Secrets aren’t made for the shadows. They’re made for full-color comic panels. Former Coat Warden and now-reclusive comic book artist David Felman has a secret, one he’s poised to reveal to the world—if only he can dot the i’s, cross the t’s, and shade the last few claws. David’s time on dragon back has him perfectly situated to reveal some of the horrors the government would rather the public not know about their dealings with the winged creatures. Jade Atallah has always wanted one thing: to do her family proud by becoming a Coat Warden. Having passed all the tests and made it into the elite Blacking Program, paired with her black-scaled dragon Night Armor, she thinks she’s done just that. But when her assignment to tail a certain artist results in gaining unsavory knowledge about the program she works for, everything she knows is called into question. With the fate of her own dragon hanging in the balance, along with the many others who are part of the Blackwing Program, Jade must team up with David to make sure the truth comes to light. And they must do so quickly, before the government manages to silence them for good. *** It's the Roaring Twenties—speakeasies are around every corner, jazz is burning up Harlem, and the dragon population is booming. But it's a lonely job for the brave Coat Wardens who patrol the skies of the Eastern Americas, as love is even harder to hold on to than the dragons they fly…

What better place for a silver dragon than the silver screen? Being a dragon rider has a lot of privileges, but longevity isn’t one of them. If the jocust beetles or the whiptail wyverns or a long fall from a great height didn't get them, the clock always would. The last thing Oscar Merrick wants is to delay his government-mandated retirement, but when his friend Jimmy comes to him with an outrageous idea to make the first talkie with an actual dragon in it, Oscar can’t resist his friend’s starry-eyed pleading or his dragoncoat’s bubbling excitement. After all, a few weeks’ delay in Baltimore before heading to the mines of West Virginia won’t be the end of the world, right? With the entertainment industry shifting from movies to talkies, silver screen star Scarlett Owens can no longer hide her deep voice or her Appalachian accent. Dropped by her agent and faced with retirement, Scarlett jumps at the chance to act in a new talkie—even if the crazy director wants her to star alongside a frightfully scary metal dragon. Once on set, Oscar and Scarlett find themselves pushed together in ways they never expected—and not minding it nearly as much as each would have thought. Can the duo produce a successful talkie, and also use it to keep them both from their all-too-early retirements? Or will industry jealousies and salacious secrets from their pasts force them apart forever?

Beyond Boundaries: East and West Cross-Cultural Encounters is a collection of essays which span several countries, centuries and disciplines in their exploration of East-West cultural exchanges and interactions. The chapters are arranged in chronological and thematic order, and encompass the cutting edge research of a diverse group of international scholars. The subjects range from archaeology, art history and photography, to conservation, sociology and cultural studies, with cross-disciplinary examples of classical, modern and contemporary periods. The book seeks to inspire new ideas and stimulate further scholarly debate on the convergence, dissimilarities and mutual influences of the visual arts and material culture of Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students working in the fields of art and cultural history as well as intercultural studies. It will be equally useful to collectors, artists and curators of global art and world cultures.

Over the past three decades it has emerged as a more visually exciting modern genre, which now offers fascinating insights into the people of modern China.".

An introduction to a millennium's worth of Chinese paintings features 400 classical works by more than 240 artists that represent their different historical periods, in a volume that offers insight into how Chinese art uniquely reflects cultural perspectives and the natural world.