Book picks similar to
Nascent Shadow by Matthew S. Cox
fantasy
urban-fantasy
young-adult
netgalley
The Archived
Victoria Schwab - 2013
The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was: a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.Being a Keeper isn't just dangerous—it's a constant reminder of those Mac has lost, Da's death was hard enough, but now that her little brother is gone too, Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself may crumble and fall.In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption.
The Forgotten Ones
Laura Howard - 2013
She has carefully closed herself off from everything else, including a relationship with Ethan, who she's been in love with for as long as she can remember.What is definitely not part of the plan is the return of her long-lost father, who claims he can bring Allison's mother back from the dark place her mind has gone. Allison doesn't trust her father, so why would she believe his stories about a long forgotten Irish people, the Tuatha de Danaan? But truths have a way of revealing themselves. Secrets will eventually surface. And Allison must learn to set aside her plan and work with her father if there is even a small chance it could restore her mother's sanity.
In a Fix
Linda Grimes - 2012
A kind of human chameleon, she’s able to take on her clients’ appearances and slip seamlessly into their lives, solving any sticky problems they don’t want to deal with themselves. No fuss, no muss. Big paycheck.This particular assignment is pretty enjoyable... that is, until Ciel’s island resort bungalow is blown to smithereens and her client’s about-to-be-fiancé is snatched by modern-day Vikings. For some reason, Ciel begins to suspect that getting the ring is going to be a tad more difficult than originally anticipated.Going from romance to rescue requires some serious gear-shifting, as well as a little backup. Her best friend, Billy, and Mark, the CIA agent she’s been crushing on for years—both skilled adaptors—step in to help, but their priority is, annoyingly, keeping her safe. Before long, Ciel is dedicating more energy to escaping their watchful eyes than she is to saving her client’s intended.Suddenly, facing down a horde of Vikings feels like the least of her problems.
The Redemption of Ajax
Trinity Faegen - 2011
When getting the answer means pledging her soul to Eryx, she unlocks a secret that puts her in grave danger—she is an Anabo, a daughter of Eve, and Eryx's biggest threat.A son of Hell, immortal, and bound to Earth forever, Jax looks for redemption in the Mephisto Covenant—God's promise he will find peace in the love of an Anabo. After a thousand years, he's finally found the girl he's been searching for: Sasha.With the threat of Eryx always looming, Jax knows he has to keep Sasha safe and win her over. But can he? Will Sasha love him and give up her mortal life?
Angel Eyes
Shannon Dittemore - 2012
Everything changes when you’ve looked at the world through . . .ANGEL EYESBrielle’s a ballerina who went to the city to chase her dreams and found tragedy instead. She’s come home to shabby little Stratus, Oregon, to live with her grief and her guilt . . . and the incredible, numbing cold she can’t seem to shake.Jake’s the new guy at school. The boy next door with burning hands and an unbelievable gift that targets him for corruption.Something more than fate has brought them together. An evil bigger than both of them lurks in the shadows nearby, hiding in plain sight. Two angels stand guard, unsure what’s going to happen. And a beauty brighter than Jake or Brielle has ever seen is calling them to join the battle in a realm where all human choices start.A realm that only angels and demons—and Brielle—can perceive.
Talisman Of El
Alecia Stone - 2012
7 billion.Others ... unknown.When 14-year-old Charlie Blake wakes up sweating and gasping for air in the middle of the night, he knows it is happening again. This time he witnesses a brutal murder. He's afraid to tell anyone. No one would believe him ... because it was a dream. Just like the one he had four years ago - the day before his dad died.Charlie doesn't know why this is happening. He would give anything to have an ordinary life. The problem: he doesn't belong in the world he knows as home.He belongs with the others.
