Zach Hanson is a tech wizard, capable of creating and improving gadgets—including remote nuclear warhead launchers. But he's always known that he's destined for something more, something greater, something…supernatural. Powerful Air Amazon Gina Himmel is one of four sisters called to protect the world from those who would do it harm. Demigods in league with an Ancient have been taking over the bodies of leaders in the military and technological sectors, and Gina is sent to San Francisco to watch over Zach. Under Gina's protection, Zach is introduced to a world of ancient deities, rogue gods and the bold, brazen Amazons who keep humanity safe. Amid the whirlwind of battle, Zach and Gina discover a love that could give them the power to save the world…or destroy it.

Megan Feurer is strong and impetuous, like the Fire element she represents. She is an Amazon, sworn to protect humanity from demons, demigods and all manner of supernatural beings who wish ill upon the world. But her fire burns hot and fast, and her unpredictable control of the element brings into question her fitness as an Amazon. Johann Herrmann chose the life of a Sentinel—a trainer of the four Amazons—to save his sister's life. Now bound to the patron goddess Rhiannon, he knows his duty demands a solitary existence. But when he's assigned to evaluate the Fire Amazon, his sacrifice becomes much more difficult. Megan's passions ignite a flame that neither she nor Johann can control, and the goddess Freya has reason to fan those flames. A mysterious force is gaining power, and Megan and Johann must join together to fight. And once a passionate fire has started, it's nearly impossible to stop…

A USA Today Recommended Read The last thing Rebecca Massee expects on her wedding day is to go from jilted kindergarten teacher to Amazonian Earth warrior. But when she causes an earthquake after her groom says "I don't," she discovers that not only does she possess incredible powers, she is one of four lost chosen sisters who must fight to keep humanity safe from rogue gods and demons. Luckily she has help: ruggedly handsome Scottish warrior Artair MacKay, her protector and teacher. An immortal, Artair has trained countless warriors for more than four hundred years. He understands Rebecca's confusion at the new world she's been thrust into and worries she is too emotionally vulnerable, but that doesn't stop his growing feelings for the beautiful and fearless woman. When an evil force threatens to destroy the Amazons, Rebecca must claim her full powers—but they come at a cost. Can she sacrifice the man she loves if it means saving the world?

Carried off into sex slavery by the Hyperboreans, an Amazon princess fights for freedom--and revenge!

A groundbreaking vision on the future of reading, from an early innovator on Amazon's Kindle team. Is digital the death knell for print? Or will it reinvigorate the written word? What will happen to bookstores, book browsing, libraries, even autographs? Will they die out—or evolve into something new? In Burning the Page, digital pioneer Jason Merkoski charts the ebook revolution's striking impact on the ways in which we create, discover, and share ideas. From the sleek halls of Silicon Valley to the jungles of Southeast Asia, Merkoski explores how ebooks came to be and predicts innovative and interactive ways digital content will shape our lives. Throughout, you are invited to continue the conversation online and help shape this exciting new world of "Reading 2.0." For those who love books, collect books, own an e-reader, vow never to own one, or simply want to know where books are headed, this is a crucial guide to both the future of reading and to our digital culture as a whole.

