The Yard

As Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror in London comes to an end, a new era of depravity sets the stage for the first gripping mystery featuring the detectives of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad. “If Charles Dickens isn’t somewhere clapping his hands for this one, Wilkie Collins surely is.”—The New York Times Book Review Victorian London—a violent cesspool of squalid sin. The twelve detectives of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad are expected to solve the thousands of crimes committed in the city each month. Formed after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure in capturing Jack the Ripper, they suffer the brunt of public contempt. But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own... A Scotland Yard Inspector has been found stuffed in a black steamer trunk at Euston Square Station, his eyes and mouth sewn shut. When Walter Day, the squad’s new hire, is assigned to the case, he finds a strange ally in Dr. Bernard Kingsley, the Yard’s first forensic pathologist. Their grim conclusion: this was not just a random, bizarre murder but in all probability, the first of twelve. The squad itself it being targeted and the devious killer shows no signs of stopping. But Inspector Day has one more surprise, something even more shocking than the crimes: the murderer’s motive.

A debut novel for readers of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Girls, The Birth Yard is a gripping story of a young woman’s rebellion against the rules that control her body Sable Ursu has just turned eighteen, which means she is ready to breed. Within the confines of her world, a patriarchal cult known as the Den, female fertility and sexuality are wholly controlled by Men. In the season they come of age, Sable and her friends Mamie and Dinah are each paired with a Match with the purpose of conceiving a child. Sable is paired with Ambrose, the son of a favoured Man in the Den. Others are not so lucky. In their second trimester, girls are sent to the Birth Yard, where they are prepared for giving birth and motherhood, but are also regularly drugged and monitored by their midwives. Sable is unable to ignore her unease about the pills they are forced to swallow and the punishments they receive for stepping out of line. Too many of the girls, including Mamie and Dinah, have secrets and it is impossible to know whom to trust. When Sable’s loyalty is questioned and her safety within the Den is threatened, she must rebel against the only life she has ever known—the only life she has been designed for. Mallory Tater weaves an intricate narrative, equal parts suspense and action, while twisting contemporary social anxieties to dizzying extremes. She meticulously deconstructs the intricate relationships between womanhood, government and the female body. A startling and important debut novel, The Birth Yard echoes Margaret Atwood’s dark and cautionary classic The Handmaid’s Tale. But this is no dystopian world; there is no totalitarian government. The Den exists now.

A major American novel, and arguably the finest work of literature ever to emerge from a US prison, On the Yard is a book of penetrating psychological realism in which Malcolm Braly paints an unforgettable picture of the complex and frightening world of the penitentiary. At its center are the violently intertwined stories of Chilly Willy, in trouble with the law from his earliest years and now the head of the prison’s flourishing black market in drugs and sex, and of Paul, wracked with guilt for the murder of his wife and desperate for some kind of redemption. At once brutal and tender, clear-eyed and rueful, On the Yard presents the penitentiary not as an exotic location, an exception to everyday reality, but as an ordinary place, one every reader will recognize, American to the core.

Once you have ridden a horse you may then progress to owning your own horse; if you do it will no longer be just a hobby but it will become a way of life. The horse you own will be with you hopefully until the end, so owning a horse is not a decision to be taken lightly as it is life changing. True horse owners are a very dedicated group of people often doing two jobs just to keep their horse; it is a commitment like no other but they are worth all the effort and cost as they provide a richness and a quality of life that I certainly would not want to be without. Our Olympic equestrian team showed all the aspects of the horse, its strength, its agility, its gracefulness. For me the Dressage shows us the horse as his best; in harmony with a human working silently together to produce such astonishing movements. All this from an animal that aimlessly grazed until humans harnessed its power and taught it a new language; horsemanship.

Through days and nights of L.L. Barkat's year of daily outdoor solitude comes an irresistible voice calling you to spiritual practice. This 12-week course tells a unique story, but it will also invite you to personal growth. You'll find various options for discovery and participation: free writing, writing response, physical and mental play, and blogging (or alternatives).

Jan Eliot's funny and irreverent Stone Soup follows the saga of an extended, blended family, starring two working-mom sisters living just across the fence from each other. Val and Joan share life with their opinionated mother, a middle-school diva and 10-year-old tomboy, a reclusive teenage boy, a wild preschooler and his new baby sister...and of course Wally, the ultimate nice guy who steps into his stepdad shoes with grace amid the chaos. Working-parent hassles, pre-school tantrums, middle-school angst, love and the single mom... it's all here in Stone Soup. In Adventures from the Yard, Alix celebrates summer with her magical wading pool, the families share a communal camping trip, and the great outdoors is celebrated.

Everything you need to know for a quick and beautiful yard on the Canadian prairies. Creating and maintaining the perfect yard on the prairies isn’t as hard as you might think, but the short growing season doesn’t give you much time to transform your winter-weary yard into a glorious garden. To help homeowners in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba get the jump on the short season, popular gardening expert Lyndon Penner has created the essential guide to a quick and beautiful yard in the prairie provinces. With gardening smarts, style and wit, Lyndon covers everything both novice and expert gardeners need to know, along with tips you won’t find anywhere else. Contains more than 200 beautiful, colour photos. Quickly find what you need to know about climate zones, soil, colour, texture and shade. Understand your yard’s potential. Pick the best bulbs, perennials, trees and shrubs for your yard. Deal with insects and plant diseases in environmentally friendly ways. Shop smarter at garden centres. Attract animals you want to your garden, and keep away the ones you don’t. Another version of this book, The Chinook Short Season Yard, is available for gardeners who live in the southern Alberta chinook zone. Get a free ebook through the Shelfie app with the purchase of a print copy.

'A moving story of love and redemption set in Trinidad, that exposes the fault lines in Indo-Muslim culture, as it explores three generations of a family who move from being indentured labourers to wealthy business owners.' The Yard is a large compound in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago housing six families-Father Khalid, his four siblings and their widowed mother Sakina. Behrooz, an orphan who cannot remember his past, is brought to The Yard, when the old woman with whom he has sought shelter dies. Here, he struggles to belong. Father Khalid is kindhearted, but other family members are guarded about the outsider in their midst. They contend that Behrooz will betray the family by forging a clandestine relationship with his adoptive sister, Maya, a willful and rebellious girl who was not romantically forbidden to him under Islamic law. Two loners, Behrooz and Maya form a childish alliance and later, struggle with a physical attraction. After they share a night of adolescent tenderness, Maya, fearing retribution, flees to London where she pursues her artistic talent in defiance of her culture. Behrooz painstakingly rebuilds his life and marries another. When tragedy strikes, Maya returns to her childhood home. There, she and Behrooz must face up to old demons. Can their love endure? Even after Maya is dealt the most 'righteous' blow of all?