Urban Fantasy Comedy

Well, this year, after the Spring Planting season, I’m really gonna relax and put down roots. It’s the slow life for me. Sure, the talking animals and cultivators coming to live with me are a bit weird, but this year everything is gonna be basically normal. There definitely won’t be any Heavenly Tribulations, ancient formations, or cultivator issues to deal with . . .

Fifteen years after losing most of his family to a devastating, pudding-related tragedy, Simon Debovar has settled into a life of self-imposed exile from the stinking, selfish morass of humanity. Content that his daily highlights will include hazelnut coffee, a long bath, and the occasional jar of olives, his life is completely upturned by the discovery that his ornate living room carpet is the deciding factor in a bet between God and Satan.

The world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday. Just before dinner, according to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing and everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist.

Modern-day wizard Lily Singer prefers to stay tucked away in her library, studying magic and drinking tea. But with a troublesome witch friend and a past riddled with dangerous secrets, her chances of peace and quiet are slim. Armed with only wits and magic, she must manage her argumentative cat, thwart a plot to steal a powerful artifact, and decide who, amid all this, she can trust.

People start dropping dead around Charlie, giant ravens perch on his building, and it seems that everywhere he goes, a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Strange names start appearing on his nightstand notepad, and before he knows it, those people end up dead, too. Yup, it seems that Charlie Asher has been recruited for a new job, an unpleasant but utterly necessary one: Death.

First we live. Then we die. And then...we get another try? Ten thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to "get it right". Answer all the big questions. Achieve wisdom. And become one with everything. Milo has had 9,995 chances so far and has just five more lives to earn a place in the cosmic soul. If he doesn't make the cut, oblivion awaits. But all Milo really wants is to fall forever into the arms of Death. Or Suzie, as he calls her.

In Sandman Slim Stark came back from hell for revenge. Once again all is not right in L.A. Lucifer is back in Heaven, God is on vacation, and an insane killer mounts a war against both Heaven and Hell. Stark’s got to head back down to his old stomping grounds in Hell to rescue his long lost love, stop an insane serial killer, prevent both Good and Evil from completely destroying each other, and stop the demonic Kissi from ruining the party for everyone. Even for Sandman Slim, that’s a tall order. And it’s only the beginning.

A month has passed since Martin helped to defeat the evil programmer Jimmy, and things couldn't be going better. Except for his love life, that is. Feeling distant and lost, Gwen has journeyed to Atlantis, a tolerant and benevolent kingdom governed by the Sorceresses, and a place known to be a safe haven to all female time-travelers.

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.

In her 11th adventure, following Undead and Undetermined, Betsy’s up to her fangs in paranormal trouble. Still heartbroken over her friend Marc’s sacrifice, Betsy is further plagued by nagging suspicions that her half-sister Laura is up to no good. It seems that Laura has received an offer to assume her mother’s duties overseeing Hell - but only if she first kills Betsy.

In Jim’s absence, Zorlando has been doing a pretty good job keeping Windfall safe. He doesn’t know - and may not be equipped for - what is heading straight toward Noobtown, though. Will Jim beat the Pirates while he is on Glorious Roberts’ ship? Will he make it back to his beloved city before Maggie, the assassin, gets there? Why are there pirates attempting to sack Windfall? Most importantly, will Shart ever be the opposite of inside out again?

Ever since Martin Banks and his fellow computer geeks discovered that reality is just a computer program to be happily hacked, they've been jaunting back and forth through time, posing as medieval wizards and having the epic adventures that other nerds can only dream of having. But even in their wildest fantasies, they never expected to end up at the mercy of the former apprentice whom they sent to prison for gross misuse of magic and all-around evil behavior.

Vampire Queen Betsy Taylor - newly married and living in the suburbs - rules the night in this seventh book from MaryJanice Davidson's New York Times best-selling series. Already busy dealing with a pesky ghost, Betsy must rise to the occasion when a pack of formerly feral vamps comes calling.

It's been less than two months since her mother was murdered, and already Insighter Leah Nazir is embroiled in more drama. While delighted that her relationship with Archer is being taken to the next level, this is not how she wanted to meet his family. An unexpected call from Naya, Archer's cousin and another Insighter, draws the couple to Brewster, Massachusetts, to investigate Naya's father's decades-old murder - by Archer's father no less! But every step of the way, Leah and Archer face new roadblocks from unpredictable quarters.

Anthony Award-winning author Charlaine Harris has earned a devoted fan base with her USA Today and New York Times best-selling Sookie Stackhouse mystery series. All Together Dead features more dark but frequently hilarious adventures of buxom, blonde, beautiful, and telepathic cocktail waitress Sookie, who prefers the company of vampires to that of the living.

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.

Every Winter, the human population hibernates. Your name is Charlie Worthing, and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artifact borne of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams, too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.

Something really strange is happening in the City by the Bay. People are dying, but their souls are not being collected. Someone - or something - is stealing them. No one knows where they are going or why, but it has something to do with that big orange bridge. Death merchant Charlie Asher is just as flummoxed as everyone else.

The daughter of a narcissistic film star and a billionaire, Madison is abandoned at her Swiss boarding school over Christmas, while her parents are off touting their new projects and adopting more orphans. She dies over the holiday of a mari­juana overdose - and the next thing she knows, she’s in Hell.

What do you do after you’ve escaped Hell, gone back, uncovered the true nature of God, and then managed to become the new Lucifer? Well, if you’re James Stark, you have to figure out how to run Hell while also trying to get back out of it... again. Plus there’s the small matter of surviving. Because everyone in Heaven, Hell, and in between wants to be the fastest gun in the universe, and the best way to do so is to take down Lucifer, a.k.a. James Stark.