Book picks similar to
To Kill a Unicorn by John Corwin


fantasy
urban-fantasy
3-good
fantasy-urban

Magic Lies


Fatima Bader - 2020
     My name’s Selena Valeron, and I’m the Supernatural Bureau of Investigation’s best undercover witch. After three years, the bureau has just handed me my biggest case: hunting the magical community’s most prolific serial killer, Xavier. Lately the dead women on the morgue table bear an eerie resemblance to me. A shocking revelation indicates the killer is someone from my past—if I can remember it. Years ago, an accident wiped out my memory and threatened to end my career. Now my magical powers seem to be manifesting into something stronger. Was my memory loss really an accident, or a failed murder attempt? Time's ticking as I dig through my past to find the killer. I need answers. If I can't get them in time, I'll lose friends, family—even my own life. MAGIC LIES is a fast-paced urban fantasy mystery with plenty of thrilling twists and turns that will keep you guessing. Agent Valeron may have lost her memory, but she hasn't lost her snarky attitude and she's still a badass witch. Jump into this magical world and start reading the Selena Valeron series today!

Soulbound


Bethany Adams - 2016
    After all, Arlyn had promised her mother she’d go. The problem? Her father's people are myths and legends, and he doesn't even live on Earth. But despite a long journey through the mysterious mists of the Veil, finding him turns out to be the easy part. A dream long-buried After five hundred years, Kai has given up on finding his soulbonded. So when he stumbles across Arlyn after returning from his latest mission and recognizes her as his mate, Kai starts their bond in haste. But he never could have imagined that his bonded is his best friend’s newfound daughter. Whoops. A hidden conspiracy sparked to life Though the sight of Kai makes Arlyn’s heart pound, she isn’t sure she can forgive him for starting their bond without her permission. But her love life is the least of her problems. Her father is an elf lord, and his sudden acknowledgment of a half-human heir reignites the same conspiracy that took him away from her mother in the first place. Now Arlyn and her family must face iron wielding assassins, bigotry, and her newly awakened magical abilities if they hope to come through in one piece. Arlyn thought she would return to Earth after meeting her father. Now she must fight to save the family she never knew she wanted.

Smoke Rising


Craig Halloran - 2015
    The unexpected begins ... Agent Sidney Shaw is one of the FBI’s finest. Tough as nails with a calculating mind, she thought she was ready for anything. Enter John Smoke. His spirited arrest methods landed him hard time in prison. The decorated veteran, now branded an ex-con, just wants to serve his time in peace. The powers that be have other plans. When Sidney is assigned to be Smoke’s handler, both of their lives are turned upside down. She plays by the rules. He trusts his instincts. Fighting to control him, she finds herself chasing him down a secret, dark, supernatural path where a vast criminal network rears its head in the heart of Washington, D.C.

Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib


David J. Schwartz - 2013
    It's a school for those who have run out of choices. An unlikely place for an international conspiracy. But after suspicious paranormal signatures are reported and a professor of magical history goes missing, the possibility of demon trafficking seems more and more likely... GOOSEBERRY BLUFF COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF MAGIC: THE THIRTEENTH RIB, the first season set in Schwartz's fantastic contemporary world, begins the tale of Joy Wilkins, an undercover agent with the Federal Bureau of Magical Affairs, as she starts her first semester of teaching and investigating the alarming activity at this school of magic on the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The deeper she goes, the closer she gets to dangerous secrets that could threaten her entire world.

Source Mage


William Stacey - 2020
    Trust is short, magic is common, and each day is a struggle for survival in the Awakened World of 2053.I’m Angie Ritter, a former army mage who can’t cast spells anymore.I have some issues. I’m working on them.Unfortunately, the army wasn’t as accommodating as I would have hoped and gave me the boot. Now, I survive day by day in Sanwa City, a walled settlement in southern California, doing menial labor and pretty much hiding from the world. Without my magic, I can’t help myself, let alone anyone else, but when my old army buddy Erin—an elite werewolf shock trooper—comes to me for help, I can’t say no. Now, I just need to pull myself together—and fast. Because someone’s hunting werewolves, and Erin is their new prey.And if I get in their way, they’re going to carve me up too.Thing is, I’m done with hiding.

Inhuman


Eileen Wilks - 2012
    All of them were Gifted, and all of them have been drained of their blood. Kai is a reluctant telepath with a skewed Gift—she sees thoughts instead of experiencing them. So, unlike other Midlanders, she can intuit that they have a “Guardian.” She also knows that the Guardian Nathan isn’t human. His true nature hasn’t been divined. Neither has hers. But when another one of the Gifted is found dead, Kai herself becomes a suspect. And only Nathan can save her.Previously published in On the Prowl.

Warrior


Marie Brennan - 2006
    For the witch to master her powers, the twin must be killed. But what happens when the doppelganger survives? Mirage, a bounty hunter, lives by her wits and lethal fighting skills. She always gets her mark. But her new mission will take her into the shadowy world of witches, where her strength may not be a match against powerful magic. Miryo is a witch who has just failed her initiation test. She now knows that there is someone in the world who looks like her, who is her: Mirage. To control her powers and become a full witch, Miryo has only one choice: to hunt the hunter and destroy her.

