New Releases by Laura Freeman

On a hot August night in 1878, Tom Harrington is found dead beside his burning barn. Arson and murder has descended on this small Ohio town. Liny Bauer, a young midwife, helps the sheriff document evidence, but the victim had many enemies—who had plenty of reasons to kill him. Handsome Deputy Cal Murphy admires Liny’s knack for uncovering secrets but fears her stubbornness may put her in danger. Can they piece together the clues to find the truth before the killer escapes or strikes again?

In 1876 society frowned upon illicit affairs, illegitimate children, and murdered lovers, but Deidre Pierce didn’t choose her unfortunate heritage. When Nate Burroughs shares her personal information, she chooses him to accompany her to the eightieth birthday party of her grandfather. Nate owes her, and she has no plans to forgive him. She hopes to learn more about her family, but sinister accidents begin to happen. Nate has vowed to protect Deidre and redeem himself, but how much will he sacrifice to reveal the depth of his feelings and win her love?

Lady Meg bears scars on her back, reminders that she has no choice but to marry a stranger in the American colonies at her father’s command. He insists the marriage is for a family alliance, but she suspects a darker motive and resolves to escape her fate. Intrigue and betrayal surround Meg and her siblings, and her attraction to the handsome sea captain delivering her to her future husband complicates her plans. Will her determination to find the truth set them all free?

After stepping in dog doo, Emily Stevenson finds a body in the canal. The dead woman turns out to be the mistress of her co-worker’s spouse. She’s determined to keep her friend from taking back her cheating husband but becomes tangled in a web of deceit and danger. Officer Travis O’Toole wants to become a detective but not only is Emily a charming distraction, she and her friends keep interfering with the case. He tries to keep her out of trouble only to realize she’s a better partner than adversary.

Detective Sydney Harrison thought the police shooting of an armed robber was cut and dried, but when the facts don’t add up, she finds herself in a cat-and-mouse game with a drug-addicted woman willing to sacrifice the lives of others to feel normal. Claire’s life spiraled out of control when a grab and dash for a purse turned into a chance meeting with a stranger in a dark alley. His death wasn’t her fault, but the police are searching for her. Before running, she needs to tie up loose ends even if it means another person has to die.

Have you ever felt like life is simply too difficult? Has depression taken away your joy and left you feeling helpless? If so, you're not alone. Overcoming Depression can help. This book is a comprehensive guide to understanding and overcoming depression. It covers everything from understanding the symptoms of depression and how to recognize them in yourself, to developing a comprehensive plan for getting well. You'll learn how to identify and break free from the negative thought patterns that can keep you stuck in depression, as well as how to develop healthier habits to support your recovery. You'll also find practical advice on how to handle stress and how to build a support system. Whether you're dealing with depression yourself or want to help someone else recover, this book is packed with useful tips and guidance. With its step-by-step approach and practical advice, Overcoming Depression can help you find a path out of depression and back to a life of joy and purpose. Take the first step on the road to recovery today. Get your copy of Overcoming Depression now and start your journey to a brighter tomorrow.

Are you feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and stressed out? Do you want to improve your mental health but don't know where to begin? If so, this book is for you! "Improving Your Mental Health" is a comprehensive guide to understanding and improving your mental health. It covers all aspects of mental health, from understanding the basics to developing healthy coping strategies. This book will help you develop a greater understanding of your mental health and provide you with easy-to-follow advice and tips to improve it. You'll learn how to recognize signs of mental distress, reduce stress, and develop healthier habits. You'll also discover simple strategies to improve your mental health, such as relaxation techniques and meditation. Plus, you'll learn how to use nutrition and physical activity to benefit your mental health. You'll find out how to create positive relationships to support your mental health and manage difficult emotions in a healthy way. This book gives you the tools and knowledge to improve your mental health and create a happier life. Get your copy of "Improving Your Mental Health" today and start taking steps towards a healthier, more balanced life.

ENABLES READERS TO UNDERSTAND THE METHODS OF EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN TO SUCCESSFULLY CONDUCT LIFE TESTING TO IMPROVE PRODUCT RELIABILITY This book illustrates how experimental design and life testing can be used to understand product reliability in order to enable reliability improvements. The book is divided into four sections. The first section focuses on statistical distributions and methods for modeling reliability data. The second section provides an overview of design of experiments including response surface methodology and optimal designs. The third section describes regression models for reliability analysis focused on lifetime data. This section provides the methods for how data collected in a designed experiment can be properly analyzed. The final section of the book pulls together all of the prior sections with customized experiments that are uniquely suited for reliability testing. Throughout the text, there is a focus on reliability applications and methods. It addresses both optimal and robust design with censored data. To aid in reader comprehension, examples and case studies are included throughout the text to illustrate the key factors in designing experiments and emphasize how experiments involving life testing are inherently different. The book provides numerous state-of-the-art exercises and solutions to help readers better understand the real-world applications of experimental design and reliability. The authors utilize R and JMP® software throughout as appropriate, and a supplemental website contains the related data sets. Written by internationally known experts in the fields of experimental design methodology and reliability data analysis, sample topics covered in the book include: An introduction to reliability, lifetime distributions, censoring, and inference for parameter of lifetime distributions Design of experiments, optimal design, and robust design Lifetime regression, parametric regression models, and the Cox Proportional Hazard Model Design strategies for reliability achievement Accelerated testing, models for acceleration, and design of experiments for accelerated testing The text features an accessible approach to reliability for readers with various levels of technical expertise. This book is a key reference for statistical researchers, reliability engineers, quality engineers, and professionals in applied statistics and engineering. It is a comprehensive textbook for upper-undergraduate and graduate-level courses in statistics and engineering.

