Book picks similar to
Smoke and Rain by V.S. Holmes


fantasy
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dark-fantasy
science-fiction-fantasy

The God King


James A. West - 2011
    But he cannot go home yet. Against his better judgment, he agrees to take a spoiled prince into the Qaharadin Marshes, a treacherous place all sane men avoid.After arriving at a deserted temple, the prince vanishes within. When a column of blue fire erupts from the temple and pierces the heavens, Kian rushes to help. What he finds emerging from the temple is not the prince, but a horror unleashed from the Thousand Hells.Now Kian must draw upon all of his strength, courage, and skill to survive—because if he dies, the world dies with him.Reading order:The God King (book one)Crown of the Setting Sun (book two)Shadow and Steel coming April 2013!Other series by James A. West: Songs of the ScorpionReaper of Sorrows (book one)

Unstable


Rye Brewer - 2020
    Necromancers. Soul reapers. Mysterious dragons. Secret councils. Forbidden alliances. The Under Realm Academy awaits. Senior year at Under Realm Academy. Perfect, right? Should be, but isn’t. Moira Bloodworth’s got a crush on the hottest demon in school—Calder Darkmore. Lucky her, it seems he feels the same way. Cool, right? Nope. Two problems. Aidan Grimsbane, Calder’s best friend, a necromancer, and an all-around jerk of a bully. He’s one problem. The other? A secret she’s trying to keep hidden and decipher at the same time. A horrible rash between her shoulder blades. Her eyes turning black. There’s only one person who can provide the answer to her problems. Her dead mom. What kind of solution is that. You can’t talk to dead people. Unless you know a necromancer. Ugh. Aidan Grimsbane, that same jerk who’s trying to keep her from getting to know Calder better.Caution: Cliffhangers, violence can be found in this series of action-packed fantasy including necromancers, hot dragons, and fierce witches.

Eochaidh


Terri Reid - 2013
    But they had been betrayed, Morganna caught the young men and despite Merlin’s protection, cast a spell upon them that would age them a year for every day they lived as men. Merlin did the only thing he could; he changed the men to horses so they could roam as immortals until someone could break the spell.For more than one thousand years, the Herdin family was charged with the duty to help the horses and break the spell. Once every hundred years, the signs aligned and another Herdin risked their life to free the knights. This time, Meaghan Herdin’s father, Lord John, is the last surviving male heir in the Herdin line. Will he be able to break the spell or will Morganna and her followers destroy Meaghan’s family?Set in Ireland in the 18th century, Eochaidh – The Legend of the Horseman, is filled with love, adventure, loyalty and magic.

The Rules for Lying


L.A. Kelley - 2017
     No good comes from this book. The story has magic, mayhem, theft, murder, sass talk, demons, animals committing felonies, gleeful revenge, and bad things happening to good people for no particular reason. It won’t encourage good habits and probably fine tune bad ones. The only lesson learned is don’t lie unless you know the rules. Teenager Peter Whistler lives at the Little Angels Home for Orphan Boys. Life in New Jersey is harsh in the Great Depression, but Peter has an exceptional ability to lie. He hones his talent, convinced it’s the ticket to easy fortune. He certainly doesn’t foresee the arrival of a murderous conjurer with mysterious designs on a little blind girl named Esther. Drawn into a nefarious plot to unleash a demon, Peter leads Esther and an enchanted terrier on a desperate escape to New Orleans and meets Amelie Marchand. Like all well-bred southern girls she’s trained in deadly martial arts, but with a murderous stepmother, Amelie has troubles of her own. Peter and Amelie’s one chance for survival is to head deep into the bayou and seek help from a mad shaman known as the Frog King. Welcome to an alternate 1930s where both jazz and magic fill New Orleans’ air. Can a little luck, mystical lies, and a dash of Cajun crazy help Peter harness the power to kill an immortal demon? If not, the Depression will be a picnic by comparison when hell arrives on Earth.

Feast of the Mother


Miranda Honfleur - 2019
    A murder. A curse…Beneath the murky waters of the lake, an ancient being slumbers, and Brygida is its servant. Kept sheltered in the woods by her mothers from the nearby village, Brygida has never had so much as a friend—until the day she meets a charming stranger painting by the lake. He invites her to the village’s harvest feast, but her taste of the forbidden ends with a murder.Called into service for the first time, Brygida must take up her ancestral duty as Reaper of Death and solve the murder within three days. If she brings the murderer to the lake on the third day, the being she serves will be sated. If she fails, Brygida herself will be drawn beneath the murky waters, and the village massacred. There’s only one problem: the main suspect is her charming painter, Kaspian.As Brygida investigates, the dangers are many and answers few. The village and her family stand against her, and with time running short, the lake demands a price. Brygida believes Kaspian is innocent, but can she stake her life on it, when failure means condemning the rest of the village, and being dragged into the deep...?Find out what lurks beneath the lake in FEAST OF THE MOTHER, the first entry in a romantic dark fantasy series inspired by Slavic mythology and folklore, sure to please fans of Juliet Marillier’s Blackthorn & Grim series and Naomi Novik’s Uprooted.Read Feast of the Mother to begin the beautifully haunting adventure today!

Amber and Ashes


Margaret Weis - 2004
    While following her story, this new trilogy also explores the chaos that is post-war Krynn. This is Weis’s first solo trilogy in the Dragonlance world.AUTHOR BIO: MARGARET WEIS is the author of numerous Dragonlance novels, many of them co-written with Tracy Hickman or Don Perrin, including the New York Times best-selling War of Souls trilogy. She is also the author of The Soulforge and the Star of the Guardian novels and the designer of many Dragonlance roleplaying products, including the Dragonlance Campaign Setting.Margaret’s latest title is Mistress of Dragons from Tor Books.

