Return to the world of Rachel Aaron's mega-popular Heartstrikers with a new, standalone series full of dragons, mages, and the deadly perils of freelance employment!Making a living is hard. Making a living in a lawless city where gods are real, dragons are traffic hazards, and buildings move on their own can feel downright impossible.Good thing freelance mage Opal Yong-ae has never let little things like impossibility stop her. She's found a way to put her overpriced magical art history degree to use as a Cleaner: a contract municipal employee who empties out abandoned apartments and resells the unusual treasures she finds inside for a profit. It's not a pretty job, or a safe one--there's a reason she wears bite-proof gloves--but when you're neck-deep in debt to a very magical, very nasty individual, you can't be picky about where the money comes from.But even Opal's low standards are put to the test when the only thing of value in her latest apartment is the body of the previous tenant. Dealing with the dead isn't technically part of her job, but this mage died hiding a secret that could be worth a lot of money, and Opal's the only one who knows. With debts she can't pay due at the end of the week, this could be the big break she's been waiting for, but in a city of runaway magic where getting in over your head generally means losing it, the cost of chasing this opportunity might be more than Opal can survive.This is the first in a new series set in the same universe as my Heartstrikers books, but you don't need to have read those stories to enjoy this one. MINIMUM WAGE MAGIC was written to stand by itself, so if you haven't read the others, don't worry! I wrote this book with you in mind. Thank you so much for reading!

Making a living is hard. Especially in a lawless city where gods are real, dragons are traffic hazards, and buildings move around on their own. Opal Yong-ae has never let little things like impossibility stop her. She's a Cleaner: someone who buys abandoned apartments and sells off their contents. No matter how dangerous they may be...

Life in the magical mess of the Detroit Free Zone is never easy. When you're laboring under the curse of a certain prideful, overbearing dragon, it can be down right impossible. My name is Opal Yong-ae, and I'm a Cleaner. At least, I used to be. Thanks to the supernatural bad luck that turns everything I do against me, these days I'm more of a walking disaster. Getting rid of this curse is the only way to get my life back. Unfortunately, dragon magic is every bit as sneaky and deadly as the monsters behind it, and just as hard to beat. But I've never been one to take her doom at face value. Cornered doesn't mean defeated, and in an awakened city that rules herself, dragons are no longer the biggest powers around.

They say family always sticks together, but when the whole world-humans, dragons, and gods-wants your dad dead, "filial responsibility" takes on a whole new meaning.My name is Opal Yong-ae, and I'm in way over my head. I thought getting rid of my dad's bad luck curse would put things back to normal. Instead, I'm stuck playing caretaker to the Great Dragon of Korea. That wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't such a jerk, or if every dragon on the planet wasn't out to kill him, or if he were my only problem.Turns out, things can always get worse in the DFZ. When a rival spirit attacks my god/boss to turn the famously safety-optional city into a literal death arena with Nik as his bloody champion, I'm thrust onto the front lines and way out of my comfort zone. When gods fight, mortals don't usually survive, but I'm not alone this time. Even proud old dragons can learn new tricks, and with everything I love falling to pieces, the father I've always run from might just be the only force in the universe stubborn enough to pull us back together.The final book in the DFZ trilogy featuring dysfunctional dragon families, magic gone haywire, and a city on the brink of apocalypse. Again.

The final book in the Heartstrikers series."Dear Reader, There is no way to write a blurb for this final book without spoiling all of the others. Suffice it to say, mysteries resolve, dragons war, pigeons abound, and no one is safe as Bob's grand plan finally comes to fruition. But the Great Seer of the Heartstrikers isn't the only one whose schemes are nearing completion. The Nameless End is coming, and even the machinations of the world's most brilliant dragon seer might not be enough to stop it. As everything comes crashing down, it's up to Julius to prove what he's always known: that seers can be wrong, and Nice Dragons don't always finish last."

Book #1 in the beloved Heartstrikers series, a unique and magic-filled Urban Fantasy about the messy lives--and even messier pasts--of a modern dragon clan. Now complete at 5 books!As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don't cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn't fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience.Now, sealed in his human form and banished to the DFZ--a vertical metropolis built on the ruins of Old Detroit--Julius has one month to prove he can be a ruthless dragon or kiss his true shape goodbye forever. But in a city of modern mages and vengeful spirits where dragons are considered monsters to be exterminated, he's going to need some serious help to survive this test. He only hopes humans are more trustworthy than dragons...(Nice Dragons Finish Last is an urban fantasy set 90 years in the future - featuring a kind protagonist, a kick-ass female mage, and more grumpy dragons than you can shake a stick at.)Winner of the 2015 Audie Audio Book Award in Fantasy!Start the series that won back-to-back RT Magazine Reviewers' Choice Awards!Heartstrikers reading order:-Nice Dragons Finish Last-One Good Dragon Deserves Another-No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished-A Dragon of a Different Color-Last Dragon Standing