While delivering freshly baked cookies to her elderly neighbor, Crystal sees a shady stranger inside the house and sneaks to the back door to determine if he's friend or foe. Nick catches sight of a suspicious person outside and thinks it's a porch pirate looking for Christmas packages. He drives the thief to the ground with a football tackle. Only his victim is his hostess's neighbor, stunned by the force of the impact and furious about her broken cookies. After this meet-cute gone wrong, can these two adversaries find common ground and discover the tragic secrets that have brought them together?

A collection to savour and inspire, In the Kitchen brings together thirteen contemporary writers whose work brilliantly explores food, capturing their reflections on their culinary experiences in the kitchen and beyond.

The Civil War is over, but a chance encounter between Jules Beecher and a man from her past turns a simple trip to find her orphaned cousins into a dangerous journey. Determined to keep a promise to her father, she puts her life at risk but finds a reluctant hero in Dr. Roe Greystone. Can Jules heal the "broken doll" of the battlefield or will the past destroy any future? Roe abandoned the profession of medicine, exhausted from the suffering and butchering of the Civil War. Co-owner of a sternwheeler, Roe knew Jules was trouble the moment the kindhearted innocent boarded the Jenny Lee. He is determined to protect Jules from a madman, but will this Romeo risk all to rescue his Juliet?

Cass Beecher hopes Sergeant Zach Ravenswood will fall in love with her on an outing to Ford's Theater, only to have their world turned upside down with President Lincoln's assassination. Her romantic plans continue to be thwarted by family, friends, and a mysterious stranger. Can she save the man she loves from the enemies plotting to ruin him? Zach thought with the war over, he could turn his attention to wooing the lovely Cassandra, but a fortune teller's dire predictions begin to come true when a fire disfigures him, a nun poisons him, his uncle steals his inheritance, and he's shot. Is he going mad, or is everything not as it appears?

Various zoo animals take residence in a young girl's hair as it becomes more tangled and frizzy.

When Jessica Beecher stops to help a wounded soldier on the Gettysburg battlefield, Confederate Major Morgan Mackinnon enlists her skills to nurse his sister. Unable to escape, she waits for Union forces to attack the retreating Confederate Army. But the delay forces Jess to look beyond the gray uniform to the man who has captured her heart. Morgan can’t let Jess leave when she overhears Lee’s army is retreating during the night. She’s a dangerous woman and not because of the knife she pressed against his throat or the revolver hidden beneath her skirt. The battlefield angel has a face no man can forget, especially when facing death.

The scruffy-looking passenger turns out to be more trouble than Colleen “Cole” Beecher bargained for, especially when Blake becomes her patient. After a suitor spurns her to marry a rich socialite, she travels to Washington City and throws herself into work to help the Union cause. When Blake offers her a job at his hotel, she takes it for the money, but her heart desires more. When hotel owner Blake Ellsworth boards a canal boat to escape the Cassell brothers, he meets a headstrong beauty who saves his life when he is shot. Despite his attraction to her, Blake is determined to join the Union army once his shoulder heals. Fearing he may make Cole a widow, Blake won’t propose marriage, but eight weeks is a long time to spend with a woman who stirs more than his imagination.

