Urban Violence

America is an urban nation. More than two thirds of us live on the three percent of land that contains our cities. Yet cities get a bad rap: they're dirty, poor, unhealthy, crime ridden, expensive, environmentally unfriendly. Or are they? As Edward Glaeser proves in this myth-shattering book, cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in cultural and economic terms) places to live.

The dating pool was trash... Sharla was not looking when she came across his profile... He was everything! Fine... Built... Swag... The look of a savage in a good savage kind of way. A bad boy with all the markers. What could go wrong? She swiped right. He responded. They met. And he blew her mind! Knight was everybody's dream guy. His tall perfect frame, kissable lips and eyes that hypnotized had done Sharla in. But... What started off as something wonderful, started to show cracks. The layers peeled back. And what she saw was devastating! What happened? Find out! Read along in this ...

Bang! Bang! Bang! Shots rang out and echoed in the night... The assailant walked away and looked back once. She walked away cool and calm, vanishing into the night! She had stopped running! In her mind, he deserved it! All she could think of in that moment, was the fact that he would never get the chance to kill another woman’s spirit. Killing her spirit was the same as her dying… And Ursula felt dead! The trauma and injury inflicted upon her by the men proved too much, and her resilient and tough exterior crumbled under the strain. And when tragedy strikes, it ups the ante! Things go ...

Previously titled: An Obsessed Kind of Love Jessica is more than the baby momma of Dominic... She's a social media influencer with 1.1 million followers. Many worship her for all the wrong reasons. So does Dominic. What could go wrong... Everything! The more money she makes, the more naked she gets and some of her followers want more... Dominic aint having it! He wants her to stop. He wants her back. But when he realizes that she is enamored with his rival, all bets are off. Jessica doesn’t listen and soon, things start to happen. Dominic is watching. His jealousy is heating up. He ...

The peace between humans and vampires balances on a knife's edge, ready to descend into murderous chaos at any moment. It's up to the Assembly to discreetly clean up conflicts and track down criminals before bloodshed becomes a cause for concern. That's where Miles Watson comes in. As an Arbiter, he has free reign to find, adjudicate against, and punish perpetrators. And he operates just far enough outside the law to make sure those who break it get what's coming to them.

At a time when Google Maps can take you on a virtual tour of Yosemite's remotest trails and cell phones double as navigational systems, it's hard to imagine there's any uncharted ground left on the planet. In Unruly Places, Alastair Bonnett goes to some of the most unexpected, offbeat places in the world to reinspire our geographical imagination. Bonnett's remarkable tour includes moving villages, secret cities, no man's lands, and floating islands.

Shortly after a dismembered torso was discovered by a pond outside Philadelphia in 1887, investigators homed in on two suspects: Hannah Mary Tabbs, a married, working-class Black woman, and George Wilson, a former neighbor whom Tabbs implicated after her arrest. As details surrounding the shocking case emerged, both the crime and ensuing trial - which spanned several months - were featured in the national press. The trial brought otherwise taboo subjects such as illicit sex, adultery, and domestic violence in the Black community to public attention.

Urban violence is one of the most divisive and allegedly intractable issues of our time. But as Harvard scholar Thomas Abt shows in Bleeding Out, we actually possess all the tools necessary to stem violence in our cities. Coupling the latest social science with firsthand experience as a crime-fighter, Abt proposes a relentless focus on violence itself.

Women’s rights activist, Lynn Cummings, switches up churches like shoes. As soon as her anointing is exposed, she runs – that is, until she finds a pew at First Baptist Church, where Lynn is anchored by the wiles of the debonair Pastor Stewart. Lynn, becomes the woman on Stewart’s arm, and with that, becomes the target of women who are always up in Pastor Stewart’s face, namely, his quote-unquote friend Bianca, the skin-bleaching, man-worshipping teen choir director who’ll stop at nothing to become Stewart’s first lady. Even Nay, the wife of Stewart’s right hand man, Associate...

