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The Quest for Sexual Health: How an Elusive Ideal Has Transformed Science, Politics, and Everyday Life
by Steven EpsteinOffering an entryway into the distinctive worlds of sexual health and a window onto their spillover effects, sociologist Steven Epstein traces the development of the concept and parses the debates that swirl around it. Since the 1970s, health professionals, researchers, governments, advocacy groups, and commercial interests have invested in the pursuit of something called "sexual health." Under this expansive banner, a wide array of programs have been launched, organizations founded, initiatives funded, products sold—and yet, no book before this one asks: What does it mean to be sexually healthy? When did people conceive of a form of health called sexual health? And how did it become the gateway to addressing a host of social harms and the reimagining of private desires and public dreams? Conjoining "sexual" with "health" changes both terms: it alters how we conceive of sexuality and transforms what it means to be healthy, prompting new expectations of what medicine can provide. Yet the ideal of achieving sexual health remains elusive and open-ended, and the benefits and costs of promoting it are unevenly distributed across genders, races, and sexual identities. Rather than a thing apart, sexual health is intertwined with nearly every conceivable topical debate—from sexual dysfunction to sexual violence, from reproductive freedom to the practicalities of sexual contact in a pandemic. In this book Steven Epstein analyzes the rise, proliferation, uptake, and sprawling consequences of sexual health activities, offering critical tools to assess those consequences, expand capacities for collective decision making, and identify pathways that promote social justice.
alibaba: The Inside Story Behind Jack Ma and the Creation of the World's Biggest Online Marketplace
by Liu Shiying Martha AveryThe first in-depth look at the multibillion-dollar company Alibaba.com—known to many as "China's eBay"—and the inspirational story behind the man who created it.A bestseller in China and now translated into English and updated with recent events, Alibaba by Liu Shiying and Martha Avery tells the remarkable story behind the Internet phenomenon Alibaba.com and its founder Jack Ma, a man Barron's named one of the World's Top 30 CEOs in 2008. Ma's rise to prominence presents a riveting story: Despite growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution—in a period of total state control of the economy—he developed the keen entrepreneurial instincts that propelled him to billionaire status and enabled him to build a company outside the usual government channels. These instincts and habits incorporated martial arts training and allowed him to recognize, early on, that the Internet could leverage his company to rapid growth and also transform the way business is done around the world. Alibaba.com, where businesses can buy and sell everything from air beds to zippers, started with a modest initial investment of $60,000 and has grown exponentially since its founding in 1999 to become the world's biggest business-to-business Web site. In 2007 it became the second largest IPO in history (after Google), and Fast Company has named it one of the world's most innovative companies. As a result, smart investors and technology insiders will be keeping a close eye on Alibaba for years to come. Whether you're seeking to understand China's meteoric rise, or just searching for the next Google, Yahoo!, or Amazon, Alibaba is crucial reading.
Let the Law Catch Up: Thurgood Marshall in His Own Words
by Cathy CambronA collection of US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall&’s legal writings spanning his career, including his arguments, opinions, and dissents. The US Constitution promised much to Black citizens with its post–Civil War amendments designed to eliminate the stigma of slavery and create equality between all races, but unfortunately it delivered little justice. Thurgood Marshall spent his life working to make the Constitution live up to its promises. In the 1940s and &’50s, Marshall worked as an attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), facing threats and harassment as he argued cases before the Supreme Court. His efforts culminated in the Brown v. Board of Education case, where the Supreme Court&’s ruling outlawed &“separate but equal&” public schools. After serving as a judge for the US Court of Appeals and as the first Black US solicitor general, Marshall became the nation&’s first Black Supreme Court Justice in 1967. Marshall believed the Constitution was a living document and a work in progress, and his career and legacy demonstrate it is indeed just that. Only through struggle, suffering, sacrifice, amendment, argument, and interpretation can the Constitution be made better. Marshall committed decades of his life to this effort, focused on his vision of what America could be. Let the Law Catch Up collects Justice Marshall&’s words from over the course of his career, from his advocacy with the NAACP to his arguments as solicitor general and his Supreme Court opinions and dissents. With introductions providing historical and legal context, this book paints a powerful portrait of a fearless man and his life&’s work.
