This story is so good that I didn't want it to end. I want Arwen Elys Dayton to write more tales about Shall, the floating city. More intrigue, more danger, and more quest. Another book please! If you like a good story, you will like this book. If you like a great story told from a unique point of view about a strangely familiar time and place, you will love this book!

Sovereign's Hold is a fantastic adventure! Following the lives of this unique cast of characters I found myself on a journey through incredibly cerebral heights and horrifyingly harsh depths as each of their individual quests intertwined. Incredibly rich in texture and imagination this book is a thrilling blend of adventure, action, political intrigue and romance woven together in a story that captivates the spirit as well as the mind.

And hats off to Arwen Dayton for creating strong *and* sexy female characters whose powers of seduction are only surpassed by their skills in combat - think Sigourney Weaver in 'Alien' or Demi Moore in 'G.I. Jane' - yeah! ; )

Sovereign's Hold will capture you. From the very first chapter I found myself intrigued, finding it difficult to put down the book. I was truly carried "out of this world" and into several fascinating worlds that Ms. Dayton had created. The characters are rich and the several threads of their lives are skillfully woven. The author has a mastery of the art of suspense and puts a great deal of action into the narrative. The traditional subject of the conflict between good and evil is put forward with a subtle understanding of the "human" character. There was never a moment when the book's momentum flagged. The book is written simply and directly with all the subtle details of description and action that one finds in a great writer. I can recommend this book to young as well as old readers. I was surprised to learn that this is Ms. Dayton's first novel; I am looking forward to more books from this imaginative mind.

I found the first book at a book sale through work. I had to special order the other two, but it was well worth it. I thoroughly enjoyed each book. I met my boyfriend online and though in a much different way, I could relate to the characters. Very easy and quick read. I highly recommend! :-)

I found the whole series of these books to fantastic and well written. They are short but they make great books to read while you are in line at the bank or whatever.

The characters are believable and I could relate with their feelings and emotions very well. I recommend this whole little series.

The second novel of her cyberseries "connect" develops Bev's and Max's relationship, redifining the boundries of their romance. I loved this book but it must be read in sequence. McCarthy uses words and emoticons to express the feelings of each character without the need of introspection, inner monologues or descriptions. The ease with which the characters "speak" to each other is wonderful and natural. Could not put it down. Couldn't wait to pick up the next one and find out what happens to them.

This journal compiles amazing photographs of one of America's most envied gardens. It's layout is outstandingly useful for gardners and admirers alike. A "perfect" gift!!! Two thumbs up for its editors.

The perfect hostess gift! This beautiful journal is timeless and inspirational to those of us who struggle in the "green thumb" area! The photographs are beautifully done and the line drawings are beyond compare. A real treasure!!

This book makes everyone want to have a green thumb! Just looking at this beautiful book sitting on my desk makes me want to spend all day in my garden. The photographs are exquisite and the drawings are beyond compare. Marie Aull's garden is a work of art, a very special place, a garden that every gardener aspires to!

Secret Energy: The Soul at Rest in Christ helped me in more ways than I can list but the most important one has to be that it is helping me get to a place of greater consistency in my walk with Christ. Most Christians go through highs and lows, ups and downs, and Secret Energy is helping me break that cycle and stay strong in the Lord. The cycle of sin, guilt, and defeat paralyzes the walk of many Christians, and Secret Energy puts forth several key concepts on how to break that cycle.

It starts with understanding how God sees us at all times-- that is, he sees us in Christ-- Christ is, so to speak, the lense through which God views us. Our identity is taken up in Christ's identity.

This is a great series, and I am recommending to everyone who would like more victory in their walk with Christ.

This was an excellent cassette. I have had the pleasure of meeting Bob Bew in person; hearing him live or on cassette is truly a blessing. His understanding of scripture is truly phenominal and insightful.

If you are going to listen just one tape this year make it this one.