A Drop of Magic


L.R. Braden - 2019
    . .With the world clinging to a fragile peace forced on the Fae by humanity after the Faerie Wars, metalsmith Alex Blackwood is plunged into the world of the half-fae who traffick in illegal magical artifacts. Her best friend’s murder and his cryptic last message place her in the crosshairs of a scheme to reignite the decade-old war between humans and fae.Worse, violent attacks against her and the arrival of a fae knight on a mission force Alex to face a devastating revelation of who and what she is. To catch a killer, retrieve a dangerous artifact, and stop a war, Alex will have to accept that she’s an unregistered fae “halfer” with a unique magical talent—a talent that would change everything she believes about her past, her art, and her future.Her world is crumbling around her, and Alex will have to decide who to trust if she and the world are going to survive.“A Drop of Magic is a damned fun and original read, with sass, action, hot men, and a whole lot of magic.” —Diana Pharaoh Francis, author of the Diamond City Magic, Magicfall, and Horngate Witches seriesAbout the author: Born and raised in Colorado, L. R. BRADEN makes her home in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with her wonderful husband, precocious daughter, and psychotic cat. With degrees in both English literature and metalsmithing, she splits her time between writing and art. A Drop of Magic is her first novel.

Stray Magic


Kelly Meding - 2018
    But when a group of vampires takes an entire trailer park hostage, there’s nothing to do but make her apologies and get to the scene.Such is the life of a Federal Marshal in the Paranormal Investigators Unit.Yet this isn’t like her typical track-and-nab case: something is going on that has vampires scared, and it takes all her strength not to imagine what could frighten such powerful creatures. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have that option. Her boss is MIA, someone is snatching vampires, and there’s a ticking clock that can only end one way: a bloodbath.Unless she can stop it.

Fractured Flame


Erin Embly - 2020
    Betrayer.It’s all good, though. I fit right in at my new job as the magical bartender in a supernatural strip club, where no one cares about a girl’s deadly reputation as long as she has a nice rack.Only now I’m being stalked by a schoolgirl bully who breathes fire, and her hot dad keeps trying to get me to touch his dusty old book. I’m used to men trying to trick me into touching things, but this is a whole new level of creepy.I’m almost grateful when the assassin who framed me comes back for round two… except I’m not the only one in danger. My new friends at the club are the ones under fire now, and I can’t fail them like I failed before.Once a Guardian, always a Guardian, right? That’s what they always told me, even when I ran, and I still don’t know if they were right. Whatever I am, it’s personal now, and I have a hot-blooded killer to hunt.Fractured Flame is the first book of Firebird Uncaged, an urban fantasy series containing action, snarky humor, mythical creatures, rogue witches, Aztec gods, swearing, and some slow-burn romance. You’ll love it if you’re a fan of strong female characters and plot twists that will keep you up all night.

Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven


Bella Forrest - 2018
    It’s how she snagged her first job pinpointing cheaters at a casino.But she has no clue where she got these freakish powers because she spent her childhood jumping from home to home in the foster system, and her father left her with nothing more than a cryptic note.Then she crosses paths with a terrifyingly real monster. Which is when a mysterious and annoyingly arrogant young warlock named Wade Crowley steps in, introducing her to a hidden world of beasts, magicals, and covens riddled with secrets—as well as clues about her murky past.Whether she likes it or not, this new world is where she belongs. But after a disturbing twist of events, Harley quickly realizes that her past is darker than she could ever have imagined.And that someone in the coven is out for her blood.With the help of Wade and her new friends, she must figure out who the traitor is and why they’re targeting her... Before the human and magical worlds dangerously collide.

Storms and Shades - Two Complete Series: Storms of Magic and The Hidden Magic Chronicles from the Age of Magic


Justin Sloan - 2020
    

Black Dog


Caitlin Kittredge - 2014
    When a human necromancer convinces her to steal her reaper’s scythe, Ava incurs the wrath of the demon Lilith, her reaper’s boss.As punishment for her transgression, Lilith orders Ava to track down the last soul in her reaper’s ledger . . . or die trying. But after a hundred years of servitude, it’s time for payback. And Hell hath no fury like an avenging Ava . .

Dead Man


Domino Finn - 2015
    Sounds kinda cool, doesn't it? It was, right until I woke up half dead in a dumpster.Did I say half dead? Because I meant 100% dead. Full on. I don't do things halfway.So here I am, alive for some reason, just another sunny day in Miami. It's a perfect paradise, except I'm into something bad. Wanted by police, drenched in the stink of dark magic, nether creatures coming out of the woodwork, and don't get me started on the Haitian voodoo gang. Trust me, it's all fun and games until there's a zombie pit bull on your tail.I'm Cisco Suarez: necromancer, shadow charmer, black magic outlaw, and totally screwed.

Gathering Water


Regan Claire - 2014
    It was all Della ever knew of her mother. No identification. No family to tie her to. Then, on her eighteenth birthday, Della's life was flipped upside down by one thin, manila folder. Growing up in the foster system, she never really had anything to call her own, not even a last name revealing any real association to anyone. Now, the truth was exposed, but there was still so much she didn't know. Hoping to learn more about the mother she never knew, and maybe discover a bit more about herself along the way, Della travels across the country seeking answers-and finds far more than she bargained for. An unimaginable world-one on the brink of war-is pulling her in, and making her claim a birthright she never knew she wanted. There's a storm brewing on the horizon, and as the pressure builds, it will take everything Della has not to drown in a destiny she didn't choose.