The Rhythm Section: A Stephanie Patrick Thriller (Stephanie Patrick Thrillers #1)
by Mark BurnellAn innocent woman goes deep undercover to hunt down those responsible for her family’s death in this international thriller—now a major motion picture.Stephanie Patrick is devastated after her whole family dies in a plane crash. But when she discovers that the downing of flight NE027 wasn’t an accident but an act of terrorism, Stephanie enters the fight of her life to achieve her one goal: revenge.When she’s recruited by a covert intelligence organization, Stephanie sees a means to an end. With nothing left to lose, she undergoes rigorous training to become “Petra,” a mercenary terrorist based out of Germany, and “Marina,” an international businesswoman based in London. Her immersion into the world of international espionage teaches Stephanie how to numb her feelings and act on instinct alone. But as the stakes and brutality escalate, she begins to question everything she knows about flight NEO027.Is Stephanie’s organization telling her the truth about what happened? Is avenging her family worth the risk of her own life? And if it isn’t, will those who created her ever let her go?
The Mind of the Middle Ages: An Historical Survey
by Frederick B. Artz"This is the third edition of a near standard survey of the intellectual life of the age of faith. Artz on the arts, as on philosophy, politics and other aspects of culture, makes lively and informative reading."—The Washington Post
The Dark Above: A Novel
by Jeremy FinleyIn this sequel to the critically-acclaimed novel that grabbed fans of X-Files and Stranger Things, Jeremy Finley returns with another thriller full of aliens and government cover-ups. For most of his life, William Chance has been the living proof that his grandmother and her fellow researchers into missing people were right all along about the terror from the stars. Now, he’s avoiding the limelight and hiding out from everyone, including his family. He knows he can avoid everything, except for the nightmares: fires, storms, disease and violence – he dreams of it all. When he’s suddenly exposed, he finds that the media, government operatives and renegade true believers are desperate to find him, but he has another mission. Joined by a girl with terrifying abilities, he begins a desperate journey across the United States to find the others who share his dreams to stop what could be the final days of the world.Jeremy Finley’s debut The Darkest Time of Night was called “outstanding” in a starred review from Publishers Weekly and was a June 2018 SIBA Okra Selection. Now, he continues the story of Lynn and William, fifteen years later in a new fast-paced novel full of suspense and government cover-ups, perfect for thriller and supernatural fans alike.
Recipes and Everyday Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and the Household in Early Modern England
by Elaine LeongAcross early modern Europe, men and women from all ranks gathered medical, culinary, and food preservation recipes from family and friends, experts and practitioners, and a wide array of printed materials. Recipes were tested, assessed, and modified by teams of householders, including masters and servants, husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, and fathers and sons. This much-sought know-how was written into notebooks of various shapes and sizes forming “treasuries for health,” each personalized to suit the whims and needs of individual communities. In Recipes and Everyday Knowledge, Elaine Leong situates recipe knowledge and practices among larger questions of gender and cultural history, the history of the printed word, and the history of science, medicine, and technology. The production of recipes and recipe books, she argues, were at the heart of quotidian investigations of the natural world or “household science”. She shows how English homes acted as vibrant spaces for knowledge making and transmission, and explores how recipe trials allowed householders to gain deeper understandings of sickness and health, of the human body, and of natural and human-built processes. By recovering this story, Leong extends the parameters of natural inquiry and productively widens the cast of historical characters participating in and contributing to early modern science.
Deadly Descent (Lottie Albright Mysteries #1)
by Charlotte HingerLayers of deadly intrigue bind generations of families in historian Lottie Albright's Western Kansas community. When false accusations threaten senatorial candidate Brian Hadley's political career, secrets whispered to Lottie as editor of the county history books spur a personal search for his aunt's murderer.Ignoring warnings from her twin, clinical psychologist Josie Albright, Lottie dons a badge to gain access to information. She delves into a horrifying cold case to prove her merits as a deputy and impresses Sheriff Sam Abbot with her ability to combine historical research methods and police procedure. Soon Josie and her sister add their helpful expertise in untangling the web of families bound by a lethal legacy of prideful secrets.