Wow, what a great audio-book! "Secret Energy" is a teaching series. Bob Bew speaks of the meaning of the deeper Christian life. Before I heard these tapes, I was feeling empty inside-- I felt like my spiritual life was not going anywhere. I felt stagnant. The tapes introduced me to what it means to dwell where Christ dwells, to dwell in power, to dwell in victory. We don't have to live as defeated. We can be victorious in Jesus.

This book showed a differnt side of the war that very few people know about. In school we are only taught about the destruction and greif of the war, not about a country man's dedication to his country. This book has opened my eyes to a new side of the war that I didn't know about. It has sparked my intrest to read more books that have a similar depiction of WW II.

As a veteran, I am heartened that so many excellent World War Two histories and novels are now available to interested readers. "Sobs of the Violins" certainly ranks as one of the best novels that I have read in many years. From the first pages, one roots for the gallant resistance fighters. German antagonists are carefully and realistically brought to life. Readers come to understand that Germans, too, faced many pressures and were not of one mind regarding war aims. Ms. Dayton forcefully shows how high the stakes were during the 1939-45 conflict. Buy this novel....then, buy copies for your family and friends!

Grab this book! It will make a great film to place along with Saving Sargent Ryan and the rest of the current blockbuster hits about World War II. It has everything - an intense story, terrific characters, beautiful scenery. Well scripted and well cast, filmed on site in the French Vercors mountains it could be the next box office record-breaker.

I first bought coreldraw7 a couple of years ago, at student price.. and it didnt come with a manual. So I figured out a lot of techniques thru trial and error. But I missed out on a lot of the Coreldraw features, although I thought it was great software all the same, and did a lot of drawing with it.

Just last week I bought the Coreldraw Wow book, and ..at last! ..the tools and features of this software are revealed to me in an amazing compendium of techniques, tips and excellent information.

Shane Hunt's 'The Coreldraw Wow! Book' is clear, well written, and an inspiration. Full of useful techniques, it's an excellent book to really show the power and versatility of Coreldraw.

Shane Hunt has a gift for clarity and precision as he describes how to get the most out of Corel Draw. This book is for both beginners and advanced users and lets users in on the secrets of the amazing special effects supported in the program, in all its versions.

I have waited for what seemed like forever for this WOW book to hit the shelves and I must say it was well worth the wait. I have other books written by both Shane Hunt and Linnea Dayton and I'm glad to say they have maintained their rep of putting out good references for the rest of us. Every time I open it I see something else I want to try or gives me ideas for new things. This book is well designed and written - not too techie for novices and chock full of great illustrations. If you dislike working your way through the effects menus, you'll love the pages that show all the fountain presets, bitmap filters, etc. I appreciate the authors remembering all of us who do not upgrade every year or who use more than one version (or Macs). Every CorelDRAW user, using any version, should get this book. You'll be glad you did.

This novel is a survival story of a young boy named David, a whooping crane and a pilot named Archie. David's mean stepfather has threatened him once too often. David is sick and tired of having to listen to him so he decides to run away. Aboarding a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services plane he finds that running away was more then he could handel. After the plane crashes in the wilderness David meets the pilot named Archie and the two become very good friends. Surviving the wild was not as easy as David had hoped it would be. One day while David was out searching for food he discovers a whooping crane egg. Knowing that whooping cranes wre so rare David returns with the egg and shows it to Archie. The two keep the egg and care for it while it is in the process of hatching. When the egg finally hatches they name it Rusty and the three become great friends. We think the book is very interesting and tells us alot about living out in the wild and caring for an animal. We would recommend this book to the grades between 6 and 8.

In this book, it tells about a strong survival of a boy named David. he runs away from home and hops on a plane. The plane pilot is Archire. Archie and David become friends. On the way to their destination, the plane crashes. They survive the crash. But Archies leg is broken. When David was looking for food he found an egg. They decided to take care of it. That it what thgi9s book was about. I would recommend this book to a 7th grader because it was very intresting to read this book. It probanbly would be boring to an 8th grader.

I for one have enjoyed this book for many years. I find the whole plot to be very enjoyable as well as imformative. It gives some information on how to survive and what to do in certain situations. Plus some of the stuff in this book was pretty funny.

