Urban California

In this guide, I aspire to distil the wealth of knowledge and expertise accumulated over 20 years of immersive gardening experience into a comprehensive guide for readers. Drawing from my lifelong residency in northern California, I am excited to share the insights, secrets, and techniques that have empowered me to cultivate flourishing gardens with ease. Understanding Northern California's Climate and Growing Conditions - Overview of Northern California's diverse microclimates. - Factors influencing gardening in the region, such as temperature, rainfall, and soil types. - Tips for adapting...

Jewel is young and beautiful, and with several hustles under her belt, she's all about making money. This doesn't leave much time for friends, but she'll always make time for Touch, the local hustler. He's been her friend since grammar school, when they made a lifelong pact to look out for each other. Lucky for them, their promise has never been put to the test - until now.

Eden Alvaro is a licensed Vulture, picking through the aftermath of violence in demon-plagued LA, and fencing her finds to help support her family. But when a crooked cop reports her for a salvage she didn’t take, all hell breaks loose. Stripped of her license, Eden finds herself with a price on her head. When the mercenaries hunting her raid her home, brutalize her family, and abduct one of her sisters, Eden turns to the enigmatic Bishop - a man with a reputation for violence who, for the right price, can find just about anything or anyone.

Jewel climbed up the heap to become queen of the streets, diva of all divas. But now that she's expecting a baby, she's concerned about just one thing - giving her child a good life, away from the guns, the drugs, and the lies. However, that also means a life away from the glitz and glam that Jewel still craves, and she's not quite ready to give it all up...not until she's back on top. Flat broke and miles away from her fugitive baby daddy, Jewel will have to put every bit of her street savvy, as well as her sharp business skills, into action to gain back her place and her power.

To settle her debt with the tax demons, Eden promised them ten jobs, but she didn’t think the demons would cash in on her vow so quickly.

Jewel used to be content with being a ride or die chick, playing Bonnie while the men in her life played Clyde. But now she realizes that it was her connections and street smarts that helped her man, Calico, rise to the top, and Jewel wants to be the one in control. She's tired of taking orders from men. She's willing to do anything to be queen of the streets, but when a deal she makes with the enemy comes back to haunt her, her dream is turned into a nightmare. Hopeless and struggling to keep her head above water, Jewel meets Misty, who seems to be her savior.

A look at Urban Legends from California, Colorado, and Connecticut. Some of these legends may be well known, but many of them are only known by locals. Inside are eyewitness accounts, directions to some of the locations and legends that are terrifying, shocking and unbelievable.

When Daniel Blackland was six, he ingested his first bone fragment, a bit of kraken spine plucked out of the sand during a visit with his demanding, brilliant, and powerful magician father, Sebastian. When Daniel was 12, he watched Sebastian die at the hands of the Hierarch of Southern California, devoured for the heightened magic layered deep within his bones. Now, years later, Daniel is a petty thief hiding amid the crowds in Los Angeles - the capital of the Kingdom of Southern California.

Imperial San Francisco is the epic saga of how all great cities parasitize their hinterlands for the sake of those elites who own and run them by using the mass media at their command to shape the thought of those who unwittingly serve their interests. Using San Francisco as an example of how cities employ remote control technology to exploit water, energy, natural resources, and labor from an expansive imperium, it takes the listener from ancient Rome to the University of California’s role in the creation of nuclear weaponry and its first use.

In a moving example of unconditional love in dif­ficult times, Gregory Boyle, the Jesuit priest and New York Times bestselling author of Tattoos on the Heart, shares what working with gang members in Los Angeles has taught him about faith, compassion, and the enduring power of kinship. In his...

Los Angeles, Zombie Apocalypse! By James Bachman When the outbreak spreads to the City of Angels, chaos reigns. Los Angeles descends into a nightmare as wildfires blaze, the infected roam the streets, and survivors scramble to escape a city consumed by death. In a world where the rich hide behind gates and the poor are left to fend for themselves, the lines between life and death blur—and survival comes at an unimaginable cost. Fast-paced, gritty, and unrelenting, Los Angeles, Zombie Apocalypse! plunges readers into a city where every moment is a fight to stay alive. Perfect for fans of ...

