Book picks similar to
Best in Show by Kelly Jensen
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paranormal
romance
Quill Me Now
Jordan Castillo Price - 2019
At least, it should. Unfortunately, Dixon Penn failed his Spellcraft initiation. Instead of working in his family’s shop, he’s stuck delivering takeout orders in his uncle’s beat-up Buick.Winning a Valentine’s Day contest at the largest greeting card company in the tri-state area would be just the thing to get his life back on track—but something at Precious Greetings just doesn’t add up. And despite numerous warnings to quit pestering them about his contest entry, he just can’t stop himself from coming back again and again.It doesn’t hurt that the head of security is such a hottie. If Dixon had any common sense, he’d be scared of the big, mysterious, tattooed Russian.To be fair, no one ever accused him of being too smart….Quill Me Now originally debuted in the Bad Valentine collection, with Love Magic by Jesi Lea Ryan, Hidden Hearts by Clare London, and Temporary Dad by Dev Bentham.
With Love
J.L. Langley - 2007
He’s not looking for any complications, but he finds something he never expected—a mate. A mate with a whole lot of energy who attracts trouble like a magnet.Laine Campbell never means to get himself into hot water, but everything has a way of getting tangled up between his feet. He needs more than just a mate—he needs a savior.When Dev turns up at a pack get-together, Laine finds both. The two werewolves have an instant attraction, but the pack Alpha is determined to keep Laine for himself. Dev soon learns the only way to protect his mate is to fight, not just for the top spot—but for his life.Just one small problem. His accident-prone mate is determined to help him…This story was also published in the anthology: Hearts from the Ashes.
Wet Heat
R.D. Hero - 2016
Yet at forty-two, he’s stopped going into heat, which means he’s expired goods—no longer a fertile, young omega that alpha wolves drool over. So Lee uses Wet Heat, a synthetic pheromone, to reel in the alpha hookups.After losing his job at the bank, Lee can’t afford to keep up his Wet Heat habit. His solution: scam free samples by pretending to be a happily mated test subject at Wet Heat headquarters. There, Lee spends two years being interviewed by the reserved alpha scientist, Cain, who at thirty-two is unmated and—up until this point—content with that.Cain never really felt his alpha instincts, nor took part in the usual alpha/beta/omega social dynamics. But after discovering that Lee has been lying about his unmated status for two years, Cain finally admits that for the first time, he wants to court an omega. Unfortunately, he’s picked the one omega who doesn’t want to be courted.
Purrfect Protector
S.A. Welsh - 2015
office by his brother when he gets disturbing mail from an obsessed fan. He reluctantly agrees to have a bodyguard but when a the tall muscular blond walks in to the office emanating power and a sexy dose of danger Kale's doubts about needing the man with him twenty four hours a day quickly disappear. The easy babysitting job Aleksi was promised quickly changes from strange mail to threatening deliveries and Aleksi has to get creative to get his protectee out of the line of fire. Everyone knows models are self-centred and shallow, so why does being with Kale make him feel like he finally has a home? Being a saber-tooth tiger means that most people aren’t strong enough to be with him in a relationship or even as friends, he's too naturally dominant. Yet Kale seems to calm his beast at the same time as exciting the man in him.Neither men expected nor wanted a relationship with strings, but as they grow closer Aleksi realizes that Kale might just be his mate. With the obsessed fan escalating to murder, Aleksi isn’t sure even his tiger can keep his mate safe.
Irregulars
Nicole Kimberling - 2012
It polices relations between the earthly realm and those beyond this world, enforcing immigration laws, the transfers of magical artifacts, and crimes against humanity.The agents who work for the NATO Irregular Affairs Division can’t tell anyone what they do, or how hard they work to keep us safe. It brings a colorful collection of men together:Agent Henry Falk, the undead bum. Agent Keith Curry, former carnivore chef turned vegetarian; Agent Rake, Babylonian demon with a penchant for easy living; and Agent Silas August, uncompromising jerk.Four cities, four mysteries, four times the romance. Is your security clearance high enough to read on?
A Little Bite of Magic
M.J. O'Shea - 2011
He doesn’t care about honing his magic. All he wants is to open up a restaurant and spend his days serving up delicious food. But when he sees a customer crying and wishes for her to be happy, he inadvertently transforms his old wooden soup spoon into a wand, and realizes that maybe a little bit of kitchen magic is just what his customers need. Addison Allbright is The Phantom Foodie, an anonymous food critic notorious for his scathing reviews. For most people, being paid to eat would be a dream job. Not for Addison. He doesn’t care for overpriced designer food. He’s a tea and toast kind of guy. Until both the food and the owner of L'Osteria Di Pomodoro sweep him off his feet and throw his neat, orderly life completely off-kilter. Frankie isn’t sure how to tell Addison he’s a witch, or that he charmed Addison’s food the night they first met, without sounding totally crazy. But little does he know that Addison has secrets too. Not only did he snark Frankie’s restaurant in his last review column, he’s also engaged to be married…to a woman.
Hex and Candy
Ashlyn Kane - 2018
But then what?Cole Alpin runs a small-town candy store. He visits his grandmother twice a week. And sometimes he breaks curses.Leo Ericson’s curse is obvious right away, spiderwebbing across his very nice body. Though something about it worries Cole, he agrees to help—with little idea of what he’s getting into.Leo is a serial monogamist, but his vampire ex has taken dating off the table with his nasty spell, and Leo needs Cole’s companionship as much as his help. When the hex proves to be only the beginning of his problems, Leo seeks refuge at Cole’s place. Too bad magic prevents him from finding refuge in Cole’s arms.Cole’s never had a boyfriend, so how can he recognize true love? And there’s still the matter of the one responsible for their troubles in the first place….