The Elusive Trade: How Exchange-Traded Funds Conquered Wall Street
by Ralph H. LehmanOn January 22, 1993, the first exchange-traded fund was launched in the United States. It was called the SPDR fund—also known as the "Spider"—and it offered convenient and affordable exposure to a range of markets in a new way, different from traditional mutual funds. Shortly after this introduction, ETFs became an incredibly popular option for both individuals and for institutional investors, and they began to grow in numbers. In The Elusive Trade: How Exchange-Traded Funds Conquered Wall Street, Ralph H. Lehman leverages his twenty-year financial background and investment expertise to dive deep into the history of ETFs in this country, explore their development, and highlight the people who paved the way for the Spider's success, leading to the market we know now.
The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth
by R.W.B. LewisIntellectual history is viewed in this book as a series of "great conversations"—dramatic dialogues in which a culture's spokesmen wrestle with the leading questions of their times. In nineteenth-century America the great argument centered about De Crèvecoeur's "new man," the American, an innocent Adam in a bright new world dissociating himself from the historic past. Mr. Lewis reveals this vital preoccupation as a pervasive, transforming ingredient of the American mind, illuminating history and theology as well as art, shaping the consciousness of lesser thinkers as fully as it shaped the giants of the age. He traces the Adamic theme in the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Henry James, and others, and in an Epilogue he exposes their continuing spirit in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ralph Ellison, J. D. Salinger, and Saul Bellow.
Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity
by Richard A. PetersonIn Creating Country Music, Richard Peterson traces the development of country music and its institutionalization from Fiddlin' John Carson's pioneering recordings in Atlanta in 1923 to the posthumous success of Hank Williams. Peterson captures the free-wheeling entrepreneurial spirit of the era, detailing the activities of the key promoters who sculpted the emerging country music scene. More than just a history of the music and its performers, this book is the first to explore what it means to be authentic within popular culture. "[Peterson] restores to the music a sense of fun and diversity and possibility that more naive fans (and performers) miss. Like Buck Owens, Peterson knows there is no greater adventure or challenge than to 'act naturally.'"—Ken Emerson, Los Angeles Times Book Review "A triumphal history and theory of the country music industry between 1920 and 1953."—Robert Crowley, International Journal of Comparative Sociology "One of the most important books ever written about a popular music form."—Timothy White, Billboard Magazine
Secrecy: Silence, Power, and Religion (Routledge Handbooks In Religion Ser.)
by Hugh B. UrbanThe powers of political secrecy and social spectacle have been taken to surreal extremes recently. Witness the twin terrors of a president who refuses to disclose dealings with foreign powers while the private data of ordinary citizens is stolen and marketed in order to manipulate consumer preferences and voting outcomes. We have become accustomed to thinking about secrecy in political terms and personal privacy terms. In this bracing, new work, Hugh Urban wants us to focus these same powers of observation on the role of secrecy in religion. With Secrecy, Urban investigates several revealing instances of the power of secrecy in religion, including nineteenth-century Scottish Rite Freemasonry, the sexual magic of a Russian-born Parisian mystic; the white supremacist BrüderSchweigen or “Silent Brotherhood” movement of the 1980s, the Five Percenters, and the Church of Scientology. An electrifying read, Secrecy is the culmination of decades of Urban’s reflections on a vexed, ever-present subject.
Bullet Hole (Alan Saxon Mysteries #1)
by Keith MilesIn the world of championship golf, the stakes are high and passions run to match. And never more so than at the British Open Championship, particularly when it is played at Saint Andrews, venerable home of the game.For Alan Saxon, too long ago a champion and once again in top form, this is a crucial tournament, and he must carefully prepare himself. But his ritual is rudely interrupted by the appearance of a young, pretty golf groupie who starts by demanding a lift and ends up naked and dead in his bed.She is not the only casualty, and it fast becomes clear that someone wants Saxon out of the open. As the championship builds to its climax, at last Saxon thinks he knows who the killer is—but then he must decide: which hole is the bullet hole?