In When Disaster Strikes Los Angeles, former EMT and CERT member Yoni Binstock turns a decade of emergency experience into a practical, city-specific guide to help Angelenos prepare before the shaking starts or the smoke rolls in. Inside, you’ll learn how to: • Prioritize LA’s real threats—from earthquakes and wildfires to flash floods and civil unrest. • Build a fast “grab-and-go” kit using supplies from your nearest Target, CVS, or corner mercado. • Prepare for power outages and water shutdowns in single-family homes and high-rise apartments. • Safely evacuate during ...

PEN-Faulkner Award-winning author T. Coraghessan Boyle weaves together the stories of two families in Southern California: one affluent, the other destitute. As Boyle creates a counterpoint of personal needs, civic responsibility, and social custom, each family's quest for the American Dream fuels deep fear and anger that ultimately lead to a perilous confrontation.

Welcome to the City of Angels—where every dream has a shadow. Legends of Los Angeles peels back the glittering surface of Hollywood to reveal the ghosts beneath the spotlight. In forty haunting tales of fame, obsession, and ruin, Los Angeles becomes a city alive with secrets: a phantom director still filming his masterpiece, a cursed headshot that erases actors from reality, and a talk show that won’t stop broadcasting—no matter how many of its guests are dead. From Beverly Hills mansions humming with regret to the haunted neon of Sunset Boulevard, each story captures a different side...

After 14 years as a stay-at-home mom, Kate Connor has finally rejoined the workforce. But unlike most working moms, Kate can't rearrange her home obligations to fit the needs of her job. Well, not easily, anyway. And not without a few little white lies. Because the truth is, no one in her family has any clue that she's returned to the job of her youth. Which means no late nights working beside her husband at the kitchen table while the kids watch television. Although, when you think about it, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Two dark, propulsive thrillers where nothing is what it seems. Fountain of Lies (Lindsey Aeon #1) FBI agent Lindsey Aeon has a secret. She hasn’t aged a day in twenty years. After falling into a mysterious pool deep in the Florida wilderness, Lindsey emerged with impossible abilities—strength, speed, rapid healing—and a lifetime of questions. Now, undercover in Philadelphia, she’s infiltrating a powerful mob family. Her mission: befriend the boss’s daughter and bring the organization down from within. But when she’s drawn to the family’s dangerous, magnetic son, Lindsey’s ...

America is obsessed with Los Angeles. And America has been thinking about Los Angeles all wrong, for decades, on repeat. Los Angeles is not just the place where the American dream hits the Pacific. (It has its own dreams.) Not just the vanishing point of America's western drive. (It has its own compass.) Functionally, aesthetically, mythologically, even technologically, an independent territory, defined less by distinct borders than by an aura of autonomy and a sense of unfurling destiny - this is the city-state of Los Angeles.

A haunted app. A cursed story. And an investigation that blurs the line between the living and the dead. When a young writer’s roommate dies under mysterious circumstances, Ellen and Monty Drew are called to investigate. The only clue? A strange writing app called Spectra, a program that seems to write its own stories… and make them come true. What begins as a case of supernatural possession soon unravels into something far darker -- a digital haunting that spreads like a virus. From the fog-drenched streets of Santa Monica to a forgotten cabin in Oregon, the Drews follow a trail of ...

The school secretary has a sharp tongue but is she a killer? Can Marty do the math or will he get schooled by a criminal mastermind? Marty Golden is frazzled. Struggling to juggle nieces, a rambunctious dog, a demanding job, and a serious relationship, the software engineer is never quite sure whether he’s coming or going. But when his nemesis begs for help after she’s accused of offing the school principal, the amateur sleuth agrees to hunt down the real culprit. Confounded to discover the cantankerous woman stood to take the dead man’s position, he strives to find anyone who could ...

He’s determined to prove his friend innocent of homicide. He may make things worse… When Marty’s surfer-dude pal is arrested for murder, he must squeeze his amateur sleuthing into his packed schedule. With his high-tech job busier than ever and his nieces’ antics sidetracking him, Marty’s ready for a Thanksgiving holiday. All he has to do is solve two murders. But if he can’t even convince his sister to bake his favorite chocolate pie, how can he hope to save his friend? With the help of his girlfriend, some wacky coworkers and Buddy the rambunctious Labrador, Marty sets out to ...