World Elite

Enjoy 15 scintillating tales in this eclectic collection where characters seek honor, truth, retribution, and in one case, a place to sell 300-year-old Lavian brandy.

The selection began with 35 girls. Now, with the group narrowed down to the Elite, the competition to win Prince Maxon's love is fiercer than ever. The closer America gets to the crown, the more she struggles to figure out where her heart truly lies. Each moment she spends with Maxon is like a fairy tale, filled with breathless, glittering romance. But whenever she sees her first love, Aspen, standing guard, she's swept up in longing for the life they'd planned to share.

Hunting monsters was supposed to be the hard part. When Joy came to Apex City, all she cared about was protecting the Cits from the dangers lurking outside protective barriers. She understood the need for the secrecy surrounding her hunts - no need to cause a panic by announcing just how real of a threat the Othersiders pose. But as she quickly discovered, the conspiracies of the city run much deeper. And a dangerous new covert mission leaves Joy with a target on her back once more.

What does an elite Navy SEAL Team operator trained to kill the United States’ most dangerous enemies do when he realizes his skills aren’t being properly utilized? He leaves the Navy. In American Mercenary, Daniel Corbett takes listeners on a wild ride through the unadulterated, morally ambiguous, and riveting world of being a hired gun. From Abu Dhabi to Washington, D.C., Cairo to San Diego, Belgrade to places that must remain secret, this is a world where money rules, and where adventure, danger, and absurdity often follow.

From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen, Somalia, and beyond, Scahill speaks to the CIA agents, mercenaries, and elite Special Operations Forces operators who populate the dark side of American war-fighting. He goes deep into al Qaeda-held territory in Yemen and walks the streets of Mogadishu with CIA-backed warlords. We also meet the survivors of US night raids and drone strikes - including families of US citizens targeted for assassination by their own government - who reveal the human consequences of the dirty wars the United States struggles to keep hidden.

For over seventy years, the Korean Peninsula has existed under the shadow of unfinished war. Facing one of the world’s largest armies just across the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea has had to forge a defense force unlike any other. At the sharpest edge of that effort stands the Republic of Korea Army Special Warfare Command (ROK-SWC) — better known as the Black Berets.

The extraordinary firsthand account of an American special forces unit in the jungles of southeast Asia and their guerilla operations against the Japanese during World War II!

Britain's Special Air Service - or SAS - was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young, gadabout aristocrat whose aimlessness in early life belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a battlefield map of World War II's African theater and saw a protracted struggle with Rommel's desert forces, Stirling saw an opportunity: Given a small number of elite, well-trained men, he could parachute behind enemy lines and sabotage their airplanes and war matériel.

On opposite sides of the pond, Sonia Butt, an adventurous young British woman, and Guy d’Artois, a French-Canadian soldier and thunderstorm of a man, are preparing for war. From different worlds, their lives first intersect during clandestine training to become agents with Winston Churchill’s secret army, the Special Operations Executive. As the world’s deadliest conflict to date unfolds, Sonia and Guy learn how to parachute into enemy territory, how to kill, blow up rail lines, and eventually . . . how to love each other.

Marines. The name alone carries weight. It conjures images of flag-raisers at Iwo Jima, drill instructors breaking down recruits on the training field, and Marines in crisp dress blues standing tall in ceremonies that echo with centuries of tradition. But behind the iconic photographs and battlefield legends lies a deeper, more human story. The U.S. Marine Corps: Boot Camp to Battlefields is that story told in full—an exploration of the history, traditions, challenges, and spirit of one of the world’s most respected fighting forces.

The chief endowment officers at (CIOs) at endowments, foundations, family offices, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds are the leaders in the world of finance. They marshal trillions of dollars on behalf of their institutions and influence how capital flows throughout the world. But these elite investors live outside of the public eye. Across the entire investment industry, few participants understand how these holders of the keys to the kingdom allocate their time and their capital.

In the predawn hours of March 4, 2002, just below the 10,000-foot peak of a mountain in eastern Afghanistan, a fierce battle raged. Outnumbered by Al Qaeda fighters, Air Force Combat Controller John Chapman and a handful of SEALs struggled to take the summit in a desperate bid to find a lost teammate. Chapman, leading the charge, was gravely wounded in the initial assault. Believing he was dead, his SEAL leader ordered a retreat. Chapman regained consciousness, alone with the enemy closing in on three sides, beginning the most difficult and exceptional fight of his life.

Kara Goucher grew up with Olympic dreams. She excelled at running from a young age and was offered a Nike sponsorship deal when she graduated from college. Then in 2004, she was invited to join a secretive, lavishly funded new team, dubbed the Nike Oregon Project. Coached by distance running legend Alberto Salazar, it seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime. Kara was soon winning a World Championship medal, going to the Olympics, and standing on the podium at the New York and Boston marathons, just like her coach. But behind the scenes, Salazar was hiding dark secrets.

For Tracey Rooks, life with her grandparents on a Wyoming farm has always been simple. But after her grandmother's death, Tracey is all her grandfather has. So when Eagle Elite University announces its annual scholarship lottery, Tracey jumps at the opportunity to secure their future and enters. She isn't expecting much - but then she wins. And life as she knows it will never be same…

Former New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can--except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it.

It is difficult to find another soldier's story to equal Captain Darrell Watt's in terms of time spent on the field of battle and challenges faced. Even by the lofty standards of the SAS and Special Forces, one has to look far to find anyone who can match his record of resilience and valor in the face of such daunting odds and with resources so paltry. In the fight, he showed himself to be a military maestro. After 12 years in the cauldron of war, his cause slipped from beneath him, and Rhodesia gave way to Zimbabwe.

First published in 1956, The Power Elite stands as a contemporary classic of social science and social criticism. C. Wright Mills examines and critiques the organization of power in the United States, calling attention to three firmly interlocked prongs of power: the military, corporate, and political elite. The Power Elite can be enjoyed as a good account of what was taking place in America at the time it was written, but its underlying question of whether America is as democratic in practice as it is in theory continues to matter very much today.

In the late 2000s, Molly Bloom, a 20-something petite brunette from Loveland, Colorado, ran the highest stakes, most exclusive poker game in existence. Hundreds of millions of dollars were won and lost at her table. Molly's game became the game for those in the know - celebrities, business moguls and millionaires. Molly staged her games in palatial suites with beautiful views and exquisite amenities. She flew privately, dined at exquisite restaurants, hobnobbed with the heads of Hollywood studios, was courted by handsome leading men....

Everyone knows Jonathan Brond as the playboy congressman. They don't know he's hiding a second life - one he only shares with select women. Christiana is tired of trying to stay afloat, at school, at home, and with her socialite best friend. She's desperate for something new, something different.

A single company of US paratroopers—calling themselves the "Chosen Few"—arrived in eastern Afghanistan in late 2007 hoping to win the hearts and minds of the remote mountain people and extend the Afghan government's reach into this wilderness. Instead, they spent the next fifteen months in a desperate struggle, living under almost continuous attack, forced into a slow and grinding withdrawal, and always outnumbered by Taliban fighters descending on them from all sides.