Before is a prequel to best-selling author Joe Nobody’s popular series, Holding Their Own. Bishop and Terri have just begun their romance when the Texan is dispatched to the Ukraine and assigned to protect critical company assets. He, along with Spider and the Colonel, become unwillingly entangled in an international plot to overthrow the government in Kiev. After thwarting an abduction, Bishop is forced to flee across Europe. While protecting an injured woman, he realizes she is the key to exposing the conspiracy that pits patriotism against political corruption. Pursued by hostile foreign agents, Bishop must adapt to survive and use all of his skills to keep Terri alive. Brimming with non-stop action, Before will keep you on the edge of your seat while revealing some of the experiences that eventually helped everybody’s favorite post-apocalyptic couple to survive the pending collapse.

The National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author delivers a collection of essays that serve as the perfect “antidote to mansplaining” (The Stranger). In her comic, scathing essay “Men Explain Things to Me,” Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don’t, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters. She ends on a serious note— because the ultimate problem is the silencing of women who have something to say, including those saying things like, “He’s trying to kill me!” This book features that now-classic essay with six perfect complements, including an examination of the great feminist writer Virginia Woolf’s embrace of mystery, of not knowing, of doubt and ambiguity, a highly original inquiry into marriage equality, and a terrifying survey of the scope of contemporary violence against women. “In this series of personal but unsentimental essays, Solnit gives succinct shorthand to a familiar female experience that before had gone unarticulated, perhaps even unrecognized.” —The New York Times “Essential feminist reading.” —The New Republic “This slim book hums with power and wit.” —Boston Globe “Solnit tackles big themes of gender and power in these accessible essays. Honest and full of wit, this is an integral read that furthers the conversation on feminism and contemporary society.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Essential.” —Marketplace “Feminist, frequently funny, unflinchingly honest and often scathing in its conclusions.” —Salon

Together in one collection . . . BETRAYED, HUNTED, UNFORGIVEN, and COMPELLED: The Cyn & Raphael Novellas These novellas can stand alone or be enjoyed as part of the series. BETRAYED: Vampires in America 5.5 War has come to the North American vampires, and Vampire Lords are reaching across territorial lines to strengthen allies and weaken enemies. The most powerful Lord of them all, Raphael, could change the course of the war and determine who raises the final banner of victory. But at what price? And will his mate, Cyn, be the one to pay it? HUNTED: Vampires in America 6.5 The Lord of the Midwest is dead, and the powerful vampires of North America are gathering to choose his successor. The Vampire Council will be there to oversee the competition--each of them focused on keeping the violence to a bloody minimum, including Raphael, who will do whatever it takes to ensure the victor is a vampire he can trust. But someone is hunting, determined to stop Raphael and his mate, Cyn, from ever reaching Chicago. Soon, the hunter may become . . . the hunted. UNFORGIVEN: Vampires in America 7.5 War is imminent, and a spy has infiltrated Raphael's estate. But his target is not Raphael; it's his sister, Alexandra, whose earlier duplicity nearly cost Cyn her life. Raphael and Cyn are determined to play the spy's game, traveling to Mexico to discover who their enemy is and just how far he'll go to win. But once Raphael finds his sister, can he take the chance that she won't betray him again? COMPELLED: Vampires in America 10.5 It was only a few months ago that Raphael lay helpless and dying, taken by treachery, while Cyn fought to save him. Unexpectedly, it was Nick who provided the key to his freedom. In exchange, he secured a promise that they would help him find and recover the same magical artifact that had been used to imprison Raphael. But when he calls on them to keep that promise, it will be Cyn who pays the price. Torn between the two powerful men, struggling to keep them from killing each other, she undertakes a desperate search that will find her fighting for her life against a madman who wants her for himself. D. B. Reynolds is the RT award-winning author of the popular Vampires in America series of Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy, and an Emmy-nominated television sound editor. She lives in a flammable canyon near Los Angeles, and when she's not writing her own books, she can usually be found reading someone else's.

Warfare was an integral part of the operations of the medieval eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, both in its organization, as well as in social thinking and political ideology. This volume presents a selection of articles dealing with key aspects of Byzantine attitudes to war and violence, with military administration and organization at tactical and strategic levels, weapons and armaments and war-making itself; discussions which make an important contribution to answering the questions of how and why the empire survived as long as it did.

A journal devoted to the discussion of political, economic, and sociological questions.