Urban Contemporary Fiction

James Stark, a.k.a. Sandman Slim, crawled out of Hell, took bloody revenge for his girlfriend’s murder, and saved the world along the way. After that, what do you do for an encore? You take a lousy job tracking down monsters for money. It’s a depressing gig, but it pays for your beer and cigarettes. But in L.A., things can always get worse. Like when Lucifer comes to town to supervise his movie biography and drafts Stark as his bodyguard.

The Earth is dying. Humanity - over-breeding, over-consuming - is destroying the very planet they call home. Multinational corporations despoil the environment, market genetically modified crops to control the food supply, and use their wealth and influence and private armies to crush anything, and anyone, that gets in the way of their profits. Nothing human can stop them. But something unhuman might. Once they did not fear the sun. Once they could breathe the air and sleep where they chose.

The New York Times best-selling author of The Black Jewels Trilogy transports readers to a world of magic and political unrest - where the only chance at peace requires a deadly price.... The Others freed the cassandra sangue to protect the blood prophets from exploitation, not realizing their actions would have dire consequences. Now the fragile seers are in greater danger than ever before - both from their own weaknesses and from those who seek to control their divinations for wicked purposes.

Raphaëlle ne croit pas aux contes de fées. Même lorsque tout va bien, elle est persuadée que la tempête n’est jamais très loin. Pourtant, entre deux orages, son existence se remplit de rencontres amoureuses et de précieuses amitiés. Aux côtés de son père, qui sait trouver les mots justes et les silences pour lui faire du bien, la vie est douce. Et grâce à Chanterelle, sa complice exubérante au nom étrange, même les jours de pluie se transforment en fêtes.

Vampire hunter and zombie animator Anita Blake is an expert at sniffing out the bad from the good. But in The Lunatic Cafe - now in trade paperback for the first time - she's about to learn that nothing is ever as it seems, especially in matters of the not-so-human heart. Dating a werewolf with self-esteem issues is stressing Anita out. Especially when something - or someone - starts taking out the city's shapeshifters.

Welcome to Bucky's Out of this World Restaurant! Finally able to live a peaceful life, Amelia decides to open a restaurant in Wolfwater. She picks up a chicken as a mascot, recruits a world-renowned [Chef] as her first employee, and ends up even convincing an angel to work for her. Meanwhile, Noele continues her training with Garron, preparing for any threat that is to come. And the threats will come. All throughout Vacuos, the Sect of the Abyssal Thorns spread their roots while the [Hero King] Kallistus Kal continues scheming. But Amelia doesn't care for any of that.

Nell is a rookie PsyLED agent, using the powers she can channel from deep within the earth to solve paranormal crimes. Nell is called to the Tennessee mansion of a country music star and finds a disturbing scene - dead bodies rapidly decaying before everyone's eyes. The witch on her team, T. Laine, has never seen magic that can steal life forces like this. PsyLED needs to find this lethal killer fast. But when a paranormal-hating FBI agent tries to derail the investigation and the dark magics begin to spiral out of control, they find themselves under attack from all sides.

All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna’s isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy.

A striking red-head, 20-something Jody is attacked and transformed into a vampire while walking home one night in downtown San Francisco. Befriending 19-year-old Tommy, Jody tries to understand her new undead life, but trouble finds her when the cops start suspecting Tommy of being a local bloodsucking serial killer.

"Mom seems off." Her brother's words echo in Sam Montgomery's ear as she turns onto the quiet North Carolina street where their mother lives alone. She brushes the thought away as she climbs the front steps. Sam's excited for this rare extended visit, and looking forward to nights with just the two of them, drinking boxed wine, watching murder mystery shows, and guessing who the killer is long before the characters figure it out. But stepping inside, she quickly realizes home isn’t what it used to be.

One second, Gem Hawkins is on her way to being the number one drag racer in the state, and the next, she's burying her father, a badass demon hunter. The agency calls it a fluke. The official report claims some low level demon caught him off guard while out on patrol. But Gem knows that's a lie. When the dirty Nephilim running the investigation refuses to help, Gem takes matters into her own hands.

He's provided for each of them the opportunity to lead a life of health, wealth, and power far beyond their imagination. By his own example, he's shown them that such gifts are meant to be shared, used to make the world a better place. And he's never asked them for anything in return, showing a willingness to risk even his own life to live to his own ideals. Now Will Stark needs their help. He's helpless, he's uneducated, and he's about to meet men who can utterly destroy him. And they'll need to make sure that's exactly what happens.

Mattie, an intelligent automaton skilled in the use of alchemy, finds herself caught in the middle of a conflict between gargoyles, the Mechanics, and the Alchemists. With the old order quickly giving way to the new, Mattie discovers powerful and dangerous secrets - secrets that can completely alter the balance of power in the city of Ayona. This doesn't sit well with Loharri, the Mechanic who created Mattie and still has the key to her heart - literally.

When Matt Johansson, a young New York actor, auditions for Chapel of Ease, an off-Broadway musical, he is instantly charmed by Ray Parrish, the show's writer and composer. As their friendship deepens, Matt learns that Ray's people call themselves the Tufa and that the musical is based on the history of his isolated hometown. But there is one question in the show's script that Ray refuses to answer: What is buried in the ruins of the Chapel of Ease?

The third book in Kat Richardson's best-selling Greywalker series, Underground features heroine Harper Blaine, walker of the shadowy line between the living and the dead. Seattle's homeless are turning up dead and mutilated, and zombies have been seen stalking the Underground. Harper sets out to find the source, and soon comes to realize she's tangling with an ancient evil.

Tane is a Charon, sworn to hunt and kill rogue vampires. His new assignment seems like a waste of his talents-until he catches up with the jinn he's been sent to capture. Half human, half demon, Laylah has a vulnerable streak that strikes right through to Tane's cold heart. He should be furious when she uses her powers to bind them together, preventing him from dragging her before the Commission.

Lucas Simone is not the kind of guy you mess with. He's big, he's strong, and his eyes hint at a wilder side most women can't handle. Of course, that's because his predatory instincts are no metaphor-he's a genuine Grade-A top-quality werewolf. There's only one chink in his armor. Unlike most alpha dogs, Lucas has a reputation for protecting the weak and innocent. Sarah King is counting on that protective impulse - it's the only thing standing between her and certain death.

Antonia Vitali's on the run and in hiding, working as a salesclerk in a designer outlet mall in Jersey. Toni's life has been on a steady downward decline for three years now, the ghosts of her past always nipping at her heels. Little does she know, her life's about to change when the OOPS girls whisk in for a day of Christmas shopping and fall through a wormhole in the store's dressing room, taking Toni with them....

Grace, as her friends call her, has a Ford Motor Company tattoo running down her leg and grease worked deep into her hands. She works at Sanchez Motorworks customizing hot rods. Finding the line in a classic car is her calling. Now Grace has to find the line in her own life. Grace loves John, and John loves her, and that would be wonderful, except that John, like Grace, has unfinished business: He's haunted by the childhood death of his younger brother. He's never stopped feeling responsible.

In New York City, an underground society of supernatural beings exists, hidden among everyday humans. They don't know of our activities or any of our secrets. The districts of the Works are made up of vampires, wolves, shifters, and witches, and I'm in the fifth and arguably most important district, the Patchwork. My father is the leader of our group, and he oversees all of the other factions. As his only daughter, that makes me the princess of it all. Cool, right? Actually, no.