Urban Contemporary Fiction

"I very much need to be dead." These are the chilling words left behind by a man who had everything to live for - but took his own life. In the void that remains stands his widow, Jane, surrounded by questions destined to go unanswered...unless she does what all the grief, fear, confusion, and fury inside of her demand: find the truth, no matter what. There is no one else to speak for Jane's husband - or the others who have followed him into death at their own hands.

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot.

Two-time Aurora Award-winning author Guy Gavriel Kay has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award three times. In the first book of his Fionavar Tapestry series, five college students meet a wizard who takes them to the heart of the first of all worlds - a place called Fionavar. The students soon discover that they have been pre-ordained as part of the pattern called the Fionavar Tapestry - and if they don't fulfill their destinies, the world will suffer devastating consequences.

Knowledge is power. That would be the motto of Lander University, had it not been snatched up and used to death by others long before the school was founded. For while Lander offers a full range of courses to nearly all students, it also offers a small number of specialty classes to a very select few. Lander is home to the Hero Certification Program, a curriculum designed to develop students with superhuman capabilities, commonly known as Supers, into official Heroes.

In this entry from Anthony Award winner Charlaine Harris' New York Times best-selling series, the gorgeous and feisty telepath hits the road to find her missing boyfriend, who may have run off with his former lover - a notorious vamp.

Heralded as an instant classic of fantasy literature, Maguire has written a wonderfully imaginative retelling of The Wizard of Oz told from the Wicked Witch's point of view. More than just a fairy tale for adults, Wicked is a meditation on the nature of good and evil.

Kennedy Bennett comes from a long line of curse weavers. For centuries, her family has plied their trade in Unstable, Massachusetts, an unconventional small town that's welcomed paranormal practitioners since the dawn of spiritualism. Kennedy has recently struck out on her own, opening an antiques shop in Boston, where her specialty is uncursing and reselling hexed objects. Then Aiden Connolly walks into her life with an offer she really should refuse. The scion of a wealthy family of luck workers, Aiden has a scheme to get his hands on the most famous cursed object of all.

I expected aging out of the foster care system to be hard. I wasn't expecting it to include finding out I was a Warlock, destined to be hunted by the most powerful Witch Families so they could bind me to a coven of thirteen witches and spend the rest of my life "harvesting mana". Add to that a set of magical resonants that made me an even bigger target to some of those Witch Families, some of which would rather kill me than let a rival get me.

After an unfortunate incident, Sookie finds herself beholden to a group of Louisiana vampires. So she agrees to travel to Dallas with her undead boyfriend Bill and track down a missing vamp, but only if the vampires promise to let local humans go unharmed.

With magic declassified in the UK, the fake psychics and fraudulent healers are running amok, and it's up to the Department of Extradimensional Affairs' newly appointed Skepticism Officers to crack down. But when they set their sights on Modern Miracle, a highly suspicious and fast-growing faith healing cult with remarkably good social media presence, even their skepticism is put to the test.

Ysabel is a contemporary fantasy that centers on the Saint-Sauveur Cathedral of Aix-en-Provence, where a 15-year-old boy accompanies his father on a photo shoot. Befriending a whip-smart American girl and confronting a knife-wielding maniac, the boy finds that the ancient site shimmers with mysteries of fantastical design.

The ratings and views are off the chart. The fans just can't get enough. The dungeon gets more dangerous each day. But in a grinder designed to chew up and spit out crawlers by the millions, Carl and Princess Donut need to work harder than ever just to survive. They call it the Over City. A sprawling, once-thriving metropolis devastated by a mysterious calamity. But these streets are far from abandoned. An undead circus trawls the ruins. Murdered prostitutes rain from the sky. An ancient spell is finally ready to reveal its dark purpose.

Since the moment I was ripped from my mother's womb, I've been an outcast among my own kind. The Sidhe might possess magical Gifts, unbelievable wealth, and unfathomable power, but I don't want a thing to do with them. I ran away from their lands in the Highlands of Scotland when I was 11 years old, and I've never looked back. I don't need a clan. I've got my own family of highly skilled thieves who mean more to me than any Sidhe ever could.

It is the late 21st century, and due to the economic breakdown and rising crime rate, nearly every citizen has fled Toronto. The city is a slum, populated by the homeless, the poor, and criminals like Rudy, who uses the power of voodoo to help him control the booming drug market. But also left behind are people like Ti-Jeanne, who hope to use voodoo to help rebuild the city, even as Canada's privileged population turns to Toronto to begin harvesting human organs.

When children go missing, and the Humans have no leads, I’m the one they call. I am their last hope in bringing home the lost ones. I salvage what they cannot. Underestimating demons is a bad idea, and it’s a mistake that may cost me not only my own life but the life of a missing child. If I can swallow my pride, and allow Agent O’Shea to help me find a way to deal with the demon, we might be able to save the child.

I’m one placement away from becoming a fully fledged London detective. It’s bad enough that my last assignment before I qualify is with Supernatural Squad. But that’s nothing compared to what happens next. Brutally murdered by an unknown assailant, I wake up 12 hours later in the morgue - and I’m very much alive. I don’t know how or why it happened. I don’t know who killed me. All I know is that they might try again.

Claire Hansen was a Keeper, a member of that select group that kept the universe in one piece. And now she'd been Summoned to the Elysian Fields Guesthouse, a rundown bed-and-breakfast that seemed to attract the most unusual clientele. And Claire was not happy about this latest assignment, not happy at all. Not when she'd been tricked into taking over here by a horrible little gnome of a man who'd abandoned his post before she'd even figured out who he really was. Not when room six held a resident who'd been sleeping there for so many years that she really needed a good dusting - except that it was far too dangerous for anyone to get that close to her.

Let's get one thing straight - Ivy Wilde is not a heroine. In fact she's probably the last witch in the world you'd call if you needed a magical helping hand, regardless of her actual abilities. If it were down to Ivy, she'd spend all day every day on her sofa, where she could watch TV, munch junk food, and talk to her feline familiar to her heart's content. However, when a bureaucratic disaster ends up with Ivy as the victim of a case of mistaken identity, she's yanked very unwillingly into Arcane Branch.

In the debut to Heather Killough-Walden's Big Bad Wolf series, Lily St. Claire is in for a surprise when she moves back to her Louisiana hometown and finds two alpha werewolves fighting to claim her as their mate. Contains mature themes.

Devereau Webb is in uncharted territory. He thought he knew what he was doing when he chose to enter London's supernatural society, but he's quickly discovering that his new status isn't welcome to everyone. He's lived through hard times before, and he's no stranger to the murky underworld of city life. But when he comes across a young werewolf girl who's not only been illegally turned but who has also committed two brutal murders, he will discover just how difficult life can be for supernaturals - and also how far his own predatory powers extend.