Book picks similar to
Badlands Witch by Carrie Vaughn
urban-fantasy
short-stories
paranormal
ebook
Hearth, Home, and Havoc
R.J. Blain - 2017
To make matters worse, her daughter hadn't quite figured out her role in the grand scheme of things.Havoc isn't supposed to be part of Hestia's portfolio, but where the young goddess of the hearth and home goes, trouble surely follows.When Dakota's ex-husband barrels his way back into her life, a heavy dose of havoc is just what the doctor ordered. She just never expected to find love in the midst of murder.Hearth, Home, and Havoc is part of the Legends and Lore box set.
Bound to Me
Jocelynn Drake - 2012
In Bound to Me, for the first time, we travel back into Mira's distant past to see the great love affair that shaped her.
Divine Beginnings
P.C. Cast - 2009
Cast's Partholon books...Something isn't right at Guardian Castle, and Aine can't figure out what. As Healer, she's supposed to be making things better, but there's a darkness that can't be brightened. And then Aine finds an injured Fomorian--winged, dark, blood-thirsty and inherently evil. Or is he? Because there's something about Tegan that Aine can't resist...and once they've shared blood, Aine realizes that everything she's always believed is going to be cast aside....
Ready to Were
Robyn Peterman - 2014
Ever.I was a top notch Were agent for the secret paranormal Council and happily living in Chicago where I had everything I needed – a gym membership, season tickets to the Cubs and Dwayne – my gay, Vampyre best friend. Going back now would mean facing the reason I’d left and I’d rather chew my own paw off than deal with Hank. Hank the Tank Wilson was the six foot three, obnoxious, egotistical, perfect-assed, best-sex-of-my-life, Werewolf who cheated on me and broke my heart. At the time, I did what any rational woman would do. I left in the middle of the night with a suitcase, big plans and enough money for a one-way bus ticket to freedom. I vowed to never return. But here I am, trying to wrap my head around what has happened to some missing Weres without wrapping my body around Hank. I hope I don’t have to eat my words and my paw.***This novella originally appeared in the Three Southern Beaches collection released July of 2014. This is an extended version of that story.
Blood Song
Cat Adams - 2010
But her newest job takes the cake. Guarding a prince from terrorists and religious fundamentalists is hard enough, but it seems like the entire supernatural world is after this guy too. When she is betrayed by those she is employed to help, and everything goes horribly wrong, Celia wakes to find herself transformed.Neither human nor vampire, Celia has become an abomination-something that should not exist-and now both human and supernatural alike want her dead. With the help of a few loyal friends-a sexy mage, a powerful werewolf, and a psychic cop-Celia does her best to stay alive. On the run from her enemies, Celia must try to discover who is behind her transformation . . . before it's too late.
Carniepunk
Rachel CaineJennifer Estep - 2013
It is a place of contradictions—the bright lights mask the peeling paint; a carnie in greasy overalls slinks away from the direction of the Barker’s seductive call. It is a place of illusion—is that woman’s beard real? How can she live locked in that watery box?And while many are tricked by sleight of hand, there are hints of something truly magical going on. One must remain alert and learn quickly the unwritten rules of this dark show. To beat the carnival, one had better have either a whole lot of luck or a whole lot of guns—or maybe some magic of one’s own.Featuring stories grotesque and comical, outrageous and action-packed, Carniepunk is the first anthology to channel the energy and attitude of urban fantasy into the bizarre world of creaking machinery, twisted myths, and vivid new magic.RACHEL CAINE’s vampires aren’t child’s play, as a naïve teen discovers when her heart leads her far, far astray in “The Cold Girl.” With “Parlor Tricks,” JENNIFER ESTEP pits Gin Blanco, the Elemental Assassin, against the Wheel of Death and some dangerously creepy clowns. SEANAN McGUIRE narrates a poignant, ethereal tale of a mysterious carnival that returns to a dangerous town after twenty years in “Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea.” KEVIN HEARNE’s Iron Druid and his wisecracking Irish wolfhound discover in “The Demon Barker of Wheat Street” that the impossibly wholesome sounding Kansas Wheat Festival is actually not a healthy place to hang out. With an eerie, unpredictable twist, ROB THURMAN reveals the fate of a psychopath stalking two young carnies in “Painted Love.”
Black Hat, White Witch
Hailey Edwards - 2021
As much as Rue wants to kick him to the curb, she agrees to hear him out for old times’ sake, and what he says chills her to the bone.The Silver Stag was the most notorious paranormal serial killer in modern history, and Rue brought him down. Now a copycat has picked up where the Stag left off, and the Bureau wants her on the case. She beat the Stag once. They think she can do it again. But they don’t know she’s given up black magic, and she’s not about to tell them. White witches are prey, and Rue is the hunter, not the hunted. Always.But can she take down the protégé of the man who almost beat her at her black witch best?If she wants to keep her new town, her new home, her new life, then she has no choice but to find out.
