Urban City

New York has long been both America’s leading cultural center and its sports capital, with far more championship teams, intracity World Series, and major prizefights than any other city. New York Sports collects the work of 14 leading sport historians, providing new insight into the social and cultural history of America’s major metropolis and of the United States.

Last Subway is the fascinating and dramatic story behind New York City's struggle to build a new subway line under Second Avenue and improve transit services all across the city. With his extraordinary access to powerful players and internal documents, Philip Mark Plotch reveals why the city's subway system, once the best in the world, is now too often unreliable, overcrowded, and uncomfortable. Last Subway offers valuable lessons in how governments can overcome political gridlock and enormous obstacles to build grand projects.

Urban fantasy offers a diverse playground for some extremely powerful stories. Professional writer and editor Kerrie L. Hughes pulled some fantastic tales out of 14 top writers for this fifth installment of Fiction River. Set in urban lands from modern Portland, to a future Detroit, to a wild Washington, D.C., and ending the tour in London, these top writers take the idea of "Hex" and stretch and twist it into stories with a magickal grip on the imagination.

En 1923, Helena Lennox tiene 17 años y un único deseo: sustituir las calles de Londres por una vida de aventuras y excavaciones en tierras lejanas. En consecuencia, cuando sus padres se marchan a la India para investigar la desaparición de unos arqueólogos, ella decide acompañarlos…unos días después y a escondidas. Son muchas las leyendas que circulan en torno a la ciudad fantasma de Bhangarh, pero Helena nunca ha creído en las supersticiones. No obstante, el príncipe Arshad de Jaipur (sí, ese que odia a los ingleses) le insiste en que se equivoca: Bhangarh está maldita.

It's tough being a faery in New Orleans, a city fraught with vampires...especially when their very existence drains your life force. Willow Rhoswen, owner of The Fated Cupcake and part-time vampire hunter for the Void is having a rough week. Four years after her twin brother's mysterious death, Willow's life is threatened and the director saddles her with a new partner-her ex-boyfriend, David. To her horror, he's turned vamp, which causes her physical pain whenever she touches him

The Cherry Spot dives into the lives of dancers Apache, Tropics, and Tamara, along with madam Ja'kiera and her stable Erika, Paisley, and Serena. We witness firsthand the battles they won as well as those they lost. Throw in a demented serial killer and you have the perfect recipe for disaster. Who lives and who dies all depends on how hard they fight to survive. Listen to the minutes of this full-length novel to find out the outcome of their tribulation and trials.

Conceived in the Gilded Age, the Ferry Building opened in 1898 as San Francisco's portal to the world—the terminus of the transcontinental railway and a showcase of civic ambition. In silent films and World's Fair postcards, nothing said "San Francisco" more than its soaring clock tower. But as acclaimed architectural critic John King recounts, the rise of the automobile and double-deck freeways severed the city from its beloved structure. King's narrative spans the rise and fall and rebirth of the Ferry Building, introducing colorful figures who fought to preserve its character.

We often appreciate the courage of soldiers of the Indian Army, performing their duties in adverse circumstances, as we sit on the couch in our well-furnished, air conditioned rooms, expressing a slight tint of grief in case of a mishappening. The hot discussions over the matters on television boil our blood for a couple of minutes, but everything becomes normal after a short period of time. This novel reveals the lives of those soliders and their families - how terrorism proved to be fatal in different ways and how humanism reaches the highest peaks.

A prequel story in the reverse harem Nighthelm Guardian series. City of the Rebel Runes is an alternative relationship dynamic that supports our badass heroine's right to choose more than one man. Get ready for a breathtaking story, soulmate romance, lip-biting love scenes, mind-blowing magic, one kickass heroine, three gorgeous men, lots of toned muscles, fights to the death, and edge-of-your-seat action.

Even when I’m not chasing kidnappers, I don’t keep normal hours. I’m a journalist; late nights, burnt coffee, and energy potions come with the territory. When I get lost in a story or deep in pre-publication crunch time, I can’t quit just because the sun’s been down for eight hours. So when my best friend called me well after midnight to say she was being followed, I was already halfway out the door before the call could be hexed. I wasn’t fast enough. By the time I arrived she was gone--vanished from within an impenetrable magical ward.