The Rose in the Wheel: A Regency Mystery (Regency Mysteries #0)
by S. K. RizzoloRegency London knows Constance Tyrone as the conspicuously celibate founder of the St. Catherine Society, dedicated to helping poor women. One wet November evening a carriage mows down Constance outside her office.Curiously, while her corpse's one foot is bare, the other is shod in a clean satin slipper despite the muddy road. Why was a gentlewoman abroad in the night? And if she died under the wheel, whose hands bruised her neck and stole her monogrammed crucifix? Dismissing the idea of an accident, Bow Street Runner John Chase forms an unlikely alliance with Penelope Wolfe, wife of the chief suspect. A young mother paying the price for an imprudent marriage, Penelope is eager to clear her husband Jeremy, a feckless portrait painter whose salacious drawings of the victim suggest an erotic interest.Chase's first task is to learn the identity of the mysterious benefactor who goes bail for Wolfe while Penelope traces the victim's last movements. Barrister Edward Buckler, intrigued, shakes off his habitual lethargy and joins their investigation. As horrifying murders on the Ratcliffe Highway claim all London's attention, the trio discovers that it won't be easy to unravel the enigma of Constance Tyrone.
Where We Want to Live: Reclaiming Infrastructure for a New Generation of Cities
by Ryan Gravel**Winner, Phillip D. Reed Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment****A Planetizen Top Planning Book for 2017**After decades of sprawl, many American city and suburban residents struggle with issues related to traffic (and its accompanying challenges for our health and productivity), divided neighborhoods, and a non-walkable life. Urban designer Ryan Gravel makes a case for how we can change this. Cities have the capacity to create a healthier, more satisfying way of life by remodeling and augmenting their infrastructure in ways that connect neighborhoods and communities. Gravel came up with a way to do just that in his hometown with the Atlanta Beltline project. It connects 40 diverse Atlanta neighborhoods to city schools, shopping districts, and public parks, and has already seen a huge payoff in real estate development and local business revenue.Similar projects are in the works around the country, from the Los Angeles River Revitalization and the Buffalo Bayou in Houston to the Midtown Greenway in Minneapolis and the Underline in Miami. In Where We Want to Live, Gravel presents an exciting blueprint for revitalizing cities to make them places where we truly want to live.
Buried Too Deep: An Aurelia Marcella Roman Mystery (Aurelia Marcella Roman Series #0)
by Jane FinnisThe spring of 98 AD is a time of optimism in the turbulent frontier province of Britannia. The season looks set fair for peace and prosperity, and business is brisk at Aurelia Marcella's inn on the road to York.But soon a wagon arrives bearing a local farmer seeking treatment for a grievous sword wound. Before the farmer dies, he tells Aurelia his family is in grave danger and hints that her sister's family, living near him, is also threatened. Aurelia sends for her twin brother Lucius, who is a government investigator. Together they head for the eastern coast to investigate and to check out a shipwreck bearing valuable official cargo. A band of piratical Gauls is working the area—are they cover for something worse?Then friction between native farmers and Roman settlers turns into open violence. Both sides resort to terrorist tactics, all building to a terrible climax at the annual festival for the sea god. Beneath it all flows a current of subtle, personal agendas....
Stolen Hearts: A Grace Street Mystery (Grace Street Mysteries #1)
by Jane Tesh2018 ALA Book Club October Pick, Things that Go Bump: Paranormal MysteriesDavid Randall's perfect family life came derailed when his little daughter Lindsey died in a car crash. Thrown out by his second wife and wanting to leave a dead-end detective agency to start his own, he reluctantly accepts his psychic friend Camden's invitation to stay in Camden's boarding house in Parkland, North Carolina.Meanwhile, working the case of the murder of Albert Bennett, Randall's only clue is a notebook filled with odd musical notation. When another client, Melanie Gentry, hires him to prove her great-grandmother was murdered by her lover, composer John Burrows Ashford, over authorship of "Patchwork Melodies," Randall sets out to find a connection to Bennett's murder, as well as to the murder of a Smithsonian director, who was preparing a new PBS documentary on early American music.Randall's investigations lead him to another notebook, where he finds not only "Two Hearts Singing," Ashford's most famous song, but a valuable early copy of Stephen Foster's "Oh! Susanna," hidden in the cover. But things become more complicated when Ashford's spirit parks itself in Cam...and refuses to leave until Randall proves Ashford's innocence.
The Sounds of Capitalism: Advertising, Music, and the Conquest of Culture
by Timothy D. TaylorFrom the early days of radio through the rise of television after World War II to the present, music has been used more and more to sell goods and establish brand identities. And since the 1920s, songs originally written for commercials have become popular songs, and songs written for a popular audience have become irrevocably associated with specific brands and products. Today, musicians move flexibly between the music and advertising worlds, while the line between commercial messages and popular music has become increasingly blurred.Timothy D. Taylor tracks the use of music in American advertising for nearly a century, from variety shows like The Clicquot Club Eskimos to the rise of the jingle, the postwar upsurge in consumerism, and the more complete fusion of popular music and consumption in the 1980s and after. The Sounds of Capitalism is the first book to tell truly the history of music used in advertising in the United States and is an original contribution to this little-studied part of our cultural history.