Leashing the Tempest
Jenn Bennett - 2012
But then there’s the challenge of her boyfriend’s precocious teenage son…Arcadia "Cady" Bell may have saved the Hellfire Club’s children from a local bogeyman, but she and her Earthbound demon boyfriend, Lon Butler, now face a more disturbing problem: his teenage son’s new demonic abilities. Jupe Butler can persuade you to do anything—or so he thinks. To test the limits of his newfound power, Cady invites the co-owner of Tambuku Tiki Lounge to be the teen’s guinea pig during an afternoon boat cruise. But when an angry storm whips the Pacific into a frenzy and Jupe puts them all in serious danger, will Cady's magick trump a teenager’s excess confidence?
Mist and Magic
Lindsay Buroker - 2020
For example, she would never consider adopting a pet.But when she’s searching for a missing friend, she finds an abandoned silver tiger cub.The magical feline is clearly from another realm, but Val has no idea which one or how to send it back. All she knows is that it’s the only witness to her friend's kidnapping.Val can kick the butts of ogres, trolls, and wizards, but she has no experience taking care of pets—certainly not magical tigers. And as she quickly learns, the cub has teeth like a chainsaw. Soon, everything from her apartment to her seat belts to the hair on her head is in danger.But if Val can’t forge a bond with the cub, figure out what it knows, and find her missing friend, more than her belongings—and her hair—may be at risk.Mist and Magic is a prequel to the Death Before Dragons series and can be read as a complete stand-alone adventure.
The Accidental Demon Slayer
Angie Fox - 2008
For Lizzie Brown, that's just the beginning. Soon her hyperactive terrier starts talking, and her long-lost biker witch Grandma is hurling Smuckers jars filled with magic. Just when she thinks she's seen it all, Lizzie learns she's a demon slayer -- and all hell is after her.Of course, that's not the only thing after her. Dimitri Kallinikos, a devastatingly handsome shape-shifting griffin needs Lizzie to slay a demon of his own. But how do you talk a girl you've never met into going straight to the underworld? Lie. And if that doesn't work, how dangerous could a little seduction be...?
Magic in the Wind
Christine Feehan - 2003
Even the wind seems to whisper her name - a reverie so powerfully suggestive that it carries the curious Damon to Sarah's clifftop home, and seeks to shelter him there.But Damon has not arrived alone. Two men have tracked him to Sea Haven, and into the shadows of Drake House, where Sarah hides her own secrets. And danger- as well as a desire more urgent than either has ever known- is just a whisper away...Originally published in the anthology, Lover Beware
Mean Streets
Jim Butcher - 2009
Green.Kat Richardson’s Greywalker finds herself in too deep when a “simple job” goes bad and Harper Blaine is enmeshed in a tangle of dark secrets and revenge from beyond the grave.For centuries, the being that we know as Noah lived among us. Now he is dead, and fallen-angel-turned-detective Remy Chandler has been hired to find out who killed him in a whodunit by Thomas E. Sniegoski.
Alejandro's Sorceress
Alyssa Day - 2014
He's a warrior, hardened by years of protecting his town from vampire attack. She's a garden witch who sees the world in shades of sunshine and delight. Opposites don't only attract, they go supernova in this sizzling tale of magic and mayhem. [Author's note: this novella - 84 pages, 22,000 words -- was originally published in the Dark & Deadly: 8 Bad Boys of Paranormal boxed set, so if you have that one, you already have it. Thanks!]
Stone Guardian
Danielle Monsch - 2013
Well, not normal for everyone. Larissa Miller may have been born after the Great Collision, but as a history teacher who lives in the human-only city, she has never come into contact with any other race or species, nor has she wanted to. Her life is as ordinary as it gets - that is, until one day she walks out of her apartment and is attacked by a mob of Zombies, only to be saved by a Gargoyle. Gargoyles trust no one outside their Clan, but due to a cryptic prophecy, Terak, Leader of the Gargoyles, has been watching over the human woman for months. While he can find no reason why the woman has been singled out, something about her stirs every protective instinct within him. When the attack confirms that the threats against her exist and are real, he convinces Larissa that though their races have never been allies, the best chance of discovering why she has been brought into his world is by working together. In the course of their investigation Terak becomes entranced by his little human. But when he discovers why Necromancers want her and the great reward that awaits him if he betrays her, he must choose between the welfare of his Clan and not only Larissa’s life, but the fate of this New Realm as well.
Driving Mr. Dead
Molly Harper - 2011
Miranda's assignment? Driving Collin Sutherland, the world's most fastidious vampire from Washington to Kentucky, so he can deliver a mysterious black case to Council official Ophelia Lambert. Collin, a paranoid, aristocratic vampire with a debilitating fear of flying, refuses to let the case out of his sight. Miranda needs this time on the road to decide whether to permanently cut her ties with the fiance that had an "emotional affair" with a childhood pal, but Collin’s neatnik tendencies are driving her around the bend. The man acts as if leaving a fast food wrapped on the passenger seat is reason for a full-on CDC de-contamination scrub-down of the car. All she can do is promise to stop intentionally doing the things that make his stiff upper lip twitch with irritation. As more and more mishaps occur on the road trip from hell, Miranda and Collin work together to meet his delivery deadline. Hotel rooms are destroyed. Beloved cars are defiled. And somewhere along the line, client-driver hostilities become snarky flirtation. Will Collin and Miranda make it to the Hollow in one piece? And if they do, will Miranda leave old, safe relationships behind for something new and well, just plain weird?