Baby-faced teen Giovanni Macedo is desperate to find belonging in one of LA's most predatory gangs, the Columbia Lil Cycos—so desperate that he agrees to kill an undocumented Mexican street vendor. The vendor, Francisco Clemente, had been refusing to give in to the gang's shakedown demands. But Giovanni botches the hit, accidentally killing a newborn instead. The overlords who rule the Lil Cycos from a Supermax prison 1,000 miles away must be placated and Giovanni is lured across the border where, in turn, the gang botches his killing.

Part 5 in the epic saga... An urban romance series not for the faint at heart! When all seems lost Rose fights to pull everything back together! But Boston has not been totally honest... His own secrets rip through her like sharpened knives! At the core of her is guilt from the pain of past wrongs that will devastate and already destroyed man! Boston's life is at a crossroads. And as he struggles to fight for his freedom, Rose delivers a final blow that could take him down. What will come of her secret. Will it be revealed. Not if Rose can help it! Read the final chapter in the series that ...

Oxford, 1836. The city of dreaming spires. It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world. And at its centre is Babel, the Royal Institute of Translation. The tower from which all the power of the Empire flows. Orphaned in Canton and brought to England by a mysterious guardian, Babel seemed like paradise to Robin Swift. Until it became a prison. But can a student stand against an empire?

Inner-city Black America is often stereotyped as a place of random violence; in fact, violence in the inner city is regulated through an informal but well-known code of the street. How you dress, talk, and behave can have life-or-death consequences, with young people particularly at risk. The most powerful force counteracting this code and its reign of terror is the strong, loving, decent family, and we meet many heroic figures in the course of this narrative.

Nikki Turner, Queen of Hip-Hop Lit, is back with one of her gutsiest female characters yet, a glamorous chick with a high-end hustle that can rival any man’s game. As the respected, renowned concierge for a luxury hotel chain, Beijing Lee caters to the wealthy and famous. Whether it’s securing a dinner reservation, a fleet of limos, or a record deal, or protecting her clients from the paparazzi, there’s nothing Beijing can’t do. She’s stacked up an impressive pile of IOUs from the world’s elite - and one day she decides it’s time to start cashing in.

On a warm spring evening in South Los Angeles, a young man is shot and killed on a sidewalk minutes away from his home, one of the thousands of Black Americans murdered that year. His assailant runs down the street, jumps into an SUV, and vanishes, hoping to join the scores of killers in American cities who are never arrested for their crimes. But as soon as the case is assigned to Detective John Skaggs, the odds shift.

Iesha never dreamed of falling in love again after escaping her abusive relationship with Vaughn… until she meets Jamaica. The two of them start off strong and loving, but it doesn’t take long for their relationship to take a turn for the worse. Vowing to never let another man abuse her, Iesha decides to fight back. But when push comes to shove and they go their separate ways, one takes it better than the other and that’s when things really get interesting.

All Eddie wants is to find a way out of the dangerous life he's living, where his friends are lost in a world of drugs and violence. Even his aunt wants to give him a gun so he can avenge the death of her son. But no matter how hard he works, Eddie can't seem to pull himself away from the sweltering sadness of the city. It's as if giant onions had been buried beneath him, Eddie thinks, releasing shimmering vapors off the black asphalt all around.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, American cities experienced an astonishing drop in violent crime. By 2014, the United States was safer than it had been in 60 years. Sociologist Patrick Sharkey gathered data from across the country to understand why this happened. Sharkey puts forth an entirely new approach to confronting violence and urban poverty. At a time when inequality, complacency, and conflict all threaten a new rise in violent crime, and the old methods of policing are unacceptable, the ideas in this book are indispensable.

Here's a tip: when you fall into Hell, seduce the devil. Not that the devil needs much seducing. He's seen all the twisted, blood-soaked things I've done on Earth, and he's already obsessed with me. A little too obsessed, if you ask me. I already have four mates, and they're more than enough trouble. But when the devil—I'm calling him Dev—gives me a chance to hit my psychopath father where it hurts and take out some of his minions, I jump at the chance. I'm not an assassin-for-hire, but if Eidolon keeps amassing power, he'll be even more dangerous.

A sweeping history of cities through the millennia - from Mesopotamia to Manhattan - and how they have propelled Homo sapiens to dominance.