A couple years back, I was at the Phoenix airport bar. It was empty except for one heavy-set, gray bearded, grizzled guy who looked like he just rode his donkey into town after a long day of panning for silver in them thar hills. He ordered a Jack Daniels straight up, and that's when I overheard the young guy with the earring behind the bar asking him if he had ID. At first the old sea captain just laughed. But the guy with the twinkle in his ear asked again. At this point it became apparent that he was serious. Dan Haggerty's dad fired back, "You've got to be kidding me, son." The bartender replied, "New policy. Everyone has to show their ID." Then I watched Burl Ives reluctantly reach into his dungarees and pull out his military identification card from World War II. It's a sad and eerie harbinger of our times that the Oprah-watching, crystal-rubbing, Whole Foods-shopping moms and their whipped attorney husbands have taken the ability to reason away from the poor schlub who makes the Bloody Marys. What we used to settle with common sense or a fist, we now settle with hand sanitizer and lawyers. Adam Carolla has had enough of this insanity and he's here to help us get our collective balls back. In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks is Adam's comedic gospel of modern America. He rips into the absurdity of the culture that demonized the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, turned the nation's bathrooms into a lawless free-for-all of urine and fecal matter, and put its citizens at the mercy of a bunch of minimum wagers with axes to grind. Peppered between complaints Carolla shares candid anecdotes from his day to day life as well as his past—Sunday football at Jimmy Kimmel's house, his attempts to raise his kids in a society that he mostly disagrees with, his big showbiz break, and much, much more. Brilliantly showcasing Adam's spot-on sense of humor, this book cements his status as a cultural commentator/comedian/complainer extraordinaire. ADAM CAROLLA is a radio and television host, comedian, and actor. He is the host of the Adam Carolla Podcast, before which he hosted a weekday morning radio program broadcast from Los Angeles, and syndicated by CBS Radio. Besides these shows, Carolla is well known as the co-host of the radio show Loveline (and its television incarnation on MTV), as the co-creator and co-host of Comedy Central's The Man Show, and as the co-creator and the performer on Comedy Central and MTV's Crank Yankers and is a frequent contributor and contestant on ABC's top-rated program "Dancing with the Stars". Carolla also starred in, co-wrote, and co-produced the award-winning independent film, The Hammer. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their two children.

When a superhero serial killer comes to Golden City with the intent of killing Rubberman, Alex Fry (Beams) and his boss desperately try to track him down before he kills them. And when it turns out that the killer is Rubberman's ex-wife seeking revenge against him, Beams finds himself facing dark magic unlike anything he has face before. But when a legendary retired superhero shows up and offers to help Beams capture the killer, Beams thinks they might just defeat the serial killer after all. Yet things are not as simple as they seem, because the retired superhero seems to have ulterior motives for helping Beams, and if Beams doesn't uncover them quickly, both he and Rubberman will die. KEYWORDS: superhero action fiction, superhero fantasy, superhero fiction novel, superhero science fiction, superhero scifi, superhero young adult, superhero city, superhero books, superhero action, superhero books for kids, superheroes, cool superheroes, action adventure books, superhero action adventure books, action adventure fiction, superhero action adventure fiction, young adult action adventure, action adventure young adult, coming of age books

In a world where superheroes are a business, sixteen-year-old Alex Fry gets the dream job of teenagers everywhere when he is hired by the famous superhero Rubberman as his sidekick. As Rubberman's sidekick, Alex hopes to not only learn how to use his powers, but also save up enough money to buy his first car before he heads off to college. But Alex gets more than he bargains for when a powerful supervillain with mysterious connections to Rubberman's past appears in his city with a dangerous agenda. Now Alex must master his powers in time to help Rubberman defeat this supervillain before he succeeds in his vile plans. Yet when Alex learns about the darker side of the superhero industry, he finds himself unsure whether to keep working for Rubberman or to stand against him for the greater good. If Alex makes the wrong choice, it will change his life—and the fate of his hometown—forever. KEYWORDS: superhero action fiction, superhero fantasy, superhero fiction novel, superhero science fiction, superhero scifi, superhero young adult, superhero city, superhero books, superhero action, superhero books for kids, superheroes, cool superheroes, action adventure books, superhero action adventure books, action adventure fiction, superhero action adventure fiction, young adult action adventure, action adventure young adult, free superhero books, free action adventure books, free young adult books, free coming of age books, free young adult thrillers

From David Card, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and Alan Krueger, a provocative challenge to conventional wisdom about the minimum wage David Card and Alan B. Krueger have already made national news with their pathbreaking research on the minimum wage. Here they present a powerful new challenge to the conventional view that higher minimum wages reduce jobs for low-wage workers. In a work that has important implications for public policy as well as for the direction of economic research, the authors put standard economic theory to the test, using data from a series of recent episodes, including the 1992 increase in New Jersey's minimum wage, the 1988 rise in California's minimum wage, and the 1990–91 increases in the federal minimum wage. In each case they present a battery of evidence showing that increases in the minimum wage lead to increases in pay, but no loss in jobs. A distinctive feature of Card and Krueger's research is the use of empirical methods borrowed from the natural sciences, including comparisons between the "treatment" and "control" groups formed when the minimum wage rises for some workers but not for others. In addition, the authors critically reexamine the previous literature on the minimum wage and find that it, too, lacks support for the claim that a higher minimum wage cuts jobs. Finally, the effects of the minimum wage on family earnings, poverty outcomes, and the stock market valuation of low-wage employers are documented. Overall, this book calls into question the standard model of the labor market that has dominated economists' thinking on the minimum wage. In addition, it will shift the terms of the debate on the minimum wage in Washington and in state legislatures throughout the country. With a new preface discussing new data, Myth and Measurement continues to shift the terms of the debate on the minimum wage.