First, Do No Harm: A Mystery
by Larry KarpThe past comes rearing up to bite the next generation when a son digs too deep into his family's past.... Martin Firestone can't figure why his father, the eccentric painter Leo Firestone, is throwing a fit. All Martin did was tell his dad he'd been accepted to medical school.Then, Leo tells Martin a story about his own father, Dr. Samuel Firestone, an extraordinarily gifted doctor and a living legend in the small city of Hobart, NJ, but a man with a serious character flaw. During the summer of 1943, while Leo worked as Samuel's extern, he witnessed some highly questionable behavior. Illegal abortions, supplying heroin to an addict, black-market pharmaceuticals, babies sold to adoptive parents—all in a day's work for Samuel Firestone, M.D.When Leo decided his father was covering up a murder, he and his girlfriend, stage-struck Harmony, followed a trail of clues into the Fleischmann Scrapyard. There, they ran afoul of old Oscar Fleischmann, Samuel's longtime nemesis. By the time Leo realized he and Harmony were in far over their sixteen-year-old heads, it was too late to call off the investigation.But there are loose threads in Leo's story. Martin picks them up, and sixty years after the fact, goes snooping in Hobart. And like his father, he comes away with a whole lot more junk than he'd bargained for.
Carnage on the Committee (Robert Amiss/Baroness Jack Troutbeck Mysteries #10)
by Ruth Dudley Edwards"The literary cognoscenti ('the superciliati,' she calls them) hold no terror for this ribald satirist."—New York TimesWhen the chairperson of the prestigious Knapper-Warburton Literary Prize dies in suspicious circumstances, Robert Amiss (the token sane member of the judging panel) wastes no time in summoning Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck to step into the chair. Speculation that a killer may be targeting the judges does not worry the baroness in the slightest—it's the prospect of immersing herself in modern literature that fills her with dread. But noblesse must oblige, even when it means joining the ranks of the superciliati sitting in judgment of the literati.With the baroness at the helm, the judges resume the task of whittling away at the shortlist. But the killer, too, has resumed work and is whittling away at the judges one by one....
Commander's Wild Side: Bold Flavors for Fresh Ingredients from the Great Outdoors
by Ti Adelaide Martin Tory McPhailDozens of dishes featuring wild game, fish, and fowl from one of america's favorite restaurantsWith legendary talent, the freshest ingredients possible, and a tradition of fun, Commander's Palace proves that great restaurants only get better with time. A New Orleans institution since 1880, the critically acclaimed restaurant has been the winner of the James Beard Award for Most Outstanding Restaurant in America and has been ranked the top dining establishment in the city for seventeen consecutive years, officially making any visit to New Orleans incomplete without a savory meal in the beautiful Garden District landmark.Nothing can stop the crew at Commander's Palace, and Commander's Wild Side, which features more than one hundred new recipes for fare straight from America's bayous, streams, mountains, and backcountry, as well as dozens of stunning photographs, proves it.With thrilling flavors for any palate, executive chef Tory McPhail has recipes for everything from Juniper Berry-Grilled Elk, Rabbit and Goat Cheese Turnovers, and Roasted Quail with Bourbon-Bacon Stuffing to Jamaican Conch Callaloo, Marinated Crab Salad, and Pecan Butter-Basted Flounder with Creole Mustard Cream.Looking for something more traditional? Try the Lemon and Garlic Grilled Pork and the Roasted Turkey or any of the nongame substitutions—just in case the butcher is out of mountain lion.Commander's Wild Side is guaranteed to have just the right dish to spice up your cooking repertoire.
