Urban Contemporary Fiction

Al MacBharrais is both blessed and cursed. He is blessed with an extraordinary white moustache, an appreciation for craft cocktails - and a most unique magical talent. He can cast spells with magically enchanted ink and he uses his gifts to protect our world from rogue minions of various pantheons, especially the Fae.

Anita has never seen Damian, her vampire servant, in such a state. The rising sun doesn't usher in the peaceful death that he desperately needs. Instead, he's being bombarded with violent nightmares and blood sweats. And now, with Damian at his most vulnerable, Anita needs him the most. The vampire who created him, who subjected him to centuries of torture, might be losing control, allowing rogue vampires to run wild and break one of their kind's few strict taboos.

With accomplished precision and gentle eloquence, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the crosscurrents set in motion when immigrants, expatriates, and their children arrive, quite literally, at a cultural divide. The nine stories in this stunning debut collection unerringly chart the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations.

"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.

Archaeologist Annja Creed and her sword have never been outmatched — until now. When a surprise party for her mentor Roux includes some uninvited guests, Annja finds herself fighting desperately for her life. The intruders escape but leave a sinister message behind. A legend has resurfaced about a sword that should be feared. A sword that seeks a master as bloodthirsty as itself. It is wielded by an assassin known as the Dragon who initiates a terrible game of cat and mouse. Eventually, the two swords — light and dark — must meet...and only one shall triumph.

Matt has a terrible life. Seriously—it's awful. It is so bad that Dan the Demon is shocked when Matt turns down his infernal offer: 10 years of a blissful life in exchange for his soul. But Dan is a salesman behind on his quota and his demonic managers are running out of patience. He forges Matt's signature on the dotted line, stealing his soul and thrusting him into a supernatural world he never knew existed. Matt must learn to navigate the hidden society of demons, faeries, demigods, and worse.

Years ago, after their blood brother ritual, Gage, Fox, and Caleb emerged from the woods, each with a piece of bloodstone. Now, it will become their weapon in the final fight against the demon they awakened. Winner take all...Shared nightmares, visions of blood and fire, and random violence begin to plague the longtime friends and Quinn, Layla, and Cybil, the women bound to them by fate. None of them can ignore the fact that, this year, the demon has grown stronger.

Years ago, the magnificent dragon queen Tintaglia forged a bargain with the inhabitants of the treacherous Rain Wilds. In exchange for her protection against enemy invaders, the humans promised to protect an unhatched brood of dragons. But when the dragons emerged as weak and misshapen hatchlings unable to fend for themselves, dragonkind seemed doomed to extinction. When even Tintaglia deserted the crippled young dragons, the Rain Wilders abandoned the burden of caring for the destructive and ravenous creatures.

From the moment his eyes met hers, there was something. Time stood still, the world around them vanished, and electricity... instant electricity. Immediately, she owned him in an inexplicable way he couldn’t quite understand. He couldn't escape her. Not in his dreams. And soon, not even in his reality. He was the man that made her soar. There was nothing in the world she wanted more than him. Absolutely nothing. His touch made her levitate. When she was with him, she was limitless. He felt like home.

Tristran Thorn will do anything to win the cold heart of beautiful Victoria Forester - even fetch her the star they watch fall from the night sky. But to do so, he must enter the unexplored lands on the other side of the ancient wall that gives their tiny village its name. Beyond that stone barrier, Tristran learns, lies Faerie . . . and the most exhilarating adventure of the young man's life.

Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story. Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math. Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realize it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet. Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan.

Surrounded by secrecy, it is home to the wildest dreams and darkest nightmares. Incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it. The best minds of two generations have labored to build it. And somehow, bit by bit, it is claiming the Earth's most valuable resource - its children.

Se marier à un vampire pour échapper à des ennemis puissants ? Check. Je pensais que les choses ne pouvaient pas être pires, mais entre une ex-vampire furieuse, un ex-petit ami qui hante mes rêves, et un déséquilibre cosmique qui menace le monde, la situation dégénère rapidement. Elle a déjà dégénéré, certes. Avec un novice vampire sous la protection d’Alexander et des attaques répétées contre l’académie de magie, je me retrouve une fois de plus en plein chaos surnaturel.

Even though Brynlee is a hood girl at heart, getting out the hood has always been number one on her to-do list. Now at the age of 25, she has done just that. Big house, dream job, and even engaged to her college boyfriend. She has it all, but she is consistently left wondering, am I really happy? Is my life complete? After getting into it with her fiancé Troy about the one thing she desires so desperately, she decides that it is time to let her hair down and escape reality for a while.

Alors que les navires emportent au loin le prince Devoir et la Narcheska Elliania, désormais libres de se marier, un homme seul se dresse sur les rivages de l'île d'Aslevjal. Fitz Chevalerie, s'il a fini par se résoudre à la mort du fou, ne peut supporter de laisser la dépouille de son ami ensevelie sous les décombres du château de glace. Il se lance alors dans l'exploration désespérée des ruines souillées à tout jamais par les maléfices de la Femme Pâle.

Car mechanic Mercy Thompson has always known there was something different about her, and not just the way she can make a VW engine sit up and beg. Mercy is a shapeshifter, a talent she inherited from her long-gone father. She's never known any others of her kind. Until now.

Et si tomber amoureuse était plus compliqué que de combattre les créatures des ténèbres ? Cordélia Carstairs imaginait son avenir tout tracé : s'entraîner dur pour devenir une Chasseuse d'Ombres et protéger le monde. L'arrestation de son père va tout remettre en question. Accompagnée de son frère, la voilà à Londres pour tenter de le tirer d'affaire. Là-bas, elle renoue avec James et Lucie Herondale, ses amis d'enfance. Bientôt, Cordélia se retrouve entraînée de bals en missions secrètes.

Les sombres aventures de Seïs continuent ; des révélations bouleversantes sortent de l'ombre... L'aura du Porteur de Mort n'a jamais été aussi oppressante ! Alors que l'ombre des spectres du passé tend à vouloir leur dicter leur destin, Seïs et Naïs font face à de nouvelles révélations qui pourraient bien tout faire basculer. Dans les ténèbres de la montagne, les cris du prisonnier résonnent et viennent troubler leurs certitudes. Méridiane, Shaolan et Torii sont plus près que jamais.

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates - brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognised the same sharpness and ambition in one another. A shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death-experiences and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. They become EOs, ExtraOrdinaries, leaving a body in their wake and turning on each other.

Viola Marek is a struggling real estate agent, and a vampire. But her biggest problem currently is that the house she needs to sell is haunted. The ghost haunting the house has been murdered, and until he can solve the mystery of how he died, he refuses to move on. Fox D’Mora is a medium, and though is also most-definitely a shameless fraud, he isn’t entirely without his uses—seeing as he’s actually the godson of Death.