Talios I am of war and have no home that I call my own. Destruction was my closest bedfellow until I was given to a goddess to pay my penance. Now set free I am adrift with my nomadic ways. Home for me is just a place to rest until I move on to another. I know I do not deserve a place or anyone to call mine. Yet I cannot resist her. Candace Jermaine is everything I long for but cannot dare to expect for my own. She is a woman whose heart is so big that it shines from her with a sultry innocence that I find intoxicating. A scientist who is so dedicated to her work that she shuts all else out. Including me. I question if this is but another test. Another form of penance for all the destructiveness I wrought... but I have found I do not care. She is in my blood. Candace is the other half of my soul. Something I never expected to find. Yet I wonder can I, a god who is newly free of the bonds of my past, find a future with a woman who shakes me to my very core. I need Candace more than I ever expected that I would. My need for her goes outside the bounds of her humanity. I want her to join me in forever and beyond. Devi I am the goddess of time, immorality, and the cycle of life/death. Slow to anger, easy to smile. Now I work with babies and the young of humans since they are innocents. It was there I met him. Rhodes Liatos. A man unlike any I've known before. He challenges my disheartened beliefs of the human race. He has taught me many things one of which was how to love. He is a man who loves life and has no fear of death, what happens when he learns who I truly am? Linc I am of the primordial chaos before the world's creation. Older than Ra himself. A component of those who constitute the Ogdoad. I am of the water, existing in a cold world. Until her. They call her Chaya. She has brought me light. She is my whole world. However, I am not hers for she lives for another. If I am to get her, I must acquire the deepest part of her heart. For I don't want a mere moment, nor the time of her mortal life. No, that is far too short. I want this enchantress for eternity. And when one is immortal, like I am, eternity is truly forever. Linc.

When fantasy becomes reality, it brings to life one who has traveled through time, and a woman finds a man who sets her body ablaze with passion. Ta-Mara LeBreaux finds escape reading a love story of a couple who get together despite all odds. Yet she never expected to be caught in her own tale—the outcome of which will be up to the fickleness of destiny. A man appears in her life and all signs point to the fact that he is the same Levi from her book—a book she has read countless times. She must be crazy... However when the impossible becomes reality, Ta-Mara is faced with Levi who has come from between the pages to her world. He's all her dreams come true. This man is all too real and sexy as hell. But is she living on borrowed time with Levi, who can't possibly be hers? Levi Jefferson Davis Madison doesn't know what brought him to this time or this particular woman. He is sure of one thing. Ta-Mara is the light that fills his soul. He won't let anything or anyone stand between them. Yes this present time is so much different than he is used to but he won't let that stop him. By opening first her home then her heart to a stranger, she shows him the depths of her character. Loving her is easy but being able to keep her by his side is his greatest challenge. Or is it...? There are some things that go beyond time and space. When love meets time, nothing can get in the way of unbreakable bonds.

Something strange is happening in Gordath Wood, the old woods surrounding a training stable called Hunter's Chase. The police think Lynn Romano and Kate Mossland have been murdered, but what actually occurred is much stranger. They've gone through a hole between worlds, into a medieval society at war. In a world that doesn't ordinarily have use for women, the danger is great - good thing Lynn and Kate aren't your ordinary women.

Priscilla Hutchins has been through many experiences. This is the story of her first unforgettable adventure… Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins has finally realized her lifelong dream: She’s completed a nerve-bending qualification flight for a pilot’s license. Her timing is far from optimal, however. Faster-than-light travel has only recently become a reality, and the World Space Authority is still learning how to manage long-range missions safely. To make matters worse, efforts to prepare two planets for colonization are killing off native life-forms, outraging people on Earth. So there’s not a lot of demand for space pilots. Priscilla thinks her career may be over before it has begun. But her ambition won’t be denied, and soon she is on the bridge of an interstellar ship, working for the corporation that is responsible for the terraforming. Her working conditions include bomb threats, sabotage, clashes with her employers—and a mission to a world, adrift between the stars, that harbors a life-form unlike anything humanity has ever seen. Ultimately, she will be part of a life-and-death struggle that will test both her capabilities and her character...

This two volume set LNCS 7016 and LNCS 7017 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Algorithms and Architectures for Parallel Processing, ICA3PP 2011, held in Melbourne, Australia, in October 2011. The second volume includes 37 papers from one symposium and three workshops held together with ICA3PP 2011 main conference. These are 16 papers from the 2011 International Symposium on Advances of Distributed Computing and Networking (ADCN 2011), 10 papers of the 4th IEEE International Workshop on Internet and Distributed Computing Systems (IDCS 2011), 7 papers belonging to the III International Workshop on Multicore and Multithreaded Architectures and Algorithms (M2A2 2011), as well as 4 papers of the 1st IEEE International Workshop on Parallel Architectures for Bioinformatics Systems (HardBio 2011).