Fever Dream: A Daniel Rinaldi Mystery (Daniel Rinaldi Thrillers #2)
by Dennis PalumboOn a blistering summer day, a bank robbery goes wrong, resulting in the deaths of all the hostages except Treva Williams. Pittsburgh psychologist and trauma expert Daniel Rinaldi is called in by the police to treat Treva. Soon an unforeseen series of events plunges the investigating officers, Sergeant Harry Polk, Detective Eleanor Lowrey, and Rinaldi into a vortex of mistaken identity, kidnapping, and surprising revelations about District Attorney Leland Sinclair's gubernatorial campaign. Is Sinclair somehow involved in the bank case?Rinaldi's attention is diverted by the suicide of a young patient and his growing attraction to Eleanor, as the recently-divorced Harry Polk spirals into an alcohol-driven, self-destructive free-fall. Then sudden death threats against Sinclair fuel a new frenzy of accusations and political maneuvering, and Rinaldi begins to make connections. Soon, what he knows—or thinks he knows—will pull him toward a shocking and possibly lethal confrontation.
The Standard Grand: A Novel
by Jay Baron Nicorvo**One of the BrooklynRail's Best Books of 2017**"Nicorvo is a bracingly original writer and a joy to read." —Dennis Lehane"A desperate masterpiece of a debut" that tells a huge-hearted American saga—of love, violence, war, conspiracy and the aftermath of them all." —Bonnie Jo Campbell"Nicorvo’s muscular and energetic prose will stun readers with its poignancy, while providing a punch to the solar plexus." —Booklist (Starred Review)"A dash of Coetzee, a dram of Delillo, but mostly just the complicated compassion of Jay Nicorvo. The Standard Grand is a brutally beautiful novel." —Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted"It seems possible that Nicorvo has ingested all the darkness of this life and now breathes fire.” Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck CityWhen an Army trucker goes AWOL before her third deployment, she ends up sleeping in Central Park. There, she meets a Vietnam vet and widower who inherited a tumbledown Borscht Belt resort. Converted into a halfway house for homeless veterans, the Standard—and its two thousand acres over the Marcellus Shale Formation—is coveted by a Houston-based multinational company. Toward what end, only a corporate executive knows.With three violent acts at its center—a mauling, a shooting, a mysterious death decades in the past—and set largely in the Catskills, The Standard Grand spans an epic year in the lives of its diverse cast: a female veteran protagonist, a Mesoamerican lesbian landman, a mercenary security contractor keeping secrets and seeking answers, a conspiratorial gang of combat vets fighting to get peaceably by, and a cougar—along with appearances by Sammy Davis, Jr. and Senator Al Franken. All of the characters—soldiers, civilians—struggle to discover that what matters most is not that they’ve caused no harm, but how they make amends for the harm they’ve caused.Jay Baron Nicorvo's The Standard Grand confronts a glaring cultural omission: the absence of women in our war stories. Like the best of its characters—who aspire more to goodness than greatness—this American novel hopes to darn a hole or two in the frayed national fabric.
The Day Will Come (Stella Crown Series #0)
by Judy Clemens"Clemens certainly keeps you guessing."—Kirkus ReviewsIf Stella Crown loves anything as much as her farm, her Harley, and her friends, it's a good dose of rock-and-roll. So she jumps at the chance to see a Philadelphia legend in concert. But during the performance, a bomb threat empties out the club. When the panic subsides, a member of the band is missing. Later that night, the body of singer Genna is found in the club. Genna's boyfriend, the drummer of the band, is a talented but volatile man. Yet police suspect Stella's friend Jordan Granger, sound man for the band.Stella doesn't buy it. Were these two crimes even related? Meanwhile, Stella's boyfriend Nick has a secret of his own. Why isn't he returning her calls? And why was he so edgy, even before the disastrous concert? The answer is something Stella never imagined.
Kiss Lonely Goodbye
by Lynn EmeryThere’s nothing Marcus Reed hates more than the pretentiousness of upper class people. And he’s got a chip on his shoulders the size of Mt. Rushmore when it comes to Black American Princesses in particular, women who place more value on what a man wears and owns rather than his character. He’s a successful, practical and no-nonsense brother who is the vice president of Summer Security, and he’s next in line for CEO. So when Nicole Summers Benoit inherits her Uncle Hosea’s profitable security firm and is named chairman, Marcus is furious and he feels betrayed by Uncle Hosea. He briefly considers resigning. Instead he decides his revenge will be staying around long enough to see Nicole fall on her face. Then he will pick up the pieces from the mess she’s made and form his own company using the Summer client list. It’s a perfect plan until they start working together….