In a world of magic, dragons, and spirits of power, sixteen-year-old Claire serves as the feared and hated heir to a crumbling throne. In the dark of the night, a sinister force takes her mother, the queen that protects her people. Claire must travel untamed lands armed only with the very powers that her own people fear and a temperamental little brother who carries his own scars. They must face ancient threats to find the queen their people desperately need to survive. Can she return her mother to the throne? Will her people wither without a powerful ruler?

Biography of Lord Longford

A fascinating meld of two scholars' research and conclusions, The Imagination of Class is a synthetic journey through middle-class Victorian discourse posed by poverty in the midst of plenty--but not that alone. Rather Dan Bivona and Roger B. Henkle argue that the representation of abject poverty in the nineteenth century also displaced anxieties aroused by a variety of challenges to Victorian middle class masculinity. The book's main argument, in fact, is that the male middle class imagery of urban poverty in the Victorian age presents a complex picture, one in which anxieties about competition, violence, class-based resentment, individuality, and the need to differentiate oneself from the scions of inherited wealth influence mightily the ways in which the urban poor are represented. In the representations themselves, the urban poor are alternately envisioned as sentimentalized (and feminized) victims who stimulate middle class affective response, as the objects of the professionalized discourses of the social sciences (and social services), and as an often hostile social force resistant to the "culturalizing," taming processes of a maternalist social science. Through carefully nuanced discussions of a variety of Victorian novelists, journalists, and sociological investigators (some well known, like Dickens, and others less well known, like Masterman and Greenwood), the book offers new insight into the role played by the imagination of the urban poor in the construction of Victorian middle class masculinity. Whereas many scholars have discussed the feminization of the poor, virtually no one has addressed how the poor have served as a site at which middle class men fashioned their own class and gender identity.

Contains Douglas Jerrold's novel St. Giles and St. James (selected issues, no. 1-29), illustrated by Leech.

Why do so many young adults (18 to 22) leave the church, and what will it take to bring them back? This important question is examined and duly answered in Essential Church?, a follow-up to Thom S. Rainer’s best-selling Simple Church cowritten this time with his son, research expert Sam Rainer. The book is based on a study of one-thousand so-called "church dropouts" who were interviewed about why they left. Their answers are quite surprising, having less to do with "losing their religion" and more about the desire for a community that isn’t made stale by simply maintaining the status quo. In turn, the Rainers offer churches four concrete solutions toward making their worship community an essential part these young people’s lives again: Simplify - develop a clear structure and process for making disciples. Deepen - provide strong biblical teaching and preaching. Expect - let members know the need for commitment to the congregation. Multiply - emphasize evangelism, outward focus, and starting new churches.

Book Three the finale of the Dyviniti Memoir Series. The Ligoncy Secrets III ; The UnNatural Rekindle the world is still in a transitory state of corruption and chaos. The Ligons, Jensens, and Braydens brave their world of trials and tribulations. Dyviniti and Zachary are approaching the one year anniversary when Dyviniti is awakened by a disturbing vision of approaching evil. She is submerged in this challenging nightmare which possibly has the makings of more destruction than previous encounters. Once again Dyviniti is propelled into another challenge which may possibly play in her favor or work against all she believes in and be her demise. Will she be consumed by the fires of evil and descend into a carnal world of ill-will? Find out in the Series Finale The UnNatural Rekindle