I highly recommend this book.

This book helped me out of a very difficult time, it gave me the insight and the strength to recover from years of shame and frustration.

There gets to a point where it's time to change affirmation books. If you are at that point, like I was, this is the book for you!

When I purchased this book I was having a tough time with an individual's actions. After reading just a few pages I was in a new world that I knew would be beneficial to me. I am purchasing a copy for a close friend of mine who is having similar problems that I had.

Sure, if you know enough about Photoshop you could create many of these layerstyles, textures, etc. by hand. But why? It takes far less time and effort to load it off of a CD. The book includes photographic examples of the layer styles, actions, brushes, etc. as well as instructions and tips on how to use these tools. It is MORE than just a 'layer styles on a cd' book.

For the price it is well worth it (I paid just over [price] for the book through Amazon).

You can use this book if you have Photoshop 6, but certain actions may not work, and the brushes may not work. You need Photoshop 7 to fully take advantage of everything in this book, but it is still worth the price if you have not yet upgraded to 7.0 yet.

I highly reccomend this book.

Alex F.

The greatest value of One Click WOW is the CD which includes:
•60 custom brush presets
• 300 styles for photos, type, and graphics,
•150 styles for buttons,
•50 styles for ImageReady rollovers complete with JavaScript code,
•40 gradient presets,
•over 150 seamless pattern textures,
•60 actions,
•60 art media tool presets,
•tutorial and sample files

One Click WOW works on the Layer Styles in both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. So you just install and you're ready to go. You really don't have to read anything, but I suggest reading the part where it explains resolution (all theirs are done at 225 ppi) and how to get the best results, how to scale their presets, etc.

The book contains what seems like a zillion (technical term) sample images of the various styles, presets, patterns and brushes, gradient effects, photo effects... vignettes, frames, borders, tints, color effects, textures, patterns, grains and even various darkroom effects

You can set some text or create a simple grayscale image, then click on one of their presets, and voila! You instantly have results that might have taken hours.

They also give you presets to change the look of photos, like adding film grain, and, near the back, Jack includes a little tutorial on his amazing technique to turn your photos into paintings (using the brush presets on the CD).

Adobe Photoshop 7 One Click Wow
by Jack Davis and Linnea Dayton
Peachpit Press
90 pages, all in color
CD included with supporting files and samples
ISBN 0-321-12531-2

Review by: Wynne Stevens

One Click Wow is one of those books we struggling want-to-be computer artists see in bookstores and fall in love with at first sight. The accompanying CD alone contains a smorgasbord of Photoshop styles, actions, and other effects that can make anyone look good with virtually no effort at all. Obviously true artists and Photoshop experts may look upon this with some disdain but there's no denying that One Click Wow exemplifies software automation and productivity to the delight of the unskilled such as myself.

This book contains the tools to take a simple graphic and convert it to chiseled steel, chrome, plastic, glass, neon, wood grain, and on and on. Want a frame or special edge treatment for that photograph? How about textures, edges or photo enhancements? Need some dynamic rollovers? No problem.

The authors present the various included effects with a simple clarity that makes it possible to start experimenting immediately. Once hooked, the process is addictive and a truly great way to explore the incredibly vast range of image effects that are possible with Photoshop.

The main focus of the book is on Photoshop layer styles, various effects that can be applied or unapplied to individual or groups of layers within an image file. It starts with brief introduction describing concept and customizing in terms easily grasped by any novice. The reader is encouraged to load the styles and begin experimenting immediately and there is a tutorial for the timid.

In the course of observing how each style (and there are literally hundreds) is constructed, and how components (opacity, pattern, shadow, stroke, texture, et. al.) are mixed, one really begins to understand the power of layer styles. Through experimentation, the book's styles can be altered and re-saved to suit any individual preference. This is where the real value lies -- one has both a vast library of new presets and the means to customize based on individual needs.

