Desert Star

In this captivating sequel to Desert Rose, popular novelist Linda Chaikin takes readers out west for a spirited romance. Callie Halliday glitters as she sweeps across the stage in Virginia City. With her career on the rise, Callie is determined to find a respectable husband. And Rick Delance, a gunfighter with a dangerous reputation, doesn't fit the bill. But when someone breaks into Callie's dressing room and she survives some mishaps, it's obvious someone wants to harm her. Turning to the only man who can protect her, she contacts Rick Delance. As the actress and gunslinger face danger together, will the young woman's heart soften? Will she become a glittering star in the desert...or will she follow her heart?

LAPD detective Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch team up to hunt the brutal killer who is Bosch’s “white whale”—a man responsible for the murder of an entire family. A year has passed since LAPD detective Renée Ballard quit the force in the face of misogyny, demoralization, and endless red tape. But after the chief of police himself tells her she can write her own ticket within the department, Ballard takes back her badge, leaving “the Late Show” to rebuild and lead the cold case unit at the elite Robbery-Homicide Division. For years, Harry Bosch has been working a case that haunts him—the murder of an entire family by a psychopath who still walks free. Ballard makes Bosch an offer: come volunteer as an investigator in her new Open-Unsolved Unit, and he can pursue his “white whale” with the resources of the LAPD behind him. First priority for Ballard is to clear the unsolved rape and murder of a sixteen-year-old girl. The decades-old case is essential to the councilman who supported re-forming the unit, and who could shutter it again—the victim was his sister. When Ballard gets a “cold hit” connecting the killing to a similar crime, proving that a serial predator has been at work in the city for years, the political pressure has never been higher. To keep momentum going, she has to pull Bosch off his own investigation, the case that is the consummation of his lifelong mission. The two must put aside old resentments and new tensions to run to ground not one but two dangerous killers who have operated with brash impunity. In what may be his most gripping and profoundly moving book yet, Michael Connelly shows once again why he has been dubbed “one of the greatest crime writers of all time” (Ryan Steck, Crimereads).

Amateur sleuth Spencer Reed takes her grandfather to the Wind Star Ranch in Tucson, a horse ranch and assisted care facility on the edge of the Saguaro Desert where her grandfather plans to spend the remainder of the winter. Spencer loves warm and arid Tucson. It beats a snowy winter in Minnesota. And Wind Star Ranch seems like a nice place filled with nice people. Who can resist the family legend of a fortune in missing gold hidden on the ranch? It soon becomes apparent that all is not fine when the owner ends up murdered in her sleep. Spencer decides to stay with her grandfather until the police catch the killer, unaware that she has made herself a target. Join Spencer in the beautiful Arizona desert as she scrambles to identify a killer and locate a lost fortune in gold before the killer strikes again. Book Three in the Spencer Reed Mystery series. A female amateur sleuth cozy mystery series.

When Sadiq's father leaves on a business trip, he worries he'll miss his baba too much. But Baba has a story for Sadiq: the story of the Desert Star. Learning about Baba's passion for the stars sparks Sadiq's interest in outer space. But can Sadiq find others who are willing to help him start the space club of his dreams? The Capstone Interactive edition comes with simultaneous access for every student in your school and includes read aloud audio recorded by professional voice over artists.

Brown Bear is dead. Desert Star has vanished. When the tribe seeks revenge and captures a white settler's daughter, Maria, Morning Breeze decides to use her to track down the man responsible for their fate—little knowing that his adversary is himself pursuing Maria ... The trail leads Breeze to Finsbury, the official in charge of "Indian Affairs," who believes that ends justify means. The white man's ends, that is. Can Breeze salvage anything of his people's honor in the face of advancing "civilization"? And will he ever be reunited with his beloved Desert Star?

When Sadiq's father leaves on a business trip, he worries he'll miss his baba too much. But Baba has a story for Sadiq: the story of the Desert Star. Learning about Baba's passion for the stars sparks Sadiq's interest in outer space. But can Sadiq find others who are willing to help him start the space club of his dreams?