Politician Logan Pierce visits Darrow Falls, Ohio, to enlist support for the Union cause. There, he meets the beautiful and strong-willed Jem Collins and insists she remain at home for news of her husband, Ben, after the Battle of Bull Run, but she ignores his advice. Jem knows something is wrong when Ben doesn’t send word he has survived the first major battle of the Civil War. Jem travels to Washington City with Logan to search for news of Ben and uses her nursing skills to care for the wounded. When Logan kisses her, she resolves to remain faithful to her vows of marriage, but can she? Hearing news Ben may be a prisoner, she leaves the federal capital for Richmond but doesn’t return. Can Logan wait, fearing for her fate, or does he risk capture and hanging as a spy by following into enemy territory?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder characterized by impairments in social interaction, social communication, and repetitive or stereotyped interests (APA, 2013). The hallmark deficits present in children with ASD are difficulties in social interaction and reciprocation (Troyb, Knoch, & Barton, 2011). Social deficits in children with ASD include difficulty creating social relationships, initiating social interactions, emotional reciprocity, sharing enjoyment, perspective taking, and inferring interests of others (Bellini, Peters, Benner, & Hopf, 2007; Troyb, Knoch, & Barton, 2011). Research has indicated that children with ASD have fewer reciprocal friendships as compared to their typically developing peers overall (Rotheram-Fuller, Kasari, Chamberlain, & Locke, 2010) and are mostly peripheral or isolated from their classroom social networks as opposed to their typical peers (Kasari, Rotheram-Fuller, Locke, & Gulsrud, 2012). While numerous interventions have been proposed to remediate these social difficulties, and there has been a plethora of research with regard to the efficacy and effectiveness of social interventions, few studies have investigated the underlying neuropsychological components associated with these difficulties. The executive function theory posits that the deficits present in ASD are a reflection of an impairment of higher order cognitive skills, such as those needed to plan and generate goal directed behavior. This theory suggests that deficits in higher order skills, such as working memory, planning, inhibition, set-shifting, and monitoring underlie the various deficits seen in the everyday functioning of people with ASD (Minshew, Webb, Williams, & Dawson, 2006). Executive deficits have been widely noted, albeit inconsistently, throughout the literature (Hill, 2004; Joseph & Tager-Flusberg, 2004; Pennington & Ozonoff, 1996); however, there is a paucity of research investigating the relationship between executive functions and social skills in children with ASD. The research thus far has been quite inconsistent with some studies failing to find any relationship between executive and social skills (Ozonoff et al., 2004; Landa & Goldberg, 2005) and others finding that some measures of executive functioning are related to social and/or adaptive skills (Gilotty, Kenworthy, Sirian, Black, & Wagner, 2002; Kenworthy, Black, Harrison, Della Rosa, & Wallace, 2009). The current study sought to investigate the relationship between executive deficits and social skills among a group of children with ASD. A total of 23 children with ASD who were included in the regular education classroom, age 5 to 12 years old, were administered a battery of performance-based neuropsychological tests to measure shifting, inhibition, and working memory skills. The Behavior Rating of Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) teacher report questionnaire was used to measure the student's executive functions in everyday settings. Social skills were measured with a playground observation and a Friendship Survey that was administered to children with ASD and their peers to capture their social connectedness in the classroom. Results indicated that children with ASD demonstrated impaired performance on performance-based measures of shifting, inhibition, and inhibition-switching. Performance-based measures of working memory skills were in the average range for the children's age. Children demonstrated impairments on several BRIEF clinical scales including Shift, Initiate, Working Memory, and Monitor. The only performance-based measures that were significantly related to social functioning were inhibition and inhibition-switching. Children with better inhibition skills nominated more peers as friends; however, children with better inhibition-switching skills spent more time in solitary play on the playground. Overall, ratings-based measures of executive functioning were more related to social skills. A number of metacognitive skills including initiation, working memory, and planning and organization were significantly related to a greater proportion of playground time spent jointly engaged as well as fewer rejections by their peers. No relationships were found between executive functions and measures of overall social connectedness in the classroom. This indicates that executive skills (as measured by teacher-report) are extremely important with regard to peer interaction on the playground and well as peer acceptance. As a result, social interventions may need to directly target these skills in an effort to increase social engagement and acceptance. This study, however, failed to find a relationship between executive skills and overall social connectedness in the classroom. Given that as the child ages he/she will spend increasingly less time in the playground environment, it is essential that future research investigate the underlying skills necessary to make and maintain friendships.

Cory Beecher didn’t mean to shoot handsome Tyler Montgomery and only kisses him so he doesn’t find the runaway slave in the barn. Abolitionists never considered marrying slave owners, but her world explodes with new found desire when her lips touch his. Can she go through with her carefully crafted plans to marry math instructor Douglas Raymond when her heart longs for another? Tyler Montgomery needs to find the runaway slaves before his rival Edward Vandal captures them. Although he doesn’t want to involve the fiery and beautiful Miss Beecher, once she kisses him, all his plans unravel. As his rival closes in on the quarry, he hesitates to leave, knowing she’s marrying the wrong man. But what does an unemployed lawyer with questionable parentage have to offer the woman he loves?

Shake those hands and feet as you read along with this popular nursery song.

A group of children move and play, hum and sleep to a jazz beat.

While having a nice dinner together, Rabbit points out to Monkey that he canÆt stop scratching himself and so Monkey tells Rabbit that he canÆt stop his twitching, yet after a contest to see who can sit still the longest, they both come to the realization that just being themselves is simply the best way to be. Original.

On the hundredth day, everyone in class has a special assignment, and so Jill makes necklaces with one hundred beads, Ben writes a story about one hundred cats, and Jack jumps rope one hundred times.