But wait, there's more! There are tons of other presets, including over 60 actions, 40 gradients, and 150 seamless patterns with full color examples of how each is rendered on a simple graphic. It's a lot of fun and a great education for those of us who are unsophisticated in the many ways an image can be manipulated. The CD alone is worth thirty bucks -- the fact that there are 90 pages of text and color examples is a bonus.

I recommend this book highly, especially to novices, as an excellent introduction to the power of Photoshop in image enhancement. Many of us have the program and don't really know all it can do. Spend a day with this book and you'll have a new appreciation. Definitely:

MacMice Rating: 5 out of 5

Author Jack Davis tells Book Bytes:

I want to emphasize the Wow Art Media Brush Presets and the Wow Image Fix Brush Presets -- over 70 of the most mind-bogglingly useful brushes (and associated paper and canvas textures) for thoroughly exploiting the capabilities of Photoshop 7's new Brush Engine. Those topics start on page 78 of the book.

Users of Adobe Photoshop Elements can participate in the Wow revolution by purchasing and using a companion book, entitled:

Adobe Photoshop Elements One-Click Wow!
by Jack Davis and Linnea Dayton
Peachpit Press
ISBN 0-321-10847-7, 58 pages plus companion CD loaded with images and tools

*If readers are using Photoshop 6, they won't be able to take advantage of the new Tool Presets on the Photoshop 7 One-Click Wow CD, but this would still be the book of choice because of the greater number of Styles.

*If they are using Photoshop Elements, the Photoshop 7 One-Click Wow still offers more Styles, but the Elements One-Click Wow tells how to use Styles with Elements, which is a little different process than using them with the full Photoshop.

In both cases, the printed book includes examples of all the Styles and tells how to use all the goodies supplied on the CD-ROM, including the tutorial files.

Here are the differences in more detail:

Adobe Photoshop Elements One-Click Wow! - which was the first one in this series - has more than 300 Layer Styles (instant stunning, practical effects for photos, type, or graphics) that can be used with Elements or Photoshop 6 or 7. It also has Recipes, which are exclusive to Elements (since Adobe has changed the way Recipes work in version 2 and the Wow Recipes were designed for version 1, the Recipes on our CD don't work with Elements 2).

Adobe Photoshop 7 One-Click Wow! has more Layer Styles - about 250 for type and graphics and more than 75 for photos, all of which can be used with Photoshop 7 or 6 or with Elements. It also has 150 custom button styles for use in Photoshop 6 or 7 or ImageReady; in addition, there are 50 combined Rollover Styles, already automated for use in ImageReady. Besides more Styles, the other major difference about this book/CD package is that it takes advantage of Photoshop 7's support for custom Tool Presets. For instance, it has more than 60 custom art-media tools for turning photos into watercolors, oils, pastels, and other media. It also has photo-retouching presets: dodge-and-burn brushes, red-eye fixers, teeth-and-eye whiteners, and skin redness removers. There are also presets for the most-often-used cropping dimensions, more than 40 Wow Gradients, and over 150 custom seamlessly tiling Patterns and Textures. There are also Wow Actions for elaborate special effects and for common image-fixing and production tasks. (The Tool Presets and many of the Actions are specific to Photoshop 7 only, and won't work with Photoshop 6 or Elements.

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Wynne Stevens

I enjoyed this book completely...it really gave me a sense of the human experience of the journey, and made me appreciate just what an incredible accomplishment it was. The illustrations really add to the enjoyment of the book, as do the excerpts from the journals of several of the men. I also liked the background information on what goals were actually behind the exploration and how they worked to meet those goals. There's only one reason that I didn't give this book 5 stars, and that's because it lacks a good map to help understand where they were during some of the events described. But that can be found in other works, and this really is a good introducion to Lewis and Clark...it's a relatively easy read but full of interesting facts and adventures.

I give high praise to this book and this reading. You will learn so much about the journey, and you'll feel the cold of the winters and the wonderment of their adventures. Taken from their actual journals, this book is even better than "Undaunted Courage". p.s. the unabridged is even better.

This audio is a great telling of this amazing journey. Any history buff should order this and play it over and over. The facts of the ride and the aftermath of the characters will leave you in awe.