Book picks similar to
Reign of Ruin by Jennifer Bene
dark
horror
jennifer-bene
fantasy
Dark Stranger: The Dream
I.T. Lucas - 2015
Kian's small clan championing progress, freedom and peace; their powerful enemy propagating ignorance, hate, and war.Leading the clandestine battle from his luxurious L.A. high-rise, Kian is surrounded by family, yet he feels alone. Descending from a single goddess – the only one to survive the ancient cataclysm that wiped out the gods and most of their immortal offspring – clan members are forbidden to each other. And as the only other known immortals are their hated enemies, Kian and his kin have been long resigned to a lonely existence of fleeting trysts with human partners. That is, until Kian's sister Amanda – a researcher of paranormal abilities – makes a game changing discovery; a mortal seeress who she believes is a dormant carrier of their genes. Ever the realist, Kian is skeptical and refuses his sister's plea to attempt the Dormant's activation. But when his enemies learn of the highly coveted soothsayer's existence and attempt to grab her, he rushes her to the safety of his keep. Inexorably drawn to Syssi's shy beauty, Kian is startled by feelings he had sworn off long ago. Tormented by past mistakes, he wrestles with his conscience as he is tempted to explore her budding interest in the spicy passions he favors.When Syssi's paranormal foresight lands her a job at Dr. Amanda Dokani's neuroscience lab, it fails to predict, not only that her boss is an immortal who would drag her into a secret, millennia-old battle over humanity's future, but the professor's imposing brother who would alter her own. Despite his better judgement, will Kian succumb to Syssi's irresistible pull? And will Syssi discover that the man igniting her startlingly dark desires is a nearly two-thousand-year-old immortal?Warning. This book contains hot scenes and adult themes. Reader discretion is advised.
An Inheritance of Ashes
Leah Bobet - 2015
Weeks after the final battle was won, sixteen-year-old Hallie and her sister, Marthe, are still struggling to maintain their family farm—and are waiting for Marthe’s missing husband to return. After a summer of bitter arguments, Hallie is determined to get Roadstead Farm through the winter—and keep what’s left of her family together, despite an inheritance destined to drive them apart. But when Hallie hires a wandering veteran in a bid to save the farm, every phantom the men marched south to fight arrives at her front gate. Spider-eyed birds circle the fields, ghostly messages write themselves on the riverbank, and soon Hallie finds herself keeping her new hired hand’s desperate secrets—and taking dangerous risks. But as she fights to keep both the farm and her new friend safe, ugly truths about her own family are emerging—truths that, amid gods, monsters, and armies, might tear Roadstead Farm apart. Leah Bobet’s stark, beautiful fantasy explores the aftermath of the battles we fight and the slow, careful ways love can mend broken hearts—and a broken world.
Life Blood
V.M. Black - 2014
He needed her blood.Cora Shaw will do anything to live. Diagnosed with terminal cancer in her senior year of college, she is given a choice: Call hospice, or seek out a mysterious man who promises an impossible—and insanely dangerous—cure.She knows him only as Mr. Thorne, a reclusive billionaire who seems full of contradictions. A man with strange, impossible powers over her.A man, she discovers, who is not a man at all.In the first book of the Aethereal Bonds series, Cora makes a deal with a devil—and gets more than she bargained for.
Nod
Adrian Barnes - 2012
Or almost no one. A few people, perhaps one in ten thousand, can still sleep, and they’ve all shared the same mysterious dream. A handful of silent children can still sleep as well, but what they’re dreaming remains a mystery. Global panic ensues. A medical fact: after six days of absolute sleep deprivation, psychosis sets in. After four weeks, the body dies. In the interim, a bizarre new world arises and swallows the old one whole. A world called Nod.
Crimson Night
Marie Hall - 2013
I'm a Nephilim. What does that mean? I'm half demon, what's my other name? Lust. I'm the dark craving that drives you mad, makes you want, makes you reckless and stupid. I'm the drug you'll do anything to get your hands on. But I'm not all bad. I fight for light, for goodness and truth. I love my job, killing vampires and werewolves, zombies, and freaks... it's what makes me happy.But people are starting to disappear and lately I've felt a dark presence lurking around me. I think it might be a death priest, that's not good. There isn't much a demon like me fears, but I fear them. This should have been easy, me killing the fanged freaks, getting rid of my pesky priest problem, but I'm about to be betrayed by the one person I thought I could trust with my life and before the night is through I'll be covered in crimson...
Want Not
Arden Aoide - 2014
There’s only one thing she can control.But first acts of rebellion leave the future uncertain. Once her veil is lifted, her path detours, for better or worse, but one she can live with for now.But how can she truly love when she only knows obedience? Can she tell the difference between love and lust?It's the beginning of an epic romance that neither saw coming, and would give up everything to keep.
Afterlife
Stephanie Hudson - 2012
However, this new life she craves so badly isn’t the one she is expecting. Not after Draven gets one look at her and quickly decides her fate.But which fate will Keira choose, a willing slave to the darkness inside him or a prisoner in his arms for all eternity?After all, Dominic Draven, isn’t what he seems and Afterlife isn’t just a nightclub…No, for Draven, it’s a castle he rules from.Warning: This book is amazingly addictive, with its dark mystery, haunting horror, seductive twists and one sexy dark lord that has the reader drooling every time the name Draven appears on the page!
