Love and violence, war and lust, lies and betrayal - even intelligent feathered dinosaurs fell prey to such savage impulses, more than 67 million years ago. When Raoul Deguchi, a human palaeontologist, touches the alien-forged metal band wrapped around the forearm of a small theropod dinosaur fossil, he is mentally transported back in time to experience the tragic intersection of five dinosaur lives. Girn'ash, a shrewd and secretive female slave, falls in love with Tir'at Esk, a dashing military prisoner - and will do anything in her meagre power to win his freedom. But Girn'ash's queen is determined to coerce the handsome warrior into her harem, and when so many ferocious desires collide it might doom an entire civilization to nuclear extinction.

Did you know that long before prophetic men living in the desert changed the course of history of our planet, a living prophetic tradition of women preached about a much older religion of a Goddess that is LIFE itself? Long before Jesus talked about love, Her priestesses did. Long before the Quran declared the Divine to be the Light of the heavens, Her priestesses did. Why should something that happened thousands of years ago matter to you today? It matters because the Goddess' prophetic tradition still lives! Just like debar Yahweh (the word of Yahweh) was heard 3000 years ago, abat Ishtar (the word of Ishtar) still cries for you to hear today. "O seeker, if you ask who is Ishtar, look at the stars, they will tell you My story. If you ask where is Ishtar, look deep within your eyes and you shall see Me. If your mind says I don't believe in Ishtar, dwell on the image of your beloved and you will remember Me. In the heart of every man and woman is a star. Seek it and you shall know Me. I am Ishtar and I love you." If you have read the Bible, the Quran, or the Bhagavad Gita, then you owe it to yourself to read the Codex of Love. It is a book that evokes happiness with every reading, whose words of love fall like gentle rain on parched earth. Read it out loud to yourself and be ready to be amazed by the profound sense of love that surrounds you. You will want to read it again and again because the simplicity of its prose hides intensely deep spiritual teachings. Discover what the Goddess' heavenly teachings have to say about: * Living the spirituality of love even if you have been hurt so many times. * Enjoying a more peaceful life in a world filled with war and news of terror. * Finding that true love you always wanted. * Keeping the fires of love, desire, and passion ablaze in your life. * Experiencing intense sacred sex that illuminates your soul. * Walking touched by the spirit of the Goddess every day of your life. Many books have been written on the Goddess, the old religion and neo paganism. Experts talk from an anthropological perspective and some give you basic rituals and hymns. The Codex of Love leaps out, unique in that it is the living words of the Goddess. For the faithful, it is indeed a joy ride of love that gladdens the heart and uplifts the spirit. For the skeptic, it is a pleasurable and tantalizing journey filled with spiritual nuggets of wisdom. No matter your affiliations, if love is your religion at all, you need to read this book.

When Jonathan West, a battle-scarred warrior with supernatural gifts, is sent to Phoenix to execute a witch for practicing dark enchantments, it doesn't take him long to discover his target is innocent-- and the beauty of her soulscape and her untamed spirit make his blood sing. Cassie Rios, divorced and recently unemployed, has no idea why wild animals have started mauling and even killing anyone who sparks her fury. She realizes she's a danger to everyone around her, and Jonathan and his shadow organization may be her only hope. As she learns to control the magic she never would have chosen, she and Jonathan surrender to the white-hot desire that flares between them. But the secret society of Manus Sancti has its own seductions, and she soon faces a choice that could lead to her destruction.

In this extraordinary fantasy epic, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Dresden Files leads readers into a world where the fate of the realm rests on the shoulders of a boy with no power to call his own... For a thousand years, the people of Alera have united against the aggressive and threatening races that inhabit the world, using their unique bond with the furies—elementals of earth, air, fire, water, wood, and metal. But in the remote Calderon Valley, the boy Tavi struggles with his lack of furycrafting. At fifteen, he has no wind fury to help him fly, no fire fury to light his lamps. Yet as the Alerans’ most savage enemy—the Marat horde—return to the Valley, Tavi’s courage and resourcefulness will be a power greater than any fury, one that could turn the tides of war...

In Demonic Desires, Ishay Rosen-Zvi examines the concept of yetzer hara, or evil inclination, and its evolution in biblical and rabbinic literature. Contrary to existing scholarship, which reads the term under the rubric of destructive sexual desire, Rosen-Zvi contends that in late antiquity the yetzer represents a general tendency toward evil. Rather than the lower bodily part of a human, the rabbinic yetzer is a wicked, sophisticated inciter, attempting to snare humans to sin. The rabbinic yetzer should therefore not be read in the tradition of the Hellenistic quest for control over the lower parts of the psyche, writes Rosen-Zvi, but rather in the tradition of ancient Jewish and Christian demonology. Rosen-Zvi conducts a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the some one hundred and fifty appearances of the evil yetzer in classical rabbinic literature to explore the biblical and postbiblical search for the sources of human sinfulness. By examining the yetzer within a specific demonological tradition, Demonic Desires places the yetzer discourse in the larger context of a move toward psychologization in late antiquity, in which evil—and even demons—became internalized within the human psyche. The book discusses various manifestations of this move in patristic and monastic material, from Clement and Origin to Antony, Athanasius, and Evagrius. It concludes with a consideration of the broader implications of the yetzer discourse in rabbinic anthropology.

