Urban Mystery Thrillers

Lucy inherits an Oxford knitting shop...and so much more. Like the vampires who live downstairs and pop up to the shop when they run out of wool, or for their late-night knitting club. They've even offered to help Lucy learn how to knit. She discovers she's a witch and has some quirky relatives she never knew about. Her grandmother's supposed to be dead, but keeps showing up. It's enough to send Lucy screaming back to Boston, except there's a mystery to solve and Oxford and her new vampire friends are kind of growing on her....

In The Killing Dance, vampire hunter Anita Blake finds herself the victim when a $500,000 price is put on her head, and the two men in her life-a vampire and a werewolf-aren't helping the situation.

I'd had it with magic. Me and it were no longer friends. Five years I'd been clean for, not even a taste of the good stuff. No longer a space cadet. Life was quiet, life was good. Life was as boring as a conference on boring hosted by Professor Boring. So, I have to admit, that when I got drawn back into the Hidden world I wasn't as reluctant as I made out. What I wasn't expecting was having to deal with a dragon holding the dwarves' gold hostage, accidentally unleashing a maniac on the city, and fighting for my life as everything goes into free fall.

I'd been gone for a year, incarcerated in a hidden prison. The verdict was guilty; the punishment, death. Invoking the Law, I've got my freedom until my sentence is carried out. Three days, then I'm history. Gone, not even a memory. Wiped from the collective consciousness of those that knew, even loved me. Magic drives me on as I try to right so many wrongs committed in the name of justice.

When a 15-year-old girl is abducted by vampires, it’s up to U.S. Marshal Anita Blake to find her. And when she does, she’s faced with something she’s never seen before: a terrifyingly ordinary group of people - kids, grandparents, soccer moms - all recently turned and willing to die to avoid serving a master. And where there’s one martyr, there will be more.

Something deadly is lurking in the swampy marshes of Moody Bog. For Kylie Strange, it just means more deaths she's responsible for since she's the one who accidentally unleashed a Pandora's box of horrors. She opened the Booke of the Hidden, and now she must do everything she can to close it for good, taking on every monster it releases with the help of the local coven. This time, the Booke has unleashed not one but two demons on the village. With her attention divided, Kylie and her coven of Wiccans are open to attack. But those aren't the only demons on Kylie's mind.

Cassidy Kincaide runs Trifles & Folly in modern-day Charleston, an antiques and curios shop with a dangerous secret. Cassidy can read the history of objects by touching them and along with her business partners Teag, who has Weaver magic, and Sorren, a 600-year-old vampire, they get rid of cursed objects and keep Charleston and the world safe from supernatural threats.

When Drake left me behind, I thought my heart would break. But before I could change my mind and follow him, Princess Morda of the Silverblood found me. I'm now back at my coven, viewed as a heroine for having succeeded in my suicide mission. But I don't feel like a heroine. Among escapades to meet Drake - who has his own problems to deal with - and navigating the complicated rules of a place I once loved, I find myself lonely and lost. But I can't surrender to the darkness now. A war is coming and I have a key part to play.

The gates between life and death have been opened. Musician Jack Logan holds the key. In the streets of New York, he brought a man back from the dead in plain and shocking sight of a TV news camera crew. Now the whole world is aware of his miraculous power. The media wants to expose him; the scientists to exploit him. But worst of all, the tortured souls of the dead are reaching out from the void, luring him into the eternal domain, transforming his gift into the ultimate curse. Living or dead, they struggle to seize and control the secret that lies beyond the black horizon.

The zombie venom entered my bloodstream, the Council HQ was ready to blow, and I was tapped out of magic. With the hunger already on me, wyrmlings closing in, and my body shutting down, I was almost defeated. But where there's life, there's hope. I had a family, I had friends, and I had the chance at a future. All I had to do was find a cure before I became one of the undead, destroy the maniacs after me and my boss, and life would be peachy, right? Wrong.