Enchanted


Melinda Kucsera - 2016
    Carry No Weapons. Do No Harm. Those three rules safeguarded countless generations of travelers through the enchanted forest—until they didn’t. One boy’s murder ripped open a gateway allowing evil to enter. Now no one is safe from corruption.Enchanted trees take Sarn to where the forest failed to uphold its rules. Seeing a dead child gifted with the same magic as his son unhinges Sarn. He vows to find out the truth no matter what the cost. But his gift is untrained.Finding answers won’t be easy. Sarn must balance nights serving the Rangers with days dedicated to hiding his son from the dark forces stalking them both. When Sarn’s masters demand he abandon the quest, he faces an impossible choice—doom the ghost whose murder endangers them all or die from the backlash of breaking his word. With the odds stacked against him, can Sarn fix anything or will all be lost? In a country where magic is illegal, an untrained mage is their only hope.

Berkley Street


Ron Ripley - 2016
    After a prolonged legal battle with his aunt and uncle, Shane has possession of the family home where his parents disappeared over 20 years ago. The house, a monstrous castle filled with ghosts and secrets, is more alive than its inhabitants.When his aunt and uncle come to town, then vanish, Shane's life takes a turn for the worse. Detective Marie Lafontaine immediately labels Shane as the prime suspect. And in a race against time, Shane desperately searches for clues about his parents.But there's something lurking beyond the walls and beneath the surface. Something sinister that has haunted him ever since he saw its face in the pond behind the house. And it isn’t happy that Shane is back.It isn’t happy at all.

The Beholder


Ivan Amberlake - 2013
    Each has a sign. Each is a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. A NYC interior designer Jason Walker receives a message saying he is the final piece.Emily Ethan, a startling beauty with supernatural powers, appears and tells Jason that powers dormant within him are about to wake. He is the only person who can prevent darkness from enslaving the world. He is the Beholder whose advent has been awaited for many years.Setting out on a journey with Emily, Jason discovers the world he could have never imagined, but the greatest surprise arrives the moment he realizes he has fallen in love with Emily.

The Jade Emperor


Suzanne Jenkins - 2017
    A marriage of nearly half a century faces its greatest challenge when a stranger arrives, bearing life changing news. Although Steve and Kelly Boyd live together, they barely tolerate each other. Marrying in their teens and quickly becoming parents, the separation due to the war in Vietnam forms the foundation for the next forty-five precarious years.Filling the empty marriage with the companionship of her twin sister, Karen, and the family she made with Steve, Kelly’s life revolves around her six adult children.The stranger’s sudden appearance clarifies so much about Steve’s lifetime behavior to Kelly.Heartfelt conversations at the local coffee shop where son Reggie works as a barista, help the family resolve differences, build new relationships, and grow in acceptance of one another.At the end, love outweighs everything.

Dark Secrets


Angela M. Hudson - 2013
    They look just like me, just like you. But they can kill. They do kill. And I’ve fallen in love with one.I wish I’d walked away. I wish I’d followed my gut. I wish he’d been there when I became the victim.You’ll love this fresh take on a tired genre, because vampires should be bad, and they should do it well. So hurry and start the series today. Don’t be the last to discover it.

Dark Alchemy


Laura Bickle - 2015
    What she finds instead is Temperance, a dying Western town with a gold rush past and a meth-infested present. But under the town's dust and quiet, an old power is shifting. When bodies start turning up - desiccated and twisted skeletons that Petra can't scientifically explain - her investigations land her in the middle of a covert war between the town's most powerful interests. Petra's father wasn't the only one searching for the alchemical secrets of Temperance, and those still looking are now ready to kill. Armed with nothing but shaky alliances, a pair of antique guns, and a relic she doesn't understand, the only thing Petra knows for sure is that she and her coyote sidekick are going to have to move fast, or die next.

The Fall of Ossard


Colin Taber - 2009
    Growing up in a city of Merchant Princes, Juvela discovers she can see what others can't. The very currents of the celestial are open to her, and that includes the truths they hide: An escalating series of unsolved kidnappings have been haunting the city-state, leaving its shadows pooled deep with innocent blood. Has Juvela been cursed with the Witches' Kiss - or perhaps something worse? Yet, more is to come, for not only has she witnessed an abduction, but she will have to endure a role in the victim's ritual death. For Juvela is about to become forsaken, and that's before she learns the real truth of not just the crimes plaguing Ossard's bloody streets, but the wider world: A world at war, and governed by gods whose highest pleasure is to sup on the taste of death.

Dust and Light


Carol Berg - 2014
     How much must one pay for an hour of youthful folly? The Pureblood Registry accused Lucian de Remeni-Masson of “unseemly involvement with ordinaries,” which meant only that he spoke with a young woman not of his own kind, allowed her to see his face unmasked, worked a bit of magic for her....After that one mistake, Lucian’s grandsire excised half his magic and savage Harrowers massacred his family. Now the Registry has contracted his art to a common coroner. His extraordinary gift for portraiture is restricted to dead ordinaries—beggars or starvelings hauled from the streets. But sketching the truth of dead men’s souls brings unforeseen consequences. Sensations not his own. Truths he cannot possibly know and dares not believe. The coroner calls him a cheat and says he is trying to weasel out of a humiliating contract. The Registry will call him mad—and mad sorcerers are very dangerous....

The Book of Deacon


Joseph R. Lallo - 2010
    The find will change her life, sending her on an adventure of soldiers and rebels, wizards and warriors, and beasts both noble and monstrous. Each step will bring her closer to the truth of her potential, of the war, and of the fate of her world.