"The story starts with Jesus and Mary Magdalene marrying, bonding and beginning a family. Thirteen years later, he finds what God had in mind for him. She follows him on the road. She learns the Gospel. Then comes the day Jesus is arrested, trialed and crucified. Afterwards she becomes Apostle to the Apostles teaching them thing Jesus did not tell them. She and Jesus brother, James, found the Jesus Movement, the Way. Eventually she is forced to leave her homeland. She continues to teach across the Roman Empire from Ephesus, Athens to Rome. After a year teaching she is called before a 17 year old Nero. She escapes his persecution with the aid of a Praetorian Officer. They all escape to southern France. There she continues to preach and convert Jews and Gentiles in there until her own death."

In a land of ancient prophecies, destiny is forged by those who dare to seek the truth. Alana of House Torvah leads her band of Verma - nomadic people gifted with powerful magic - on a journey through a treacherous land. Their destination is the fabled Valley of Neva, a sanctuary promised to them by their gods, Otar and Neva. As they make their way through hostile villages, deadly storms, and the unforgiving desert, dark forces threaten to extinguish their fragile hope. Alana must rely on her wits, magic and unyielding will to guide her people safely to their promised land. With a sinister plot growing in the shadows, Alana and her troop face choices they're not ready to make. Running out of time and strength, will they make it to Valley of Neva... or die trying?

In his acclaimed Codex Alera novels, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher has created a fascinating world in which the powerful forces of nature take physical form. But even magic cannot sway the corruption that threatens to destroy the realm of Alera once and for all... When the power-hungry High Lord of Kalare launches a merciless rebellion against the First Lord, young Tavi of Calderon joins a newly formed legion under an assumed name. And when the ruthless Kalare allies himself with a savage enemy of the realm, Tavi finds himself leading an inexperienced, poorly equipped legion—the only force standing between Alera and certain doom...

Special Focus: "Omission", edited by Patrick Gill Throughout literary history and in many cultures, we encounter an astute use of conspicuous absences to conjure an imagined reality into a recipient’s mind. The term ‘omission’ as used in the present study, then, demarcates a common artistic phenomenon: a silence, blank, or absence, introduced against the recipient’s generic or experiential expectations, but which nonetheless frequently encapsulates the tenor of the work as a whole. Such omissions can be employed for their affective potential, when emotions represented or evoked by the text are deemed to be beyond words. They can be employed to raise epistemological questions, as when an omission marks the limits of what can be known. Ethical questions can also be approached by means of omissions, as when a character’s voice is omitted, for instance. Finally, omission always carries within it the potential to reflect on the media and genres on which it is brought to bear: as its efficacy depends on the recipient’s generic expectations, omission is frequently characterized by a high degree of meta-discursiveness. This volume investigates the various strategies with which the phenomenon of omission is employed across a range of textual forms and in different cultures to conclusively argue for its status as a highly effective and near-universal form of artistic signification.

Some sixty years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, a group of Nahua intellectuals in Mexico City set about compiling an extensive book of miscellanea, which was recorded in pictorial form with alphabetic texts in Nahuatl clarifying some imagery or adding new information altogether. This manuscript, known as the Codex Mexicanus, includes records pertaining to the Aztec and Christian calendars, European medical astrology, a genealogy of the Tenochca royal house, and an annals history of pre-conquest Tenochtitlan and early colonial Mexico City, among other topics. Though filled with intriguing information, the Mexicanus has long defied a comprehensive scholarly analysis, surely due to its disparate contents. In this pathfinding volume, Lori Boornazian Diel presents the first thorough study of the entire Codex Mexicanus that considers its varied contents in a holistic manner. She provides an authoritative reading of the Mexicanus’s contents and explains what its creation and use reveal about native reactions to and negotiations of colonial rule in Mexico City. Diel makes sense of the codex by revealing how its miscellaneous contents find counterparts in Spanish books called Reportorios de los tiempos. Based on the medieval almanac tradition, Reportorios contain vast assortments of information related to the issue of time, as does the Mexicanus. Diel masterfully demonstrates that, just as Reportorios were used as guides to living in early modern Spain, likewise the Codex Mexicanus provided its Nahua audience a guide to living in colonial New Spain.