Urban City

On a December morning in 1982, the courtyard of a Beijing siheyuan - a lively quadrangle of homes - begins to stir. Auntie Xue’s son Jiyue is getting married today, and she is determined to make the day a triumph. Despite Jiyue’s woeful ignorance in matters of the heart - and the body. Despite a chef in training tasked with the onerous responsibility of preparing the banquet.

In recent years the young, educated, and affluent have surged back into cities, reversing decades of suburban flight and urban decline. And yet all is not well, Richard Florida argues in The New Urban Crisis. Florida demonstrates how the same forces that power the growth of the world's superstar cities also generate their vexing challenges: gentrification, unaffordability, segregation, and inequality.

This book contains the exact steps that took me from being a city dweller with zero survival skills to becoming a self-sufficient master of both urban and wilderness environments in less than six months. Want to know the biggest difference between those two time periods? A comprehensive understanding of survival techniques adaptable to any situation. The problem is—most people don't know how to effectively prepare for and navigate through crisis situations, whether in bustling cities or remote wilderness. I wrote this book to solve your survival preparedness problem.

Mystery. Love. Lies. It's been a year since Grace's world was ripped asunder. The Shadow Children are fighting a losing battle to rescue the halfborn from the Silent Homes, but when a routine mission takes a sinister turn, Grace and her friends are faced with an impossible decision - battle on alone and risk losing everything, or place their trust in the people who have hunted them for centuries. With allies by her side and enemies at her heels, Grace must negotiate her way through the secrets and lies that pave the roads of the Shadow City. The dark is closing in....

These legendary mystics want a peaceful life. But with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance, a new mission brings them too close to darkness. Anne Le Clair and Michael Levy prefer the mundane joys of parenthood to any more world-saving. But when all the crystal key holders are summoned to Peru, they must once more answer the call of duty. For there in the Andes, lies a mystical doorway that can usher in a new golden age. Preparing for an ancient ritual to open the gate for the Old Ones to return, the couple is trailed by a sinister magician.

Inspired by the real-life murder of a British army soldier by religious fanatics, and the rampant burning of mosques that followed, Guy Gunaratne’s In Our Mad and Furious City is a snapshot of the diverse, frenzied edges of modern-day London. A crackling debut from a vital new voice, it pulses with the frantic energy of the city’s homegrown grime music and is animated by the youthful rage of a dispossessed, overlooked, and often misrepresented generation.

Chicago: home to urban Indians and immigrants and working folks and the whole gamut of people getting by in a world that doesn't care whether they do so or not. Sacred City is an incomparable follow-up to Van Alst's award-winning debut collection, Sacred Smokes. Our young narrator now heads deeper into the heart of the city and himself, accompanied by ancestors and spirits who help him and the audience see that Chicago was, is, and always will be Indian Country.

În Brooklynul înzăpezit, o tamponare ușoară în trafic declanșează o neașteptată poveste de iubire târzie. Richard Bowmaster, un profesor universitar ipohondru și solitar, lovește mașina condusă de o guatemaleză, Evelyn Ortega, care trăiește și lucrează ilegal în casa unui afacerist dubios. Ceea ce la început pare un accident minor ia o turnură neașteptată când tânara, în mod evident terorizată, sună la ușa lui Richard. Speriat, acesta cere ajutorul Lucíei Maraz, proaspăta lui chiriașă și colegă, o chiliană greu încercată de viață, dar voluntară și optimistă.

In der Dunkelheit erwacht deine Phönixmagie. Einst opferte sich der letzte Phönix, um die Menschheit zu beschützen. Noch heute kämpfen auserwählte Menschen mit ihren Phönixkräften gegen dunkle Feinde. Als Eden eines Nachts in den Straßen San Franciscos von düsteren Gestalten angegriffen und von vier Fremden mit Waffen aus Licht gerettet wird, erfährt sie, dass sie selbst eine Phönixkriegerin ist. Doch wieso zeigt sich bei ihr keine Lichtgabe? Und was verbirgt der unnahbare Krieger Kane, dessen Blicke Eden unter die Haut gehen?