From its designation in 1926 to the rise of the interstates nearly sixty years later, Route 66 was, in John Steinbeck’s words, America’s Mother Road, carrying countless travelers the 2,400 miles between Chicago and Los Angeles. Whoever they were—adventurous motorists or Dustbowl migrants, troops on military transports or passengers on buses, vacationing families or a new breed of tourists—these travelers had to eat. The story of where they stopped and what they found, and of how these roadside offerings changed over time, reveals twentieth-century America on the move, transforming the nation’s cuisine, culture, and landscape along the way. Author T. Lindsay Baker, a glutton for authenticity, drove the historic route—or at least the 85 percent that remains intact—in a four-cylinder 1930 Ford station wagon. Sparing us the dust and bumps, he takes us for a spin along Route 66, stopping to sample the fare at diners, supper clubs, and roadside stands and to describe how such venues came and went—even offering kitchen-tested recipes from historic eateries en route. Start-ups that became such American fast-food icons as McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, Steak ’n Shake, and Taco Bell feature alongside mom-and-pop diners with flocks of chickens out back and sit-down restaurants with heirloom menus. Food-and-drink establishments from speakeasies to drive-ins share the right-of-way with other attractions, accommodations, and challenges, from the Whoopee Auto Coaster in Lyons, Illinois, to the piles of “chat” (mining waste) in the Tri-State District of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, to the perils of driving old automobiles over the Jericho Gap in the Texas Panhandle or Sitgreaves Pass in western Arizona. Describing options for the wealthy and the not-so-well-heeled, from hotel dining rooms to ice cream stands, Baker also notes the particular travails African Americans faced at every turn, traveling Route 66 across the decades of segregation, legal and illegal. So grab your hat and your wallet (you’ll probably need cash) and come along for an enlightening trip down America’s memory lane—a westward tour through the nation’s heartland and history, with all the trimmings, via Route 66.

Complicated Lives focuses on the lives of sixty-five drug-using girls in the juvenile justice system (living in group homes, a residential treatment center, and a youth correctional facility) who grew up in families characterized by parental drug use, violence, and child maltreatment. Vera Lopez situates girls’ relationships with parents who fail to live up to idealized parenting norms and examines how these relationships change over time, and ultimately contribute to the girls’ future drug use and involvement in the justice system. While Lopez’s subjects express concerns and doubt in their chances for success, Lopez provides an optimistic prescription for reform and improvement of the lives of these young women and presents a number of suggestions ranging from enhanced cultural competency training for all juvenile justice professionals to developing stronger collaborations between youth and adult serving systems and agencies.

Field guide to over 120 common flowering plants of the Mojave. Includes plants found at Death Valley National Park Joshua Tree National Park, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Color photo portfolio. Includes index.

Publisher Description

Was this a mutual enmity? The brother next door who always liked to bully her was actually the CEO of a new company! Was the heavens trying to destroy her rhythm? However, this was still the worst! The most miserable thing was that she actually wanted to marry him! Oh my god! How was she going to live!

This book brings critical perspectives towards questions of how precarity and precariousness affect the work of leaders and educators in schools and universities around the world. It theorises the effects of precarity, and the experiences of educators working in precarious environments. The work of school improvement takes time. Developing a highly-skilled and confident teaching workforce requires a long-term investment and commitment. Schools in vulnerable communities face higher rates of turnover and difficulty in staffing than advantaged schools do. Tackling the big issues in education – inequity, opportunity gaps, democracy and cohesion – also takes time. Education systems and sectors around the globe are functioning in increasingly casualised workforce environments, which has implications for leadership in schools and in higher education institutions. Precarity also holds serious implications for policymakers and for the leaders and educators who have to enact those policies. This book brings together experts in the field to offer critical perspectives on questions of how we might theorise the effects of precarity, and the experiences of those people working in precarious environments. Educational Leadership and Policy in a Time of Precarity will be a key resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of education leadership and policy, educational administration, research methods, and sociology. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Educational Administration and History.