Stephanie Michelakakis worked and sacrificed for her position as a Lieutenant in the Coalition. She was on track to become the first woman ever accepted into a Royal Guard, specifically King Jotham's Royal Guard. Then a life-altering injury shattered her dreams. Now she must figure out how to move on with her life. Nicholas Deffand was the youngest male ever named as the Captain of King Jotham's Royal Guard. He served and protected his King to the exclusion of everything else. But now he's found a woman who not only understood what his job entailed but his dedication to it as well. These two dedicated people never expected to find love. Will they be strong enough to make it work or will their relationship be another sacrifice they must make?

Cassandra Chamberlain always stood out. It was hard not to at 6’1” and 165 pounds with jet black hair and sapphire blue eyes. And if that wasn’t enough, she was also brilliant, having graduated from Harvard at 15, taught at MIT at 19 and been nominated for the prestigious Magellan Award at 25. But she’d never really fit in. Not with her peers, not with her contemporaries, only with her family. But everything changed when Earth was attacked. Cassandra and her niece, Victoria, were the only survivors. Suddenly, the smartest woman on the planet had to relearn everything. Everything she believed to be true was challenged and she had to learn to survive not only for herself but for Victoria because someone wanted them dead. Admiral William Zafar is the youngest Admiral ever in the Coalition of United Planets Fleet and the hero of the Battle of Fayal. At 7’1”, he’s 325 pounds of Carinian male in his prime who is feared and respected throughout the Fleet. He is a Royal from the House of Protection, carrying its birthmark and considers its King one of his oldest friends. But when the Regulians destroy a previously unknown planet leaving only two survivors, he found he was willing to risk everything to protect the woman he loves from the Regulians and the Carinian traitor who wants her dead.

Victoria Lynn Chamberlain at two, she was abducted by an alien race, the Regulians. At nine, her world literally exploded when the Regulians returned, destroying Earth. She and her aunt were the only survivors thanks to another alien race, the Carinians. Now she’s eighteen, a new graduate from their top medical school, and is ready to claim her life mate, Lucas. The handsome Carinian pilot that saved her all those years… cycles ago. Major Lucas Matthew Zafar was decorated pilot for the Coalition, who has worked hard for every promotion and earned every decoration, despite his father being High Admiral. Nine cycles ago, he crashed on an alien world and discovered his life mate, a nine-cycle girl with flame-red hair and sparkling, green eyes. She captivates everyone around her with her strength and determination. She is his world or will be once she grows up. When he’s injured in an explosion, he discovers that his wait is finally over for Victoria has more than grown up. Together they discover what it truly means to be life mates. That it is about doing what is best for the other even if it is not the best for you. That you have to do more than just love, you have to trust and be willing to sacrifice the things you never thought you would. Moreover, if you are lucky, and the ancestors are watching over you, you just might get everything you’ve ever dreamed of.

Jotham is King of the House of Protection. He was the youngest male ever to assume the position because of the sudden death of his father in Jotham’s twentieth cycle. In the forty cycles since becoming King, he married his life mate, Lata, and lost her in a transport accident. He had two sons and lost his youngest, Dadrian, due to his son’s own treachery. Now his first son, Barek, is interested in a woman and Jotham is going to find out everything about her that he can. Jacinda is from the House of Healing. She is the widow of an Assemblyman for the House of Protection. Stephan was her life mate even though he was twenty cycles older than her. His sudden death devastated her and if it weren’t for her three children, she isn’t sure she would have survived. In the cycles that have followed his death, she has learned to live with her loss and more importantly has learned that life can still be good. When Jotham summons Jacinda to the Palace, his only intent is for her to help him gather information on Amina, Jacinda’s great-niece. That plan goes out the window when Jacinda refuses. She challenges not only his right to interfere in Barek’s life, but questions how he's lived his own since Lata’s death. Two strong personalities come together after having loved and suffered the loss of that loved one. Can they find enough common ground and courage to chance a new love? Or are they destined to live the rest of their lives alone?

