarity and readable style make this book an invaluable resource for students in conservation around the globe. Presenting key information and well-selected examples, this student-friendly volume carefully integrates the science of conservation biology with its implications for ethics, law, policy and economics.