The untimely death of St. Louis kingpin King David has left a vacuum in the underworld. He leaves behind his vast empire to his surviving heirs, David Jr. and Davita. Born barely one year apart, they were raised in very different worlds. Will the family ties that bind keep the families together, or will sex, greed, drugs, and their mothers' divisive ways tear it all to hell, bringing St. Louis down with them? David Jr. and Davita have decisions to make!

Orson Reid: college freshman, gamer, and quite possibly the legendary boogeyman of the magical world. And you thought your life was weird. It all started the night Orson kissed his best friend, Elyse, and she kissed him back. Yes, the kiss was life changing, but in ways Orson never could have imagined. It seems he contracted a "virus" that is making him taller, faster, and stronger. But his life doesn't go completely off the rails until the night Elyse shows up at his house, strips out of her clothes, and shape-shifts into a giant cat - a panther, to be exact.

When Shai is caught replacing the Moon Scepter with her nearly flawless forgery, she must bargain for her life. An assassin has left the Emperor Ashravan without consciousness, a circumstance concealed only by the death of his wife. If the emperor does not emerge after his hundred-day mourning period, the rule of the Heritage Faction will be forfeit and the empire will fall into chaos.

A large part of Goines' 39 years of life was spent being a successful pimp, a heif, an operator of corn liquor houses, an armed robber, and a small-time dope dealer. He lived the life of the streets, and out of that experience he created Prince, the anti-hero of Black Gangster. It's the story of the shocking underworld of Black organized crime and the fledgling Black "godfather" who goes from teenager ganglord to powerful Detroit mobster. Like the gangsters of the 1920s, he begins with bootlegging and branches out into every known crime.

Scarlet Sanderson isn't a paranormal being per se, but she's no stranger to things that go bump in the night. She's had the ability to see and speak with ghosts since she was eight years old. Whether it's a gift or a curse is still up for debate. She moved to the picturesque town of Beechwood Harbor to open a flower shop and start a new life after years of being a nomad. What she didn't expect to find was a town filled with witches, vampires, shape-shifters, and ghosts. So, so many ghosts.

Deciphering an ancient alchemy book is more difficult than Zoe Faust bargained for. She'd much rather be gardening and exploring her new hometown of Portland, Oregon - but time is running out for living gargoyle Dorian Robert-Houdin. If Zoe isn't able to unlock an unusual alchemy book's secrets soon, the French gargoyle will remain awake but trapped in stone forever.

Alex Bledsoe’s fantasy novels have drawn rave reviews for their ingenious blend of classic fantasy and hard-boiled detective fiction. Now Bledsoe returns with an all-new tale of intrigue and murder.

Rosemary's chocolate shop is thriving with the help of Papa Jack, but it isn't long before the town is under attack by mysterious swampy monsters, and the local election reveals a dark side to the normally peaceful village. Meanwhile, despite her mother's reservations, Athena is determined to embark on a journey into the fae realm to uncover her heritage and play a role in forging a treaty between magical beings. Join Rosemary and Athena as they navigate vampire politics, pesky pixies, complicated magical family dynamics, and feisty familiars!

On a quest to find her sister's killer, Mac is a major player in a deadly game, but with one great advantage: she knows how to find the Sinsar Dubh, an ancient book of magic so dark it corrupts anyone who touches it. What Mac soon discovers is worse than she had imagined. Surrounded by treachery, her enemies indistinguishable from her allies, she can be certain of only one thing: as All Hallows' Eve approaches, her time is running out.

Layla Shaw is trying to pick up the pieces of her shattered life - no easy task for a 17-year-old who's pretty sure things can't get worse. Her impossibly gorgeous best friend, Zayne, is forever off-limits thanks to the mysterious powers of her soul-stealing kiss. The Warden clan that has always protected her is suddenly keeping dangerous secrets. And she can barely think about Roth, the wickedly hot demon prince who understood her in ways no one else could.