Book picks similar to
The Castle of Earth and Embers by Steffanie Holmes
reverse-harem
rh
fantasy
magic
Origins
Lyla Oweds - 2018
Not even when my family, and my best friend, tell me to keep quiet about what’s happening. They say people will think I’m crazy.Maybe I am.But the spirit haunting my professor’s house is definitely trying to tell me something, and I’m the only one who can see it.The one person who can help me is my best friend's brother. But I don’t know if I can trust him or his friends. Or if I can step outside the protective bubble I’ve built around myself.At this point it’s a toss up: the ghosts will kill me or my panic attacks will.Either way, I figure I’m going to die.This is the first of a multi-book slow burn reverse harem series. Be forewarned.
A Villainous Introduction
Candace Wondrak - 2020
It’s not that I’m running from my past, it’s just…well, some things are better left forgotten. An academy for lost souls and criminals? Not exactly what I signed up for, but as I’m about to learn, once you step within the halls of Grimmstead, you can never leave. As the days wear on, I find out that no one is innocent here. Not me, not the ruggedly attractive headmaster, and certainly not its dangerous, handsome students. Me coming to Grimmstead was like a lamb running into a den of lions, only these lions are just as likely to attack each other as they are me. Mysteries lie within the heart of Grimmstead Academy, and I just might be the key to it all. The walls of Grimmstead are painted with three things.Depravity.Insanity. And blood. If you can’t trust your own mind, who can you trust? GA: A Villainous Introduction is the first book in a planned RH trilogy. There is graphic violence in this book, along with steamy scenes.
Power of Five
Alex Lidell - 2018
One mortal female. A magical bond they can’t allow—or resist. Orphaned and sold to a harsh master, Lera’s life is about mucking stalls, avoiding her master’s advances, and steering clear of the mystical forest separating the mortal and fae worlds. Only fools venture into the immortal realms, and only dark rumors come out... Until four powerful fae warriors appear at Lera’s barn. River, Coal, Tye, and Shade have waited a decade for their new fifth to be chosen, the wounds from their quint brother’s loss still raw. But the magic has played a cruel trick, bonding the four immortal warriors to... a female. A mortal female. Distractingly beautiful and dangerously frail, Lera can only be one thing—a mistake. Yet as the males bring Lera back to the fae lands to sever the bond, they discover that she holds more power over their souls than is safe for anyone... especially for Lera herself. Power of Five is a full-length reverse-harem fantasy novel.
Vampire Girl
Karpov Kinrade - 2016
For fans of Twilight, A Shade of Vampire, and Outlander comes a fantasy romance with an original twist on an old tale.***You think it's safe to walk alone at night. It's not.You think the only threat is other humans. It's not.Monsters are real. Demons are real. Vampires are real. And I'm about to become one of them.My name is Arianna Spero. I was an ordinary girl, living an ordinary life, until my mother lapsed into a coma. Now, I am her only hope. She made a deal with the devil, and on my 18th birthday he came to collect. But there's a way to save her. There's something the princes of hell want more than my mother.Me.So I signed my soul away and promised to pick a prince to marry. I would take the blood oath, become one of them, and give them an heir. I would become a princess of hell, and my mother would live.I expected fire and brimstone. I expected pain and misery. I didn't expect beauty. I didn't expect magic.I didn't expect love.But the princes are keeping secrets from me.Secrets that could shatter everything.
Nightfall
L.H. Cosway - 2012
None of them, however, have anything on the handsome stranger who comes in one night and helps her fend off an armed robber. He looks the thief directly in the eye and without confrontation convinces him to turn around and walk out the door.Tegan has never seen anything like it, nor does she understand why he then lays those mesmerising eyes on her and tells her to forget they ever met. She shrugs it off as just another weird night shift encounter, until the following evening when her best friend produces free passes to a new club in the city. Tegan agrees to go and is pleasantly surprised by the tasteful, classy décor and oddly beautiful, intensely ethereal clientele. To her surprise, her mysterious stranger is sitting smack dab in the VIP section. What are the chances?!Tegan is struck by the coincidence of bumping into him again so soon, while he is furious that she remembers him when he insisted she forget their meeting. Tegan has no idea that she’s taken a misstep into a whole new world inhabited by vampires, slayers, dhampirs, witches and warlocks. All of whom display a wholly disconcerting interest in what makes her unique from the rest of the clueless humans who populate the city. On top of this, her handsome stranger keeps turning up at her work and seems intent on getting to know her a whole lot better.Nightfall is book one in L.H. Cosway’s Blood Magic Series. A previous, unedited version of this story was published under the title Tegan’s Blood.