What is the secret to Amazon's success? What does the ecommerce giant have in store for the future? Explore the disruptive new retail strategies of the world's most relentless retailer and gain valuable lessons that can be applied to any business in the ecommerce sector, with original insight from the company as it continues to revolutionize itself even further. The retail industry is facing unprecedented challenges. Across all sectors and markets, retailers are shifting their business models and customer engagement strategies to ensure they survive. The rise of online shopping, and its primary player, Amazon, is at the heart of these changes and opportunities. Amazon's relentless dissatisfaction with the status quo is what makes it such an extraordinary retailer. This book explores whether Amazon has what it takes to become a credible grocery retailer, and as it transitions to bricks and mortar retailing, investigates whether Amazon's stores can be as compelling as its online offering. Exploring the ecommerce giant's strategies, Amazon offers unique insight into how innovations such voice technology, checkout-free stores and its Prime ecosystem, will fundamentally change the way consumers shop. Written by industry leading retail analysts who have spent decades providing research-based analysis and opinion on retail strategy and enterprise technology use in retail, Amazon analyzes the impact these initiatives will have on the wider retail sector and the lessons that can be learned from its unprecedented rise to dominance - as stores of the future become less about transactions and more about experiences.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "A grounded and expansive examination of the American economic divide . . . It takes a skillful journalist to weave data and anecdotes together so effectively." —Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times An award-winning journalist investigates Amazon’s impact on the wealth and poverty of towns and cities across the United States. In 1937, the famed writer and activist Upton Sinclair published a novel bearing the subtitle A Story of Ford-America. He blasted the callousness of a company worth “a billion dollars” that underpaid its workers while forcing them to engage in repetitive and sometimes dangerous assembly line labor. Eighty-three years later, the market capitalization of Amazon.com has exceeded one trillion dollars, while the value of the Ford Motor Company hovers around thirty billion. We have, it seems, entered the age of one-click America—and as the coronavirus makes Americans more dependent on online shopping, its sway will only intensify. Alec MacGillis’s Fulfillment is not another inside account or exposé of our most conspicuously dominant company. Rather, it is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow. As MacGillis shows, Amazon’s sprawling network of delivery hubs, data centers, and corporate campuses epitomizes a land where winner and loser cities and regions are drifting steadily apart, the civic fabric is unraveling, and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated. Ranging across the country, MacGillis tells the stories of those who’ve thrived and struggled to thrive in this rapidly changing environment. In Seattle, high-paid workers in new office towers displace a historic black neighborhood. In suburban Virginia, homeowners try to protect their neighborhood from the environmental impact of a new data center. Meanwhile, in El Paso, small office supply firms seek to weather Amazon’s takeover of government procurement, and in Baltimore a warehouse supplants a fabled steel plant. Fulfillment also shows how Amazon has become a force in Washington, D.C., ushering readers through a revolving door for lobbyists and government contractors and into CEO Jeff Bezos’s lavish Kalorama mansion. With empathy and breadth, MacGillis demonstrates the hidden human costs of the other inequality—not the growing gap between rich and poor, but the gap between the country’s winning and losing regions. The result is an intimate account of contemporary capitalism: its drive to innovate, its dark, pitiless magic, its remaking of America with every click.

Lucas Mitchell returned from Iraq a bitter, changed man, and he deals with his injuries and grief by restoring an old mansion and rehabilitating retired racehorses. Descended from gypsies, Joy Kovacs’s traditional family has already selected both her husband and her career in the family restaurant, but her heart belongs to her art and also to Lucas. Before they can determine whether their passion can survive her family's opposition, Joy must first help Lucas break free from his prison of grief.

Amazon is everywhere. In our mailboxes, in delivery vans clogging our streets, in an increasing portion of our air traffic, in our grocery stores, on our televisions, in our smart home devices, and in the infrastructure powering many of the websites we visit. Amazon’s tendrils touch the majority of online retail transactions in the United States and in many other countries. As Amazon changes the face of capitalist business, it is also changing global culture in multiple ways. This book brings together some of the most important analyses of Amazon’s pioneering business practices and how they intersect with and affect the components of everyday culture. Its contributors examine the political economy of Amazon’s platform, making the argument that it operates as an unregulated monopoly that is disruptive to the global economy and that its infrastructure and logistical operations increasingly alienate its workers and wreak many other social harms. Our contributors outline the practices of resistance that have been employed by organizers ranging from Amazon employees to artists to digital piecemeal laborers working on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. They examine the broader cultural impact that Amazon has had, looking at things like Amazon Prime and the creation of unending consumption, the absorption of Whole Foods and its brand of ‘conscious capitalism,’ and the impact of Amazon Studios and Prime Video on everyday film and television viewing practices. This book examines the broader environmental impacts that Amazon is having on the world, looking at the slow violence it incurs, its underwhelming Climate Pledge, and the regional impacts that its business practices have. Lastly, this book gathers together some important artistic responses to Amazon for the first time in an appendix that offers readers insight into other ways in which critics of the company are making their voices heard and attempting to move broader audiences into solidarity against Amazon.

Retired FBI agent Dr. Beau Peterson’s strange psychic ability enables him to connect with murder victims after their deaths, a talent that aided him in capturing the infamous Ryland Ripper. Now teaching criminal psychology at a local college, he is asked to work with his former partner, Cody Taylor, on a baffling new case—someone, whom the media dubs “Ripper Junior,” is mimicking the Ryland Ripper. With each of Junior’s kills, Jordan Stafford falls into a trance, forcing her to see every hideous detail through his eyes. Beau reluctantly accepts her assistance in pursuing the dangerous serial killer, but in a macabre twist of fate, she becomes Junior’s new target. Beau, Jordan, and Cody must utilize all of their skills to prevent her from becoming Junior’s next victim.