Urban Contemporary Fiction

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.

Mack might be, to all intents and purposes, a normal looking human, but she lives with a pack of shapeshifters in Cornwall in rural England after being dumped there by her mother when she was just a young child. She desperately wants to be accepted by her surrogate family, not least because a lot of them hate her for merely being human, but for some reason her blood just won't allow the transformation to occur.

Private eye Eddie Valiant doesn't like Toons - those cartoon characters who live side-by-side with humans. But Eddie will work for a Toon if his cash supply is low enough. So he reluctantly agrees when Roger Rabbit, a Toon who plays straight man (or should that be straight rabbit) in the Baby Herman cartoon series, asks him to find out who's been trying - unsuccessfully - to buy his contract from the DeGreasy Brothers syndicate. Then Rocco DeGreasy is murdered - and Roger is the prime suspect!

When bizarre magical disappearances disrupt shows around the city, Esther receives a mysterious warning not to go on with her off-Broadway show. Desperate to stay on stage rather than resort to waiting tables, Esther turns to her new BFF, Dr. Maximillian Zadok, a 350-year-old mage whose day job is protecting New York from Evil. Determined to get to the bottom of this mystery without losing her job, Esther and Max team up with a conjuring cowboy, a banker with stage aspirations, and a flock of fearless drag queens.

Slaying undead is an endless task, but one Hunter Haeight has aspired to all her life. She joins Noelictus' Hunter's Guild and works her way up the ranks, slaying zombies, skeletons, and ghouls with dedication and zeal. However, there is a rot within the Kingdom of Shade, and Haeight's aspirations turn into doubts as she finds a web of conspiracies in the capital, Menorome. The Hunters there are off—something is afoot. It is a bewildering, overwhelming place for new Hunters, as well as the fourth Princess of Calanfer, Seraphel du Marquin, who has arrived for her marriage, unhappy and alone.

Some things are so worth waiting for. Like the moment when Jessica Ward "accidentally" bumps into Bobby Ray Smith and shows him just how far she's come since high school. Back then, Jess's gangly limbs and bruised heart turned to jelly any time Smitty's "all the better to ravish you with" body came near her. So, some things haven't changed. Except now Jess is a success on her own terms. And she can enjoy a romp - or 20 -with a big, bad wolf and walk away. Easy.

Zacriah Trovirn is concerned with two things in life: hunting and dodging Petrer, the boy who broke his heart. Heartbreak becomes a distant concern when Zacriah is taken to the Elven capital of Thessolina, where he is forced into King Dalior's new legion of shapeshifters. But Zacriah isn't a shapeshifter. In truth, he doesn't know what he is. Zacriah joins forces with new friends and they soon find themselves embroiled in a clash between the three Elven continents. With war on the horizon, Zacriah must learn to use his latent power to fight and protect those he loves before they are destroyed.

Avery Castle carries the weight of a thousand moments of sorrow. Donavan Hardy carries enough anger for them both. When they were young, Donavan learned sign language so he could talk to the deaf beauty. He cared, even when Avery's influential father couldn't be bothered with her "flaw." In spite of things, the bad boy made her fall in love with sound...with music. And then, Avery's world came crashing down when the love of her life disappeared without a trace.

Nine months ago, Zeus' murder catapulted the Greek gods back into public life. Now, the whole pantheon revels in new temples, casinos, and media empires - except Apollo. An overachiever with a bursting portfolio of godly duties, the amount of email alone he receives from rapacious mortals turns each day into a living hell. Yet there may be hope, if only he can return Zeus to life! With the aid of Thalia, the muse of comedy and science fiction, Apollo will risk his very godhood to help TV producer Tracy Wallace and a gamer geek named Leif, who hold the key to Zeus' resurrection.

Integrity Taylor should have been a Clan princess. Instead she's lived a life on the very periphery of society. However, now that she's learned more about her heritage and the magic that she's capable of wielding, she's not going to hide in the shadows any longer. The once-in-a-generation Sidhe Games are going to provide the perfect opportunity for her to win back her birthright, and the fact that she'll be going head-to-head, toe-to-toe, and mouth-to-mouth with golden-haired Byron Moncrieffe might just be the icing on the cake.

Eddie Hunter is about at the end of his rope, so when he stumbles across an ad looking for people to farm in Long Term Immersion in the game Light Online, he can't believe his luck. Once hired he enters the game as soon as he can. Unbeknownst to him, though, the person that hired him is also doing illicit research on the pods that he and the other farmers are using.

Kandri Hinjuman was never meant to be a soldier. His brother Mektu was never meant for this world. Rivals since childhood, they are drafted into a horrific war led by a madwoman-Prophet, and survive each day only by hiding their disbelief. Kandri is good at blending in, but Mektu is hopeless: impulsive, erratic - and certain that a demon is stalking him. Is this madness or a second sense? Either way, Kandri knows that Mektu's antics will land them both in early graves. But all bets are off when the brothers' simmering feud explodes into violence, and holy blood is spilled.

Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn't expect to see each other again after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during high school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one's peers and families. But now they're both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them.

Elemental witch Abigail Drake, third daughter in a magical bloodline, was born with a special affinity for water and the power to communicate with dolphins. Off the coast of Sea Haven, California, she has spent her entire life swimming among the sleek aquatic mammals, studying their fascinating ways. But then her idyll is shattered when she witnesses a gruesome murder along the shore.

Gary Leger thought life after college would bring great things. Instead, he's stuck in a dead-end job and finding that the real world isn't all it's cracked up to be. But when he walks into the woods behind his house one day, Gary finds a world beyond the "real world"---a realm of elves and dwarfs and witches and dragons. There he discovers that he is the only one who can wear the armor of the land's lost hero---and wield a magical spear. And if he doesn't, he can never go home again.

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.

While working as a singing waitress in Little Italy, struggling actress Esther Diamond witnesses a mob hit. And right before getting whacked out, the victim tells her that he just saw his own doppio - a perfect double and a notorious portent of death. Before long, more döppelgangers start haunting New York’s mobsters, who are subsequently getting bumped off in mysterious ways. Meanwhile, Esther’s new love-interest, Detective Connor Lopez, gets transferred to the NYPD’s organized crime unit and is assigned to investigate these hits.

The winner of multiple Hugo Awards, Charles Stross is one of the most highly regarded science fiction writers of his time. In The Apocalypse Codex, occasionally hapless British agent Bob Howard tackles a case involving an American televangelist and a supernatural threat of global proportions.

Esther Diamond's year gets off to a rocky start when NYPD's Detective Connor Lopez, who slept with her and then didn't call, shuts down the Little Italy restaurant where Esther works between acting jobs and gets her arrested. Once she's out of handcuffs, Esther takes a small role in a grad student's film project in Chinatown - where her friend, semi-retired hit man Lucky Battistuzzi, is hiding out in a Chinese-Italian mortuary.

Hadley Whitaker is a liar, a killer, and a chocoholic, but she's getting better about the first two. Or maybe she's just getting better at them. Some days it's hard for her to tell fact from fiction, but only one truth matters. Goddess willing, she's going to be the next Potentate of Atlanta. Even if it means playing nice with Midas Kinase, a shifter whose mysterious past might just be grimmer than her own. When a bloodthirsty rogue begins hunting the city's paranormals, Hadley ropes Midas into letting her work the case. But that rope starts to feel more like a noose.