Police inspector Cecilie Mars is a different kind of cop. She has a heavy cocaine habit, fantasizes about vigilante violence, and constantly falls in love with men she shouldn’t. Late one night, while tailing a suspect, Mars makes an ill-fated choice that has far-reaching consequences. Unluckily for her, her misstep has been observed and filmed. Now, an anonymous foe is threatening to reveal the truth unless she submits to his terrifying agenda.

Ruby Achera's got problems galore. Bounty hunters and assassins to the left of her. A vengeful Drow to her right. A deadly creature intent on taking over Magic City has just arrived in town looking for payback. And he's out for blood. Can Ruby fight off the evil artifact embedded in her arm long enough to fight back?

The criminals in Magic City have realized Ruby, Morrigan, and Idryll aren't giving up. Gabriel "The Nightmare" Sloane is pulling out all the stops to take them out. Corrupt security companies gathering magical weaponry? Check. Deadly assassin adding a Rhazdon artifact to the arsenal? Check. Layers upon layers of traps and deceptions? Check. Ruby's friends and family are in greater danger than ever. She's going to need some serious help. Calling all Federal Agents of Magic.

If I don't act soon, then Oscar is going to pay the price that should be mine. The more time passes, the more certain I am that the City of Blood has to fall. And I'm going to be the one to make it happen. But I can't do it alone. Before I can begin, I have to pull off the most daring rescue mission ever. Only then can I start planning how to make the mayor pay.

The Rebellion is over, and the members executed. But I'm still alive...for now. I did the one thing I wasn't supposed to, putting myself and others in danger. Now, it's just me and the illegally turned vampire living in my one bedroom apartment against the world. Unless we can persuade Catherine to help.

The City of Blood should be a safe haven for vampire kind, but it doesn't look that way from where I'm standing. Strict curfews, mandatory check-ins, and the constant threat of being executed, it's almost as dangerous for vampires to live here as it is to be human. And I want to bring the regime down. One wrong step, and lives will be lost...including my own. Drop of Blood is book one of the City of Blood series, a gritty vampire urban fantasy with a slow burn romantic sub-plot.

Groundhog Day meets the worst super-spy, ever. Every time Rueben Peet dies, he "returns" to his body with the memories of what's to come. It seems that he gets to "repeat" his mistakes again and again. Good thing, too.... Rueben is the worst super-spy ever. When New York City comes under threat of nuclear destruction, Rueben is the only one who can save the city. But even an infinite number of redos is not enough, for lurking in the background is a nefarious force threatening not only NYC, but also the world.

As Michael maneuvers through his working-class neighborhood delivering groceries, he enters the homes and lives of his customers. He’s confronted by the school yard and street corner violence of local thugs. With the 1967 Arab-Israeli War fresh in public memory, he passes for Greek or Italian and never summons the courage to explain, exactly, who he is or where his parents came from.

After being left for dead by her mother, dissed by her peers, held responsible for her siblings, and forgotten by society, Murdonna Carter finds herself in one hell of a predicament. With no money, food, or electricity, she learns quickly how to survive. In the ghetto, you either kill or be killed and grind or you starve! Tired of going to bed hungry, she realizes it's do or die. For the love of family, she puts her own life on the line and does the unthinkable. Will her gamble pay off, or will it open up a can of worms she won't be able to close?

All Daniel Sharabi wanted was a family of his own. Born into a collectivist society of telepaths, he grew up believing that he and his lover Rebecca would form a new breeding cell, helping to raise the next generation of their people. But when Daniel reaches adulthood, he learns that his psychic talents are mediocre at best. He soon finds himself marginalized by the society he dedicated his life to.

In the poverty-stricken neighborhoods of the Street, ordinary citizens are turning up dead, their bodies drained of blood. What seems at first like a string of vampire attacks is soon revealed to be something even more frightening. But in the dayside world of the city's upper levels, no one notices what happens to a few dead street rats. Kathryn Kitaen, a magic affairs detective for the Metamor City Police Department, isn't supposed to be on this case or any other. Judged unfit for duty after a recent shooting, Kate is on indefinite leave.