In America's long march toward racial equality, small acts of courage by men and women whose names we don't recall have contributed mightily to our nation's struggle to achieve its own ideals. This moving book details the story of one such little-noted chapter. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, as Jackie Robinson changed the face of baseball, a group of African-American businessmen -- twelve at its peak -- changed the face of American business by being among the first black Americans to work at professional jobs in Corporate America and to target black consumers as a distinct market. The corporation was Pepsi-Cola, led by the charismatic and socially progressive Walter Mack, a visionary business leader. Though Mack was a guarded idealist, his consent for a campaign aimed at black consumers was primarily motivated by the pursuit of profits -- and the campaign succeeded, boosting Pepsi's earnings and market share. But America succeeded as well, as longstanding stereotypes were chipped away and African- Americans were recognized as both talented employees and valued customers. It was a significant step in our becoming a more inclusive society. On one level, The Real Pepsi Challenge, whose author is an editor and writer for The Wall Street Journal, is a straightforward business book about the birth of niche marketing. But, as we quickly learn, it is a truly inspirational story, recalling a time when we as a nation first learned to see the strength of our diversity. It is far more than a history of marketing in America; it is a key chapter in the social history of our nation. Until these men came along, typical advertisements depicted African-Americans as one-dimensional characters: Aunt Jemimas and Uncle Bens. But thereafter, Pepsi-Cola took a different approach, portraying American blacks for what they were increasingly becoming -- accomplished middle-class citizens. While such portrayals seem commonplace to us today, they were revolutionary in their time, and the men who brought them into existence risked day-to-day professional indignities parallel to those that Jackie Robinson suffered for breaking baseball's color line. As they crossed the country in the course of their jobs, they faced the cruelty of American racial attitudes. Jim Crow laws often limited where they could eat and sleep while on the road, and they faced resistance even within their own company. Yet these men succeeded as businessmen, and all went on to success in other professions as well, including medicine, journalism, education, and international diplomacy. Happily, six of these pioneers lived to tell their stories to the author. Their voices, full of pride, good humor, and sharp recollection, enrich these pages and give voice to the continuing American saga.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! ONCE UPON A BROKEN HEART marks the launch of a new series from Stephanie Garber about love, curses, and the lengths that people will go to for happily ever after For as long as she can remember, Evangeline Fox has believed in true love and happy endings . . . until she learns that the love of her life will marry another. Desperate to stop the wedding and to heal her wounded heart, Evangeline strikes a deal with the charismatic, but wicked, Prince of Hearts. In exchange for his help, he asks for three kisses, to be given at the time and place of his choosing. But after Evangeline’s first promised kiss, she learns that bargaining with an immortal is a dangerous game — and that the Prince of Hearts wants far more from her than she’d pledged. He has plans for Evangeline, plans that will either end in the greatest happily ever after, or the most exquisite tragedy.

Take two American teen chefs, add one heaping cup of Paris, toss in a pinch of romance, and stir. . . . Rosie Radeke firmly believes that happiness can be found at the bottom of a mixing bowl. But she never expected that she, a random nobody from East Liberty, Ohio, would be accepted to celebrity chef Denis Laurent’s school in Paris, the most prestigious cooking program for teens in the entire world. Life in Paris, however, isn’t all cream puffs and crepes. Faced with a challenging curriculum and a nightmare professor, Rosie begins to doubt her dishes. Henry Yi grew up in his dad’s restaurant in Chicago, and his lifelong love affair with food landed him a coveted spot in Chef Laurent’s school. He quickly connects with Rosie, but academic pressure from home and his jealousy over Rosie’s growing friendship with gorgeous bad-boy baker Bodie Tal makes Henry lash out and push his dream girl away. Desperate to prove themselves, Rosie and Henry cook like never before while sparks fly between them. But as they reach their breaking points, they wonder whether they have what it takes to become real chefs. Perfect for lovers of Chopped Teen Tournament and Kids Baking Championship, as well as anyone who dreams of a romantic trip to France, Love à la Mode follows Rosie and Henry as they fall in love with food, with Paris, and ultimately, with each other.

"Aloha" is at once the most significant and the most misunderstood word in the Indigenous Hawaiian lexicon. For K&257;naka Maoli people, the concept of "aloha" is a representation and articulation of their identity, despite its misappropriation and commandeering by non-Native audiences in the form of things like the "hula girl" of popular culture. Considering the way aloha is embodied, performed, and interpreted in Native Hawaiian literature, music, plays, dance, drag performance, and even ghost tours from the twentieth century to the present, Stephanie Nohelani Teves shows that misunderstanding of the concept by non-Native audiences has not prevented the K&257;naka Maoli from using it to create and empower community and articulate its distinct Indigenous meaning. While Native Hawaiian artists, activists, scholars, and other performers have labored to educate diverse publics about the complexity of Indigenous Hawaiian identity, ongoing acts of violence against Indigenous communities have undermined these efforts. In this multidisciplinary work, Teves argues that Indigenous peoples must continue to embrace the performance of their identities in the face of this violence in order to challenge settler-colonialism and its efforts to contain and commodify Hawaiian Indigeneity.

Assess student knowledge of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for Reading and Mathematics with two full-length Assessments for each subject. Questions provide students with the necessary practice needed to achieve academic success on STAAR. Chapters on test-taking strategies and test anxiety build students’ confidence and test-taking skills. Glossaries familiarize students with vocabulary terms and concepts found on state proficiency tests. Answers are provided in the Parent/Teacher Edition only.