When young Devon is forbidden from marrying his beloved by the Elders of the agrarian Cypress Corners community, he begins to question not only their authority, but why the sky is metal and the ground is not, and other troubling questions.

The quality management revolution has resulted in considerable trial and error as well as frustration. Here is a book that explores why many management trends don't translate into process improvement. It recommends establishing a condition of "rationality" as a guide and measure for all organizational and quality improvement efforts. Instead of imposing radical new "breakthroughs", Phoenix Without the Ashes: Achieving Organizational Excellence Through Common Sense Management suggests an approach that fits with the normal routines and operations of an organization in a way that makes sense. Part One of this text discusses the nature of common sense, and of quality as a condition of organizational excellence. In Part Two, the elements that negatively affect quality improvement are explained from an operating management perspective. Part Three looks at the impediments to improvement set by organizational structures. Part Four discusses the relationship among leadership, motivation, and organizational excellence, and Part Five suggests a rational strategy for effective, enduring organizational improvement. Managers in every industry will benefit from the information provided in Phoenix Without the Ashes.

This collection is a representative set of ten of the key papers which Thomas Greenfield, arguably the doyen of contemporary theories of educational administration, has published over the last twenty years. His writings as they appear are eagerly sought after and studied by scholars, students and practitioners in Britain and across the English-speaking world, but are not always readibly available individually. The collection charts the development of Greenfield's views of social reality as human invention, and explores strands of argument on the nature of knowledge, on admininstrative theory and research, on values, on the limits of science and the importance of human subjectivity, truth and reality. The volume is concluded by a discussion between Greenfield and Peter Ribbins, which reflects on Greenfield's career and elaborates on the range of his complex and often controversial ideas.

Book 17 of the nationally bestselling Joanne Kilbourn series is classic Gail Bowen: masterfully compelling storytelling that combines a modern, urban family with a gripping, satisfying mystery. As Joanne Kilbourn-Shreve, her husband, Zack, and their soon-to-be seventeen-year-old daughter, Taylor, rush through the rain from their cottage to their car, the Thanksgiving weekend they just spent at the lake with Zack's law partners is already slipping away, burnished into memory as pleasantly as the hundreds of other weekends the Falconer-Shreve families have shared at Lawyers' Bay. Thoughts of the weekend past will now focus on the future and be prefaced by the words "next time." Within weeks, a triple homicide will rip apart the lives of those related to the lawyers who, at the end of their first year in law school, only half-jokingly styled themselves "The Winners' Circle." Dazed by grief, Joanne will seek answers to an impossible question: "Why did they die?" The facts behind the suicide of Christopher Altieri, known by his law partners as "the conscience of The Winners' Circle," appear to provide insights, but for Joanne those insights raise new, unsettling questions. Knitting this powerful narrative together is Joanne's unshakeable belief that the only thing worse than knowing is not knowing.

Born of a Nez Perce mother and a white father in the second half of the twentieth century, Phoenix Stargazer has always struggled to find his place in two worlds. Called a half-breed by many, Phoenix is struggling to find his place in humankind when he falls in love with a white woman who sees past his mixed heritage and his anger to offer him her love and her God. Aerielle Buchanan, having delved past the wall Phoenix has built, has fallen in love. Yet without warning, Phoenix is torn from her life, and the two are left to live their own lives apart from each other. What will happen in 14 years when God reunites them? Bound by love and faith, but torn apart by time and circumstance, will their reunion be enough to bring them back together? Are they truly destined for each other, or was what they had only an illusion from their youth?

The thirteenth in Gail Bowen's beloved and award-winning Joanne Kilbourn mystery series promises to be the best of them all: some very bad things happen very, very close to home, and Joanne may never be quite the same again. "Security for any one of us lies in greater abundance for all of us." For many years, this was the core of Joanne's political beliefs, but for a number of reasons, she has drifted away from it. But on the day Joanne retires from her university teaching post, she has a dream about her first husband (murdered many years ago), and this line comes back vividly in it. Soon, she is forced to experience the truth of what, for most of her life, had just been a good closing line for a political speech. The night after Jo and Zack have dinner with Zack's colleague Margot and one of his law firm's biggest clients, the developer Leland Hunter, Jo and Zack's house is blown up. They're at the lake with daughter Taylor and their dogs, but the house is destroyed. And that is only the first of several terrible incidents. It isn't long before Joanne is witness to events far more distressing than even a destroyed home. She begins to understand what it's like to live in a world where she can count on nothing.

"A treat for long-time fans as well as a perfect introduction for newcomers to this classic series of dramatic mysteries featuring Joanne Kilbourn, from "the queen of Canadian crime fiction." (Winnipeg Free Press) In The Last Good Day, Joanne meets the tough-yet-tender criminal lawyer and paraplegic playboy Zack Shreve, who will soon take on a key role in her life. The occasion is tragic; a young legal colleague of Zack's plunges his car into a northern lake only hours after beginning to tell Joanne a disturbing secret. In The Endless Knot, Zack and Joanne find themselves enmeshed in a violent crime. Their diverging loyalties and obligations test their growing relationship. It is put under strain again in The Brutal Heart, when a birthday barbecue is interrupted by a phone call informing Zack of the suspicious death of a local call girl -- one whose gilt-edged client list once included Zack himself. The Nesting Dolls begins in a blizzard. A young woman hands a baby to a friend of Joanne's teenage daughter and disappears. Hours later, the young woman's body is found in a parking lot. Soon, two women with compelling claims are fighting over the child and again, Zack and Joanne find themselves on different sides of a confict that threatens to tear more than one family apart. In Kaleidoscope, Joanne has just retired from her university career, and is looking forward to a summer at the family cottage. Only a last-minute change of plans keeps the Kilbourn-Shreve clan from tragedy when their home, and Joanne's own past, become flashpoints in an increasingly deadly battle between developers and activists over the future of a troubled neighbourhood. The Gifted focuses on Joanne and Zack's teenage daughter, Taylor, who is already an impressively talented artist. Taylor falls under the spell of a beautiful but damaged young artists' model, and soon Joanne discovers not only that the young man has dark secrets but that at least one of her own friends may be complicit in a plan that could put Taylor's life at risk. The bundle includes an excerpt from the 15th in Joanne Kilbourn series, 12 Rose Street, as well as a Q & A with the author.

My childhood best friend is the only man I've ever wanted, but the crash left me too broken to ask him to stay. Now he's back. People say love is like a wildfire, unpredictable and all consuming. But the love I’ve had for my best friend has always been comfortable and warm. Phoenix McKean was the spark that made my childhood magical. He’s unafraid and wild, the opposite of me in every way. He stole my heart before I even knew what that meant. For a brief moment I was wrapped in his arms, my happily ever after secure. But the car crash that took my mother from me changed everything. I was the only survivor and when my grief began to spiral out of control, I pushed Phoenix away before he could see how damaged I was. A fire like his couldn't be contained. He was better off without me and my broken mind. Just when I finally feel like I’ve moved on, he strolls back into town, successful and sought after by all. I shouldn’t feel jealous, but I can’t help it because, as much as I know I shouldn’t be, I’m still in love with him. He deserves better than me. He deserves a life full of happiness and joy, not one full of pills, panic attacks, and shrinks. Besides, this wild man will never settle down….and especially not with someone like me. But when he learns what I’ve become, I have no choice but to confess why I've hidden it from him all these years. If I don't, I might lose him forever, and the only thing scarier than watching him leave… would be asking him to stay. Tropes: childhood best friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, second chance, small town, neurodivergence, standalone, HEA