Apple Best Books of 2021 Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal * Shortlisted for the Zocalo Book Prize From the New York Times bestselling author of Dreamland, a searing follow-up that explores the terrifying next stages of the opioid epidemic and the quiet yet ardent stories of community repair. Sam Quinones traveled from Mexico to main streets across the U.S. to create Dreamland, a groundbreaking portrait of the opioid epidemic that awakened the nation. As the nation struggled to put back the pieces, Quinones was among the first to see the dangers that lay ahead: synthetic drugs and a new generation of kingpins whose product could be made in Magic Bullet blenders. In fentanyl, traffickers landed a painkiller a hundred times more powerful than morphine. They laced it into cocaine, meth, and counterfeit pills to cause tens of thousands of deaths-at the same time as Mexican traffickers made methamphetamine cheaper and more potent than ever, creating, Sam argues, swaths of mental illness and a surge in homelessness across the United States. Quinones hit the road to investigate these new threats, discovering how addiction is exacerbated by consumer-product corporations. “In a time when drug traffickers act like corporations and corporations like traffickers,” he writes, “our best defense, perhaps our only defense, lies in bolstering community.” Amid a landscape of despair, Quinones found hope in those embracing the forgotten and ignored, illuminating the striking truth that we are only as strong as our most vulnerable. Weaving analysis of the drug trade into stories of humble communities, The Least of Us delivers an unexpected and awe-inspiring response to the call that shocked the nation in Sam Quinones's award-winning Dreamland.

Saffron I am nature's representative. I give my voice when the earth cannot. My work sent me on an intersecting course with a stubborn, arrogant, and hard-headed man named, Kenric Annson. Although I don't understand him I can't help but be attracted to him. His smouldering looks and heated caresses have rattled me unlike any before him. The cosmos have an interesting sense of humour. Me, who has lived longer than he could possibly imagine can be struck mute by something so simple as his touch. What's a goddess to do when she wants the one man who has the means destroy her beloved earth? Kill him? Save him? Taber I am a traveller who enjoys finding new exciting places to explore. I have no real home to call my own and have never longed for a place to rest. At least until I met the woman who sets my senses on fire. Lainey Mercer is stubborn, hard to get near and passionate. She is all that I never realised that I wanted. She has made this god wonder what could be possible with a woman by your side who matches you in everyway. I now long to put down roots and for us to create a home together. Live from now to the rest of eternity and beyond side by side. But my Lainey is a woman who will not give in...she will bring me to my knees and then rebuild me into a better god who has found—the woman he loves. Ashia I am referred to as the "Hidden One" and personification of the life-bringing northern wind. As one of those who constitute the Ogdoad, I am respected by others and sometimes even feared. Yet I am adrift when it comes to interactions between a man and a woman. The rules are so confusing and I try to find my way with him—Reid Jacobs. He is a man that makes me, a goddess, wonder how I have done without the coursing need for intimacy. With each touch he unravels me and makes me lose every ounce of my control. I want him more than breath itself but...I will not settle for anything but total acceptance of everything I am.

Can a mortal man, without magic or coercion, bring a goddess to her knees just with the power of his love? Damian Keith teaches Ancient Egyptian history but his love lies in the magic of mythology. An amateur collector of artefacts, he spends much of his time reading ancient books. Lately his dreams have been invaded by a woman whose touch leaves him breathless and wanting more. Much more. But she never reveals her face to him. Amenitre Seini is really the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet. Mortal, Damian Keith has enthralled her like no one before. She visits him in his dreams until she can no longer resist the urge to touch him while he's awake and heads to Earth. Do they stand a chance at a future together or will Damian push her away once he learns of her deception and who and what she truly is? Can she convince him her love is real and that only in the beginning was it about...

I am a traveller who enjoys finding new exciting places to explore. I have no real home to call my own and have never longed for a place to rest. At least until I met the woman who sets my senses on fire. Lainey Mercer is stubborn, hard to get near and passionate. She is all that I never realised that I wanted. She has made this god wonder what could be possible with a woman by your side who matches you in everyway. I now long to put down roots and for us to create a home together. Live from now to the rest of eternity and beyond side by side. But my Lainey is a woman who will not give in...she will bring me to my knees and then rebuild me into a better god who has found—the woman he loves.

It's the end of the semester, and the students are in the grip of finals fever until a real fever takes over. The only possible cure lies in a distant nebula, but with the whole school under quarantine, who will be brave enough to go and get it?