The Coveted Recipe may be a part of that story, only steeped in the Dark Ages. I am not sure what it is and where it belongs. Is it an adult fairy tale? A sad tragedy of times past? Or a parable of human nature that in changing remains the same, where innocent people are caught in webs of misplaced fears, laws, and regulations? It came to me on a sunny day in Berlin as I sat in an U-Bahn that passed along the broken graffiti-smeared Berlin Wall, thinking how it had locked people in—like the Iron Curtain—and how many suffered and died behind those walls that had cut through lives and loves, leaving trails of guilt and sin on all sides. And then I thought about punishments, such as witch hunts and dungeons and prisons and wars. Seeing the devastation through a foggy window, I hoped that the train was speeding into a new and better age . . .

This luxurious book is the first comprehensive survey of jewelry as an art form, showcasing the dazzling work of a diverse collection of today's most exclusive jewelers

In this book, The COVETed Leader: 5 Pillars of Transformative Leadership, you can discover how you can often find your inner leader at just the right time and show up in the world where your actions are devoid of glory and greed. What gets in the way of showing up this way is either your ego or emotion; therefore you need to tame ego and manage emotions By embracing these 5 Pillars of Transformative Leadership and the underlying tenets and behavioral traits readers will find: · A burning desire and Courage to lead · The Optimism and motivation to succeed · The Vision to define and take responsibility of your dreams · The Excellence to become a sought after world-class performer · The authenticity and integrity to build self and others and inspire Trust · And more… If you believe that you possess the same leadership traits that countless thousands of others have shown, and would like to discover and nurture that leader in you and learn how to share and embrace your leadership stories then this book is a definite ‘must read’ for you. The COVETed Leader speaks directly to experienced executives, young leaders, and to anyone aspiring to get to the next level of leadership performance both professionally and personally.

From the middle of the nineteenth century, as Euro-Americans moved westward, they carried with them long-held prejudices against people of color. By the time they reached the West Coast, their new settlements included African Americans and recent Asian immigrants, as well as the indigenous inhabitants and descendants of earlier Spanish and Mexican settlers. The Coveted Westside deals with the settlement and development of Los Angeles in the context of its multiracial, multiethnic population, especially African Americans. Mandel exposes the enduring struggle between Whites determined to establish their hegemony and create residential heterogeneity in the growing city, and people of color equally determined to obtain full access to the city and the opportunities, including residential, that it offered. Not only does this book document the Black homeowners’ fight against housing discrimination, it shares personal accounts of Blacks’ efforts to settle in the highly desirable Westside of Los Angeles. Mandel explores the White-derived social and legal mechanisms that created this segregated city and the African American-led movement that challenged efforts to block access to fair housing.

The intriguing cultural history of the piano in Australia From the instruments that floated ashore at Sydney Cove in the late eighteenth century to the resurrection of derelict heirlooms in the streets of twenty-first-century Melbourne, A Coveted Possession tells the curious story of Australia’s intimate and intrepid relationship with the piano. It charts the piano’s fascinating adventures across Australia – on the goldfields, at the frontlines of war, in the manufacturing hubs of the Federation era, and in the hands of the makers, entrepreneurs, teachers and virtuosos of the twentieth history – to illuminate the many worlds in which the ivories were tinkled. Before electricity brought us the gramophone, the radio and eventually the TV, the piano was central to family and community life. With its iron frame, polished surfaces and ivory keys, an upright piano in the home was a modern industrial machine, a musical instrument and a treasured member of the household, conveying powerful messages about class, education, leisure, national identity and intergenerational history. ‘Michael Atherton cleverly weaves visual, sensual and sonic elements into the piano’s sociocultural history, adding a rich layer to our knowledge of the piano in Australia.’ —Professor Julia Horne, historian

""In places that know more about heaven and hell than we do, you have a reputation, Gabrielle. To them you are known as the devil's consort."" When a body shows up near Peel Academy, all signs indicate the killer is a vampire. Ravaged throat, body drained of blood. At least that's all it appears to be when the Politia, the supernatural police force, assigns Gabrielle to the case. Now it's Gabrielle's job to figure out who did it. But after a second body turns up with the same lethal wounds, it's clear that a serial killer is stalking the island. The murders have compromised the truce between the Politia and vampires, and as long as the killer roams free, it is in danger of dissolving. If that happens, no vampire is safe from persecution, not even Gabrielle. Now Gabrielle must team up with Andre, her soulmate and the one person she's tried to stay away from, to investigate the murders before the truce dissolves. And keeping her distance is proving to be impossible. But Gabrielle has a bigger problem. The world of the dead know about her, and their whispers hint that something is coming for her. And it's coming soon.