Uncommonly Tidy Poltergeists
Angel Martinez - 2017
It washes glasses, puts dishes away, and even dusts. At least he hopes it's a cleaning-obsessed poltergeist and not his own anxieties burbling over into neat freak fits he doesn't remember. When his property manager suggests he call paranormal expert, Jack Montrose, Taro's skeptical but desperate enough to try even a ghost hunter.Jack's arrival crushes Taro's hopes of a dashing Van Helsing-style hero. Instead of an invincible hunter, he gets Ichabod Crane. As the paranormal puzzles multiply and Jack begins to suggest the entity might not be a ghostly one, Taro adds a budding friendship with Jack to his pile of anxieties. It's a race to see whether Taro's poltergeist or his relationship with the obviously-not-ace Jack will reach maximum strangeness first.Word Count: 35,454
Backwoods Asylum
Megan Derr - 2013
Snakes are not the most popular shifters around and the fact he grew up wild doesn't help. He knows the way he's chosen to live alone in the woods only makes things worse, but he didn't think it meant people thought him capable of killing a couple of wolf puppies.Determined to find the real monster who left them to die, Skylar calls up the only wolf he knows, a man he always wished would see him as more than a snake …
Extinction
Carol Lynne - 2009
Born and raised in the Canadian Province of Newfoundland, Jack’s grandparents related stories of a race of people eradicated by European settlers in 1829. According to the legend, the Beothuk people didn’t die out as first thought, but were transformed into wolf shifters.On Spirit Mountain, he finally comes face to face with not only the shifter he’s been looking for, but the man of his dreams he didn’t know he needed.Toby has lived a life afraid of man. Hidden among the mountains of California and Nevada by his parents, he’s longed for the one person he can share his life with, his mate. When he smells Jack McBain for the first time, he knows he’s finally found him.
Nuts About You
Kate Lowell - 2016
In squirrel form, he sits on Vince’s bird feeders, munching on seeds and enjoying the eye candy. Until the day Vince notices him raiding the feeder…Note: This title was originally published in Storm Moon Press's Forgotten Menagerie. Small changes in wording and sentence structure have been made, but this text does not differ in any significant manner from the original.
Stolen Ink
Holly Evans - 2017
There are two problems in my life.Number one – I’m an ink magician, the thing of myths. A lot of very powerful people would love to get their hands on me, and I have no intention of letting that happen. Number two – A tattoo thief came to my city, and the magical community has decided that I’m the guy to stop them. Somehow, I have to catch the thief without letting my secret out of the bag, and that’s even harder than it sounds.
A History of Trouble
S.J. Himes - 2019
Witness a brief glimpse into the brutal history of the Wars with Ignacio Salvatore and the vampire he loves, Ashwin Metcalfe, in 1897.A History of Trouble Angel was joking when he asked O'Malley if someone resurrected a mammoth. Little did he know that was exactly what someone did. Experience the untold story of what happened that unfortunate night at the Boston Public Museum.A Dragon in the CityWhat happens when Eroch goes adventuring in Beacon Hill without Angel? Chaos, pure chaos.Fae's Gold Daniel is helping the newly-resurrected fae Ruairi Brennan become accustomed to modern-day living. A boring trip to the bank quickly escalates, and Daniel calls Angel for help. The day goes downhill from there but ends in a comfy meal in a pub for an ancient fae warrior and a necromancer's apprentice.This is a collection, featuring vignettes and short stories from the universe of The Beacon Hill Sorcerer series. For full enjoyment, the Beacon Hill Sorcerer Series Books 1 through 3 should be read before reading this collection. Combined word count is 23.5k words.
Fish and Ghosts
Rhys Ford - 2013
He was to be the second generation of Pryces to serve as a caretaker for the estate, a way station for spirits on their final steps to the afterlife. The ghosts were the simple part. He’d been seeing boo-wigglies since he was a child. No, the difficult part was his own family. Determined to establish Tristan’s insanity, his loving relatives hire Dr. Wolf Kincaid and his paranormal researchers, Hellsinger Investigations, to prove the Grange is not haunted.Skeptic Wolf Kincaid has made it his life’s work to debunk the supernatural. After years of cons and fakes, he can’t wait to reveal the Grange’s ghostly activity is just badly leveled floorboards and a drafty old house. The Grange has more than a few surprises for him, including its prickly, reclusive owner. Tristan Pryce is much less insane and much more attractive than Wolf wants to admit and when his Hellsinger team unwittingly release a ghostly serial killer on the Grange, Wolf is torn between his skepticism and protecting the man he’d been sent to discredit.
Blind Man's Wolf
Amelia Faulkner - 2014
A werewolf with lousy self-confidence. And a whole hell of a lot of danger...Ellis O’Neill is an art dealer with too many problems: his eyesight has deteriorated to the point of night-blindness; he’s estranged from his family, to whom he owes a considerable sum of money; and his guide dog went right off him the night Ellis died. Without his dog, Ellis is trapped in a life bouncing between home and work, dependent on his personal assistant. Werewolf Randall Carter has problems of his own. He loves his pack, he really does, but as their Omega he’s always the one to bear the brunt of their rage. It’s a role he can’t avoid, and Randall isn't sure he can take it for much longer, so he buries himself in his day job. Randall’s the best dog trainer in the city, and when he’s offered a client who needs him to work evenings he’d be a fool to turn it down. Soon Randall is falling for someone he should despise. Everything about the undead is anathema to his kind, but Ellis is exactly the kind of guy Randall would want to ask out on a date – if he were still breathing. Worse, they may not have too long to figure their feelings out. Someone or something is gunning for Ellis and anyone else who gets in the way; they won’t rest until the vampire is destroyed.