Showing results by narrator "Tia Rider" in All Categories

An agile organization is not created by completely optimizing elements isolated from one another — in most cases, this involves teams. Often, though, agile odysseys start with this local (sub-)optimization, where at the same time their chosen agile method becomes the golden calf. Then the only attempt is to do the method justice rather than asking what creates more value for the customer. Typically, collaboration between the development areas of an organization and the business decision makers isn't taken into consideration.

In the small town of Black Bay, a vacant, forgotten house sits atop an overlooking bluff. When Bailey and Bodhi Taylor move in and begin renovations, the house seems perfect. But things move on their own, screams echo from the basement, and Bailey sees a shadowy figure out of the corner of her eye. Is the house haunted? And if it is, what does the ghost want with Bailey?

In The Crash of Flight 3804, Investigative Journalist Charlotte Dennett digs into her father’s counterintelligence work, which pitted him against America’s wartime allies - the British, the French, and the Russians - in a covert battle for geopolitical and economic influence in the Middle East. Through vivid storytelling, extensive research, and deep analysis of region-defining maps, she reveals how feverish competition among intelligence networks, military, and Big Oil interests have fueled indiscriminate attacks and targeted killings that continue to this day.

Growing up, it was only Gretchen and her mother, and their closeness strengthened an unbreakable bond. But after Gretchen’s mother tragically passes, she learns of the family her mother left behind at Redwood Ranch. Desperate to learn more about her mother’s past, Gretchen visits her estranged family only to discover the harsh truth of why her mother left in the first place.

I'm Not Stupid, I Have Hearing Loss is a story of hearing loss and hearing aids. Including hearing and brain care tips, the author shares experiences of having hearing loss and wearing hearing aids.

USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling author Jewel E. Ann returns with an addictive new adult romance about a young woman who discovers years of Sunday sermons didn’t prepare her for the many lessons of the crude and sexy man who is now her boss.

Parker Cruse despises cheaters. It might have something to do with her boyfriend sleeping with her twin sister. After a wedding day prank involving a strong laxative, that ends the already severed relationship between the twins, Parker decides to grow up and act 26. Step one: Move out of her parents' house. Step two: Find a job. Opportunity strikes when she meets her new neighbor, Gus Westman. He's an electrician with Iowa farm-boy values and a gift for saying her name like it's a dirty word. He also has a wife.

In Ridgewood, North Dakota, Amy Peters' life is a picture of small-town perfection - loving parents, a close-knit community, and a cherished friendship with her best friend, Cassy. However, this idyllic existence is abruptly shattered when a mysterious figure abducts Amy during Cassy's birthday celebration, plunging the town into a web of secrets and fear. As the tranquility of Ridgewood gives way to a gripping mystery, the search for Amy reveals hidden truths and challenges the facade of this seemingly peaceful town.

The Unwilling is the story of Judah, a foundling born with a special gift and raised inside Highfall castle along with Gavin, the son and heir to Lord Elban’s vast empire. Judah and Gavin share an unnatural bond that is both the key to her survival…and possibly her undoing. As Gavin is groomed for his future role, Judah comes to realize that she has no real position within the kingdom, in fact, no hope at all of ever traveling beyond its castle walls. Elban - a lord as mighty as he is cruel - has his own plans for her, for all of them.

In the small town of Black Bay, a vacant, forgotten house sits atop a bluff. When Bailey and Bodhi Taylor move in and begin renovations, the house seems perfect. But things move on their own, screams echo from the basement, and Bailey sees a shadowy figure out of the corner of her eye. Is the house haunted? And if it is, what does the ghost want with Bailey?

They called me an amplifier. And they had bred me, raised me, and trained me to be a killer with preternatural precision. I was capable of taking, holding, and transferring power that wasn’t my own with a simple touch. Skin-to-skin contact. Along with four others of my generation, I could infiltrate any magical organization, extracting whoever or whatever I’d been ordered to extricate. Then I could destroy all evidence of our passing presence. They had made me. They directed me. Controlled me. Then they tried to kill me.

Three days. That was all the reprieve we got before one of the five showed up, injured and on the run. The snowstorm that had encased the property, as well as stifled the town, hadn’t even melted away. That wounded prey led our newest adversary directly to me. To Christopher. Inconvenient timing, but not unexpected. It was the betrayal forcing me to stay my hand against that adversary that shocked me. Betrayal from the least likely of sources. Or so I would have thought.

We had chosen our place, etching our lives into a new land. Then, we had defended that land when called upon to do so. And we’d won. We’d maintained our freedom. But magic attracts magic. As they say. So, when the sorcerers showed up, holding my recent past hostage - along with a future I had dreamed I might build - it was just as expected. In fact, I might have been getting just a little bored playing at being Emma Johnson.

We had run. We had adapted. And when our magic came back, we changed course again. Hiding instead of running, knowing that we needed to remain hidden from the Collective. Knowing that our lives, our freedom, depended on it. Then the sorcerer showed up, drained and disoriented. And when my past came quickly following him, I had to make another choice. Fight or flight. Continue to deny the power that resided in my blood, in my DNA. Remain perpetually caught between being Amp5 and Emma Johnson. Or face my demons.

He skins his victims alive, taking pleasure from their pain. In the cold, dark nights of Alaska, a hunter is stalking his prey. Once found, he takes them into the woods and skins them alive, prolonging the experience as much as he can, but the satisfaction always wanes. Aislinn Cain and the Serial Crimes Tracking Unit have just finished up another case when they get the call. Now they are packing their bags and heading for Alaska in March. The team must overcome the hostile locals and harsh climate to catch a killer before he steals the life of another woman.

Water scarcity is on everyone's mind. Long taken for granted, water availability has entered the realm of economics, politics, and people's food and lifestyle choices. But as anxiety mounts - even as a swath of California farmland has been left fallow and extremist groups worldwide exploit the desperation of people losing livelihoods to desertification - many are finding new routes to water security with key implications for food access, economic resilience, and climate change.

I’d led a deadly squad of genetically enhanced, uber-powerful magic wielders through life-threatening missions multiple times in the first 21 years of my life. When marked for death, I’d led the escape from those who’d bred us, controlled us. Utterly annihilating the Collective’s compound, and destroying everything that had gone into creating us—the Five. I found Christopher and Paisley a home, a safe haven.

Madeline is cursed with the unrelenting ability to survive, and this has made her a valuable prize to those who want to control her. Deep within the confines of a secretive facility, she lives her days as a lab rat and the intellectual property of Omni Biomedical. Nearly two decades of torture and brutal experiments have numbed her to the depths of humanity’s depravity.

Judah the Foundling chose freedom over betrayal when she leaped from the top of the castle tower. Now she finds herself wandering an unknown forest, far from everything and everyone she loves. For the first time in her life, she’s beyond the great Wall that surrounds Highfall castle; for the first time, she’s alone.

Think you understand Disciplinary Literacy? Think again. In this important reference, content teachers and other educators explore why students need to understand how historians, novelists, mathematicians, and scientists use literacy in their respective fields.