The Unicorns Fortune

On Mary Rose's eighteenth birthday, her grandmother asks her to fulfill her last wish: to return the fortune of the unicorn. It is a big task, it is a great journey, it is an honour and a burden. Mary Rose must not fail to complete this mission. At stake is everything her grandmother believes in - and everything she herself believes in. It takes all her courage, but she gets on her horse and travels from Scotland across Great Britain and Europe towards her destination. Yet, Mary Rose has no idea that this mission will turn her into a knight of the unicorn, nor that she will find what she had been looking for: her purpose. At the same time in a far away land, in the Austrian Alps, another young woman called Rosmarie is struggling with her own eighteenth birthday. She has always had the feeling, that something is missing. Suddenly, a family secret is revealed that changes everything in the eyes of Rosmarie. She wants to find out everything about the mysterious white horse, the witch who once lived in the forest and the unicorn which is the family's emblem. In the course of her inquiry she stumbles across broken pieces of the past. But the family puzzle is more complex than she thought. Will she solve it? Whilst Mary Rose needs all her strength to keep going, despite all the challenges on her way, Rosmarie is diving deeper and deeper into her family's secret history. Little do they know that they both will find the answers to their questions only when their paths cross.

Princess Pulverizer's next good deed: unite the unicorns and keep them from getting captured. She may not be a knight yet, but she won't let that stop her from saving the day! Princess Pulverizer and her pals are well on their way to completing her Quest of Kindness. But they know they can't continue it until they help Fortune--the unicorn they recently rescued--find his family. So when a fearful king orders his knights to capture all the unicorns they can, it's up to the princess and her friends to warn the unicorns before it's too late! Praise for Princess Pulverizer: Grilled Cheese and Dragons [*]"Very funny series . . ." --Publishers Weekly, starred review "A wacky adventure that stands out through highlighting its heroine's foibles, giving her plenty of room to grow in future installments." --Kirkus "This spirited chapterbook is an obvious choice for Princess in Black grads and Hamster Princess fans." --Booklist "A strong series opener and a solid choice for those looking to increase their early chapter book holdings." --School Library Journal

Welcome back to the Five Hundred Kingdoms, where the greatest fortune is the one you make… The seventh daughter of the Sea King, Ekaterina is more than a pampered princess—she's also the family spy. Which makes her the perfect emissary to discover secrets in the neighboring kingdom…and nothing interests her more than Sasha, the seventh son of the king of Belrus. She suspects he's far from the fool people think he is, but before she can find out what lies beneath his façade, she runs into trouble… Kidnapped and trapped in a Jinn’s castle, Ekaterina knows her chances of being found are slim. Now fortune, a fool and a paper bird are the only things she can count on to escape—along with her own clever mind and intrepid heart.… Previously Published. Read the Tale of Five Hundred Kingdoms Series by Mercedes Lackey: Book 1: The Fairy Godmother Book 2: One Good Knight Book 3: Fortune’s Fool Book 4: The Snow Queen Book 5: The Sleeping Beauty Book 6: Beauty and the Werewolf

In the exotic interstellar civilization of the Second Starfaring Age, youthful wanderers are known as Children of Fortune. This is the tale of one such wanderer, who seeks her destiny on an odyssey of self-discovery amid humanity's many worlds.

London 1699. Anastasia Ashby de la Zouche, Baroness Penge, Countess of Clapham, former mistress to Charles II, has fallen on hard times. Cast into the notorious Fleet Prison by the bum-bailiffs, she is forced to turn to journalism: gathering salacious tit-bits for a scandal sheet. But the Countess and Alpiew, her maidservant, encounter more intrigue than they bargained for when a mysterious woman hires them to follow her husband Beau, whom she suspects of adultery. Their pursuit of Beau leads them to playhouses, lecture halls, the half-constructed St Paul's' Cathedral and the dives of Alsatia, only to end abruptly in a Covent Garden churchyard - leaving the Countess and Alpiew implicated in a murder. And worse is to follow, for to unravel their only clue to the identity of the real killer they must penetrate the mysteries of alchemy.

All over the world, corporate executives are under increasing pressure to resist a new breed of competitors: the digital innovators disrupting long-established business models and capturing markets as a result. The old world is made up of enormous and incumbent market-leading companies known as "rhinos" while the new world is ruled by digitally native, innovative and disruptive companies known as "unicorns." And the success of the unicorns doesn't always make sense if you're going by the old rules.In the face of widespread "digital transformation" in virtually every industry, the question becomes: how can incumbent companies and executives keep their edge against their new competitors? In From Rhino to Unicorn, Victor Orlovski and Vladimir Korovkin combine their personal experience with analyses of more than 40 case studies to answer that question.Drawing on their combined decades of experience in both business and academia, Orlovski and Korovkin break down:-The eight key areas where unicorns have an advantage over rhino companies-Why most rhinos' attempts at digital transformation fail-The strategies successful companies use to navigate digital transformation-The seven most common mental "traps" companies fall into when trying to transform-The proven roadmap for rhino-to-unicorn transitions (used by major corporations like Sberbank)And much more.While many business books discuss innovation and disruption, few can match the depth of academic and economic analysis offered by From Rhino to Unicorn-and even fewer can offer actual strategies for established companies to thrive in the brave new world of digital transformation.

China is in the midst of transitioning from a manufacturing-based economy to one driven by innovation and knowledge. This up-to-date analysis evaluates China's state-led approach to science and technology, and its successes and failures. In recent decades, China has seen huge investments in high-tech science parks, a surge in home-grown top-ranked global companies, and a significant increase in scientific publications and patents. Helped by state policies and a flexible business culture, the country has been able to leapfrog its way to a more globally competitive position. However, the authors argue that this approach might not yield the same level of progress going forward if China does not address serious institutional, organizational, and cultural obstacles. While not impossible, this task may well prove to be more difficult for the Chinese Communist Party than the challenges that China has faced in the past.