Witching on a Star
Erin Bedford - 2018
Turns out, wishing comes with consequences and all magic has a price, especially at Witch Academy, but Max may find she’s more prepared than she thought to handle it all.
Fever Fae
Meg Xuemei X. - 2020
No, to being their bitch.When my parents mysteriously disappear, leaving me to raise my six crazy, younger siblings, my dreams for college are dashed.It gets worse when someone sends a slew of monster assassins after me. Their untimely arrival is followed by three devastatingly hot Fae who stalk me.Baron, the pompous and dominating Summer King, thinks I'm a dark Fae and wants my head. Then he changes his mind and declares me his fated mate. Hells-a-no. Especially now that he wants me to prove my worth. Really?Then there's Rowan, the possessive and cruel Winter King, who offers to protect me from the assassins, but only if I accept his obnoxious courtship requests.And finally, there's Night King Rydstrom, a dangerous and mysterious Fae with an ass that doesn't quit, who thinks he has every right to play me like a fiddle.Too bad for them, I'm not the docile type they're used to commanding. I might want them, but I have no intention of joining the trail of broken hearts and bodies in their wake.For I hold a deep, dark secret. Their arrival has woken in me the very forbidden magic they've been hunting, and I, Evelina, am going to have a wicked good time teaching these Fae kings a lesson.
Frost Burn
Erica Stevens - 2015
Despite her every intention not to, she’s started to put down some roots and make friends. However, the small bit of solace she’s found is quickly shattered when a group of vampires walk into the bar where she works and turn her life upside down. Looking only to stop for a few nights and have a good time, Julian never expected to stumble across someone like Quinn. Determined to keep her free from the vampires looking to use her as a weapon, Julian is stunned to discover himself starting to care for the mysterious woman with a dark past she’s unwilling to reveal. It doesn’t take him long to realize that the vampires after her are only a part of the problem. This quiet little town is hiding a violent secret of its own; a secret that not only threatens the town, but Quinn in particular. ***The Fire and Ice series is a spinoff based on characters from The Kindred Series. You do not have to read The Kindred Series in order to enjoy this book or its successors. The maturity level of this series will grow with each book and is recommended for readers 17+***
Corviticus University
J.E. Cluney - 2019
And it’s going to be a struggle to stick to my personal rules of no sexual relationships with them. They’re all so tempting, sweet, and funny. Well, except for one.Yep, definitely hard.And with their help, I’ll learn to manage my mischief magic. No more flying, honking vibrators for me.But questions rise when more powers surface for me, and it’s obvious I’m not just your average pixie halfling.Can we find answers together? And can I stick to my personal rules of friends only?Please note this is a mature reverse harem, slow/medium burn. Intended for audiences 18+
Spells of Iron & Bone
Sarah Piper - 2019
It’s also highly illegal—not that I’m worried about that.Sure, I heal faster than most, and I’ve got a sixth sense for brewing tea that can fix just about any problem, but my café isn’t exactly a hotbed of paranormal activity.At least it wasn’t… until some psycho attacked me and woke up the freaky, forbidden magick inside, earning me a one-way ticket to jail.Now, a covert magickal university is offering me a deal: my freedom in exchange for help with the Tarot prophecies—cryptic predictions they believe hold the key to stopping a deadly apocalyptic plot.Predictions only I can decipher.Because the witch who divined them? She died years ago.I should know. She was my mother.Grab your grimoires, girls. Magick school’s officially in session.All I have to do now is master my crazy powers, decode the doomsday prophecies, outwit a mean-girl coven that puts the psycho in psychic, and survive the temptations of one very naughty professor and three scorching-hot, overprotective mages shadowing my every move.There's only one problem.If I’m right about the prophecies?Survival isn’t in the cards for any of us.