Twenty years of addiction to cloud, a drug which wipes the user’s short-term memory, have left single mom Mellie with her mind in fragments. With the help of a tough-minded sponsor, and motivated by her own medically challenged daughter, Mellie clings to a fragile sobriety. Then, on the evening of her 29th day sober, a stranger pulls into her driveway and her heart surges. However, when Mellie’s pursuit of this man and the past they may share threatens her sponsor, Mellie will have to put her tiny family and her recovery at risk in hopes of saving the woman who saved her first.

It's time for Ruby Achera to complete the quest and become the Mist Elves' new Mirra—or die trying. Will the venture into the unknown bring new threats? Well, of course. It's Magic City. Meanwhile, the anti-human sentiment is coming out into the open. Julianna Sloane is plotting to bring not just one casino, but all of them, under her control. Overshadowing it all is the Paranormal Defense Agency.

Rare gemstones in a casino is catnip to criminals. Ruby Achera will need Idryll the tiger-woman and Morrigan the archer to suit up and protect the exhibit at Spirits Casino. But who is the mysterious figure leading the criminal enterprise? Can Ruby get back to Oriceran in time to fulfill a prophecy? Being in two places at once will take a team. Diana Sheen, Rath the troll, and the Federal Agents of Magic are back for tech support.

Magic City is full of hustlers, con men and magicals just out for a good time. The perfect mix of glamour and gangsters. But underneath it all, a con man is scheming to pull it all apart. Can Ruby and her weretiger, Idryll, find a way to save her hometown before time runs out? Or will her quest lead her to her own unforeseen destiny? New challenges can also bring new allies. A Drow trader with an eclectic set of resources offers to help. A purple-haired troll who offers to teach her to fly or the hooded archer whose help Ruby can't decline. Are they really friends or foes?

The Mist Casino sits just above a kemana with an interior that would make a ghost feel right at home. Of course it does. After all, Magic City has to compete with nearby Vegas. Ruby is just back from University for the summer, catching up with an old friend, when everything changes with a bang! A series of small blasts are exploding all around her. Chips are flying through the air. Someone wanted to announce their arrival in town. But who? Ruby is about to get drawn into a battle for control of Magic City. They just made the fight personal. Is the Ebon Dragon Casino next?

When Michael Matthews first visited Detroit, he was grimly fascinated by the place. Over dozens of visits, he got to know the people - cops, reporters, and gang members as well as ordinary Detroiters trying to live their lives in peace, and formed deep bonds with them, which led him into places and situations, no writer has ever seen before. American Ruin is the story of Michael’s journey into the soul of this broken city - a shocking, violent, and heartbreaking portrayal of a modern tragedy.

Never Ran, Never Will tells the story of the working-class, mostly black neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn; its proud youth football team, the Mo Better Jaguars; and the young boys who are often at the center of both. Oomz, Gio, Hart, and their charismatic, vulnerable friends come together on a dusty football field. All around them, their community is threatened by violence, poverty, and the specter of losing their homes to gentrification. Their passionate, unpaid coaches teach hard lessons about surviving American life with little help from the outside world.

The kingpins of Oklahoma City, one from the north side and one from the south side, push pounds of weed, gallons of PCP, and kilos of cocaine through the corridors of the OKC, using very different methods to keep their people in line. King is the leader of the north side crew. Along with his protégé, Tippi, he runs his crew with deadly force. Each member knows there is no room for error when it comes to getting money on the north side. Flamboyant, the leader of the south side crew, is the opposite.

Billy Sothern's Down in New Orleans illustrates, in very human and heartbreaking ways, how the horrors that emerged during and following Hurricane Katrina existed long before the storm. These beautifully composed stories not only reveal the dignity—and amazing grit and grace—of the hurricane's survivors; they also illuminate larger truths about the urgent issues of our day.

When Rodney Mason, an ex-con drug dealer from Newark's rough South Ward, was shot and paralyzed, he vowed to turn his life around. A former high-school pitching ace with a 93-mph fastball, Mason decided to form a Little League team to help boys avoid the street life that had claimed his youth and mobility. Predictably, the players struggle but through the fists and tears, lopsided losses and rare victories, this bunch of misfits becomes a team, and in doing so gives the community something to root for.