THE COVETED GIRLS is book #3 in the #1 bestselling Suburban Murder series, which begins with THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS, book #1 (a free download)! In the magnificent, sought after Hamptons a young au pair has vanished. When she shows up savagely raped and murdered, in the Bronx, top SVU detective Bella de Franco is called to the scene and ordered to find her killer. She enters the life this young woman led, from the sleazy NYC nanny agency whose owner runs a sex ring, to the wealthy families who employ these girls, both in the city and at the beach, and finds a world whose physical beauty masks a twisted existence. Bella is no longer a stranger to places where privilege and money hide secrets. She and her new partner, Mack, have just solved two murders in towns inhabited with the one percent. But in this fabled playground of the rich, where thirty million dollar homes hide behind electric wrought iron gates and hand cut hedges, Bella encounters a culture sharper, and more shocking, than anything she has seen before. Husbands with power and influence, revered for their money and status, do whatever they want. Wives, fixtures for a public image, look the other way, as long as the perks keep coming. Friends, who love the lifestyle, keep friends secrets. Even the kids, who once knew better, remain quiet in the face of it all. Bella works tirelessly to uncover the truth about the high paid escorts, phony marriages, and broken families that littered the life of her victim, and to find who it was who needed the young girl out of the way. But she doesn’t expect the answer she gets, one that leads her to question all she thought she knew…

"The first time I was declared dead, I lost my past. The second time, I lost my humanity. Now I'm being hunted, and if I die again, my soul is up for forfeit." After enrolling in Peel Academy, an elite supernatural boarding school on the British Isles, the last of the sirens, Gabrielle Fiori, only wants to fit in. Instead, the elixir meant to awaken her supernatural abilities kills her. When Gabrielle wakes up in the morgue twelve hours later, something wicked is awakened in her, something even the supernatural community has never seen before. Now the only person who can help her is Andre de Leon, the community's infamous bad boy and the king of vampires. Yet even his help can't prevent the repeated attempts on Gabrielle's life. Someone is after her, and they will stop at nothing to end her short existence. Only Gabrielle cannot let that happen now that her soul hangs in the balance, because she may have met the devil. And he wants her. Bad.

For more than 200 years, U.S. Army Rangers have earned their unrivaled reputation as the world's premier warriors with bravery, blood, and sacrifice. Being a Ranger is a function of attitude and a state of mind, as well as a matter of skills and training, and it is the mission of the U.S. Army Ranger School to meld and to fortify these attributes. Ranger School is a journey that must be taken one day at a time...and each day of that journey is captured in this book. It is the cumulative effect of each of those days, the arduous work, the deprivation, the misery, that leads to what is ultimately called "the Ranger School experience."

A sinister supernatural personality musters the forces of darkness to entice willing people into financial bondage, and once enslaved they are irrevocably imprisoned. A news reporter, acting on a tip that all is not well within the confines of a heavily encumbered mega-church ministry, pursues the lead not knowing that he will become a target. He hires a private investigator, and they learn that the mega-church pastor is overseeing a ministerial mafia with himself as the Don. What begins as the pursuit of a story soon becomes a spiritual journey for the reporter as he encounters human intrigue and the powers of darkness. Ken Reamy is a minister, evangelist, and former news reporter. He is a contributing columnist for the Trinidad Times Independent, and the Raton Range. He and his wife Carol, live in Trinidad, Colorado. They have four children and three grandchildren. His two previous books are In the Crosshairs of Deception, and The Balaam Surrogate.