Variant Lost
Kaydence Snow - 2018
The Institute is world renowned for educating and training Variants – the 18% of the population fortunate enough to have superhuman abilities. As a human, she’s lucky to be admitted. She’s done with fake identities, running and lying but once again she finds herself surrounded by secrets. Some she’s been keeping her whole life. Some have been kept from her. Some she finds herself dragged into… Ethan, Josh, Tyler and Alec have some of the rarest Variant abilities Evelyn has ever seen. They fascinate, intrigue and attract her, but is it their abilities, their own secrets or something more that Evelyn can’t seem to stay away from? The secrets they keep could drag Evelyn so deep into their dangerous and exciting world that she’ll never be the same. And the answers she finds could get them all killed.
Rose Petal Graves
Olivia Wildenstein - 2016
Dad said she suffered a stroke after she dug up one of the ancient Native American graves in our backyard.Creepy, I know. Creepier still, there was no corpse inside the old coffin, only fresh rose petals.As we made preparations for her burial, unnervingly odd and beautiful newcomers poured into my small town. A coroner with emerald eyes and black hair, much too young for the job. An arrogant blond socialite, who lived to get under my skin. And a tattooed Native man, who wasn’t supposed to be alive.By dying, my mother had inadvertently revived an age-old feud between the fae and the tribe that hunted them.A feud that was about to tear my world apart.Dive into this paranormal adventure that readers are comparing to Vampire Diaries...but with faeries.
Charcoal Tears
Jane Washington - 2015
Only asinine peace, where my paintings don’t seem to paint themselves, leaving me with terrible feelings of premonition and a chill beneath my fingernails.”Seraph Black used to think that she was prepared for anything. She could last days without eating and she always walked away from the violent altercations with her father relatively unharmed. She survived working at the club and the drive to school every day in her mother’s rust-bucket of a car… but it all changed when Noah and Cabe came bulldozing into her life, careless of the precious secrets they picked apart in their quest to take over her world. She was even less prepared for the mysterious Miro and Silas, and nothing could have prepared her for the bond. The connection. The reason for it all. Someone wanted her to stay away from her new friends, but she wasn’t willing to do that.Everyone had secrets.She wanted to know theirs. They wanted to own hers. And the stalker?He seemed to know everything already.
The Kiss of Death
Auryn Hadley - 2018
It wasn't. Four years later, I can still remember the exact shade of his skin: a blue so pale it looked like moonlight. I dream of his touch. Mostly, I paint the man under the heavy cowl, including those perfect lips which ruined mine for anyone else. I'm obsessed with him. The doctors say he's nothing more than a hallucination caused by a mixture of head trauma and emergency pain medications. I think he's a really sexy figment of my imagination. I mean, who besides an artist would dream up the Grim Reaper for their hero? Now, something's changed and my drawings are taking on a life of their own. As if college wasn't hard enough, trying to keep this a secret is going to be impossible. Keeping my sanity might be worse. And that's not the worst of my problems. Death is back. He wants another kiss. And he's not alone. The Kiss of Death is a 156,000 word, full-length novel with NO cliffhanger ending. This is a Reverse Harem series which includes multiple love interests, some m/m themes, and graphic scenes of sex, violence, and language. Be warned: everything you thought you knew about the world, religion, and death will be pulled apart, twisted around, and put back together in ways you will not expect.
Mother of Shadows
Meg Anne - 2017
When her childhood friend returns to tell her she is the prophesied ruler of the Chosen—those blessed with the gift of magic—there’s no avoiding her destiny. Suddenly, Helena is surrounded by a circle of protectors, each man having sworn their loyalty to her since her birth. All except for one: her Mate. It’s not enough that she learn how to use her magic and undergo a trial to prove her worthiness; in order to claim her title, Helena must also find the man who carries the other half of her soul. Exiled due to a past he had no part in, Von is the last man the Chosen expect Helena to select. Despite their protests, his soul calls to hers, and there’s no denying he was made for her. But the prophecy stands...and all isn’t as it seems. There’s an enemy lurking within plain sight who will stop at nothing to destroy her. Fans of KF Breene and Ilona Andrews will fall in love with The Chosen by Meg Anne.