Surrendering
K.L. Kreig - 2014
But instead of making a simple statement and returning to her nice, quiet life, she finds herself the center of attention from both a psychotic vampire and the ‘investigative specialist’ who would die in order to protect her.“You’re anything but casual, Kate. I want you and I always get what I want.”Young women are disappearing across the country and Devon, Regent Vampire Lord of the Midwest, knows his centuries old archenemy has finally resurfaced. A break in his fruitless search is provided by the discovery of a woman who can not only see the missing in her dreams, but who ends up being his Moira, his Destiny. And she couldn’t have stepped into his world at a more inopportune time, for she is now the prime target for his nemesis.Protecting her heart would prove to be her biggest challenge.Devon may be the sexiest, most sinfully erotic man she’s ever met, and he stirs passion in her like no one else before, but he’s an entanglement Kate does not want or need. While it becomes impossible to deny their mutual desire, once the case is solved and the missing women are found, Kate fully intends to return to her boring life, alone.At least that’s what she thinks.** Contains graphic sexual content and foul language. Appropriate only for readers 18+.
Black Heart
R.L. Mathewson - 2013
That was the only explanation that she could come up with. Why else would she feel this way for the biggest SOB in town? Granted, he was also the hottest man in town, but he was also arrogant, callous, and determined to drive her away even as he drove her crazy with his touch. She should just walk away from him and probably would if it wasn’t for this connection that she’d always had with him that kept making her want more with the one man that couldn’t give her anything more than heartache.He should have left and never looked back when he’d decided to finally do the right thing and push Marty out of his life, but instead he stuck around to torture himself by staying close to the one woman that he could never allow himself to have. She deserved better than him, better than the tortured existence that he led and better than the horrifying future that waited for him.
The Harvesting
Melanie Karsak - 2012
Raised by the town's medium, and dubbed the "weird" girl, the last thing she wants is to go home. When Layla gets a desperate phone call to return just as a mysterious outbreak sweeps the country, Layla's instincts urge her to go. Good thing, because the dead are rising. The town's residents, including the ex who jilted her, will need Layla's help if they hope to survive.
Alasdair
Ella Frank - 2015
His name carries weight across all of the seven continents. But he is a mystery to his kind, an anomaly among the self-indulgent. While he enjoys the pleasures of the flesh, he is exceptionally particular in his choice of partners and prides himself on his ironclad self-control.Yet with one look his control will become a thing of the past, and Alasdair will discover that eternal life doesn’t always last forever…A DEADLY ATTRACTIONThrust into a world he could never have imagined, Leo Chapel awakens in his worst nightmare. Taken hostage by the dangerously mesmerizing vampire, Alasdair, Leo must rely on his intelligence to escape before he reveals a secret he isn’t even aware he’s hiding.A FORBIDDEN DESIREUnaware that they’ve been brought together by an outside force and are little more than pawns to a higher power, Alasdair and Leo spend time trying to uncover the other’s secrets, the attraction between them growing stronger all the while. But enemies are watching and preparing to act against them. When decisions that will alter lives and destinies have to be made—can a dead, grey heart learn to beat again?
Counsellor
Celia Aaron - 2015
Once every ten years, the pretense falls away and a tournament is held to determine who will rule them. The Acquisition is a crucible for the Southern nobility, a love letter written to a time when barbarism was enshrined as law. Now, Sinclair Vinemont is in the running to claim the prize. There is only one way to win, and he has the key to do it — Stella Rousseau, his Acquisition. To save her father, Stella has agreed to become Sinclair's slave for one year. Though she is at the mercy of the cold, treacherous Vinemont, Stella will not go willingly into darkness. As Sinclair and Stella battle against each other and the clock, only one thing is certain: The Acquisition always ends in blood. Full disclosure: This book is a dark romance with elements of slavery, violence, BDSM, and super-hot sex. It is the first of a series and ends on a cliffhanger. If you're good with these caveats, enjoy.
Alone
Marissa Farrar - 2009
Then she meets a stranger, Sebastian, who shows her the possibility of a different future. Only Sebastian has a dark secret; he is a vampire. As Serenity’s life takes a terrifying turn, she finds herself drawn into a world she never knew existed; one of murder, love, and immortality. She is forced to confront her own weaknesses to save both her own life and that of the vampire she has come to love. But in the end all that matters is; can she find the strength to be Alone ?
Bloodraven
P.L. Nunn - 2007
Only grim tales of the barbaric giants had reached the forest, but Yhalen soon learns that even the darkest fireside story only hinted at the brutality of these Northern warriors. He discovers the meaning of true fear at their hands, and only the awakening of ancient magic saves him from destruction.Surviving ogre viciousness, he finds himself given to Bloodraven, the half ogre, half human war leader as a slave. Yhalen, refusing to bend, soon pays the price for offending prickly ogre pride.But Bloodraven is no mindless, violent ogrish beast. Bloodraven has an agenda and Yhalen finds himself drawn in the wake into human and ogre politics, into bloodshed and cruelty and into the forbidden magic that is damnation in the eyes of his own people, but which might mean the difference between death and salvation.Note: Lulu's page count of 287 is for the PB (and PDF) versions. But 220,735 words equates to approx 663 pages.
Turned
Morgan Rice - 2011
The one ray of light in her new surroundings is Jonah, a new classmate who takes an instant liking to her.But before their romance can blossom, Caitlin suddenly finds herself changing. She is overcome by a superhuman strength, a sensitivity to light, a desire to feed--by feelings she does not understand. She seeks answers to what’s happening to her, and her cravings lead her to the wrong place at the wrong time. Her eyes are opened to a hidden world, right beneath her feet, thriving underground in New York City. She finds herself caught between two dangerous covens, right in the middle of a vampire war.It is at this moment that Caitlin meets Caleb, a mysterious and powerful vampire who rescues her from the dark forces. He needs her to help lead him to the legendary lost artifact. And she needs him for answers, and for protection. Together, they will need to answer one crucial question: who was her real father? But Caitlin finds herself caught between two men as something else arises between them: a forbidden love. A love between the races that will risk both of their lives, and will force them to decide whether to risk it all for each other…