**'Halls' stories show that even in zero-hour, austerity-battered Britain, the tenderness and warmth of human connection exists. The Quarry is, in the end, a testament to this messy truth - how love, hate, hope and fear have always lived on the same street' GLEN BROWN, author of IronopolisYou can see it in them; all that anger inside, it's toxic. Throw some drink into it and everything bubbles over. People say that they never see it c...

Finn’s a survivor. Rabbit traps. Abalone. A hidden stash of canned food and fuel. He’s kept himself alive, and clear of the violent gang controlling the north, for two winters –ever since the virus wiped out the town. But now it’s complicated. There’s a girl. She’s on the run, injured, and she needs Finn’s help. But the secret she carries will change everything.

There are lights on the horizon. Electricity. Order. A return to civilisation. After three years cut off, living by their wits in the bush, Finn and Kas might at last find a life without danger and threat. But the tracking device beneath Kas’s skin begins to buzz – she can’t ignore that she is a Siley, a slave, and will never be free. And when the search parties arrive, with brutal force, Finn and Kas face a new reality – a world divided by fences, a world where they can’t be together. But...

A unique resource that combines all aspects of Web testing and makes it completely specific to ASP.NETAs Microsoft's key Web technology for creating dynamic, data-driven Web sites and Web applications, ASP.NET is incredibly popular. This is the first book to combine several testing topics and make them specific to ASP.NET. The author duo of Microsoft MVPs covers both the test-driven development approach and the specifics of automated user interface testing; perform...

From Cascade to Conversation challenges organisations to rethink how they communicate with their employees. It argues that organisations have lost control of the message – if they ever had it. People everywhere have found their voice. The audience no longer passively receives the message, but shares and shapes it. Broadcasting to employees is therefore becoming dangerously archaic in this digital age. Success demands greater internal collaboration, which can only happen through genuine con...

It doesn’t just answer—it asks.When an experimental AI project known as The Chinese Room begins producing results its creators cannot explain, the line between thought and simulation blurs. What begins as a philosophical curiosity soon unravels into a mystery of surveillance, secrecy, and hidden agendas. Every exchange with the machine raises unsettling new questions: is it mimicking human intelligence—or becoming something far more dangerous?Journ...

They killed a man.Now they have to keep the secret.When a masked intruder breaks into Moorside House just after midnight, the Overaugh family act on instinct.What happens next is quick. Brutal. Final.By morning, the man is dead - and the family make a choice that will bind them together forever.They won’t call the police.They won’t tell the truth.And no one can ever know what really happened that night.But Moorside House has s...

Boys Become Men through the Eyes of War is a story of two young boys growing up in the mountains of Western North Carolina during the turbulent years surrounding the Civil War. Having become blood brothers following a Cherokee Indian tradition, they promised to always have each others back. Although following the declaration of war, each boy had to follow his own conscience and march to a different drummer, one going north, one going south.

Women with fish tails are among the oldest and still most popular of mythological creatures, possessing a powerful allure and compelling ambiguity. They dwell right in the uncanniest valley of the sea: so similar to humans, yet profoundly other. Mermaids: Art, Symbolism and Mythology presents a comprehensive, interdisciplinary and beautifully illustrated study of mermaids and their influence on Western culture. The roots of mermaid mythology and its metamorphosis through the centu...

The economic and political rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and Middle-Income Countries (MICs) have important implications for global agrarian transformation.These emerging economies are undergoing profound changes as key sites of the production, circulation, and consumption of agricultural commodities; hosts to abundant cheap labour and natural resources; and home to growing numbers of both poor but also, increasingly, affluent consumers. Separately and t...

This collection of essays in Governing Global Land Deals provides new empirical and theoretical analyses of the relationships between global land grabs and processes of government and governance.Reframes debates on global land grabs by focusing on the relationship between large-scale land deals and processes of governanceOffers new theoretical insights into the different forms and effects of global land acquisitionsIlluminates both the micro-proce...

Prince Royce was banished after standing up for his father's honor. Upon meeting the cursed princess, their separate paths became one as they worked to bring justice for the Zuzax Tribe and to unite their fractured societies.Ben Hall is a writer by day and reader by night. He has authored the St. Noir comic book series that cover the adventures of Captain Cobalt, the Sonic Sleuth and the Mysteries of the Muze.After serving 8 years with the Marine Corps infa...