Royal Street
Suzanne Johnson - 2012
DJ's boss and mentor, Gerald St. Simon, is the wizard tasked with protecting the city from anyone or anything that might slip over from the preternatural beyond.Then Hurricane Katrina hammers New Orleans’ fragile levees, unleashing more than just dangerous flood waters.While winds howled and Lake Pontchartrain surged, the borders between the modern city and the Otherworld crumbled. Now, the undead and the restless are roaming the Big Easy, and a serial killer with ties to voodoo is murdering the soldiers sent to help the city recover.To make it worse, Gerry has gone missing, the wizards’ Elders have assigned a grenade-toting assassin as DJ’s new partner, and undead pirate Jean Lafitte wants to make her walk his plank. The search for Gerry and for the serial killer turns personal when DJ learns the hard way that loyalty requires sacrifice, allies come from the unlikeliest places, and duty mixed with love creates one bitter gumbo.
Of Shadow and Stone
Michelle Muto - 2015
Now only the sentinel—a mortal chosen to control the stone beasts—stands between them and their human prey.When the latest sentinel is killed, Kate Mercer is destined to take his place. But Kate has enough going on in her life—like a skyrocketing film career, a delusional ex-boyfriend, and a crazed stalker who will stop at nothing to get to her. But the powers that be have decided, and Kate is transported to Shadow Wood, a mysterious castle that serves as a sanctuary for the supernatural. Although beautiful, Shadow Wood is no safe place for a mere mortal. Yet Kate is drawn not only to the gargoyles but also to Ian McGuire, a charming novelist who might be in the greatest danger of all.As Kate decides whether to accept the most perilous role of her life, she discovers there are more secrets than answers within the castle’s walls. Her survival and Ian’s depend on her ability to master the gargoyles before time runs out. Is fate really cast in stone?
Skin Deep
T.G. Ayer - 2013
No idea shifters and demons walk in the shadows. And Kai prefers to keep it that way.That is, until she discovers the body of a murdered shifter. The discovery quickly embroils her in a world of supernatural drug-dealing and renegade shifters who leave a trail of blood and mayhem wherever they go. When Logan Westin, paranormal investigator and super-hot human, begins investigating the same murder, Kai refuses to allow her feelings to control her. Humans are off-limits, no matter how sizzlingly sexy they are. But can Kai keep him at bay? And does she even want to?In the blink of an eye her comfortable life is gone, a dear friend murdered, and shifters are disappearing around her. To survive and to save her loved ones, Kai must allow herself to trust Logan, to give her scarred heart to someone again.
Haven
A.R. Ivanovich - 2011
Outside the safety of her homeland’s borders, Katelyn meets Rune, a young soldier who will die without her immediate aid. She never considered that helping him would lead to her capture. While being held prisoner by the handsome Lord Dylan Axton, she learns that the outside world is rife with war and controlled by people with extraordinary powers. It becomes clear that there was a very good reason the founders of Haven locked their people away from the rest of the world. The depth of her peril reaches a fever pitch when a ruthless Commander wants Katelyn dead. Her only hope is to return to Haven, but can she survive long enough to find her home? HAVEN is an exciting young adult fantasy novel, set in a unique, rural steampunk world, by debut author A. R. Ivanovich.
Souls of the Stones Omnibus
Kelly Walker - 2013
The series incorporates traditional fantasy elements such as prophecy and magic with a love story that transcends genre and time. Books 1-3 are included.Cornerstone - When Emariya Warren learns enemy forces have captured her father, she'll do anything to save him. Anything. Even marry a mysterious prince she knows nothing about in order to rally the strength to arrange a rescue. During her journey to Torian's foreign castle, Emariya comes face to face with her mother's killers--and a deadly secret.Not only does Emariya possess a powerful but unexpected magical gift. So does the prince she's promised to marry, and an ominous prophecy has warned their gifts must never be combined.If she breaks her promise to marry Torian, she won't be able to save her father and if she keeps it, she may bring a curse upon everything she holds dear. Determining which choice is best won't be easy, but when she meets the gorgeous prince who may desire more than just her heart, she realizes she will have to fight just to have a choice at all.Her heart wants him desperately. Her head begs her to run. If she doesn't want to share her mother's fate, she'll have to find a way to untangle the truth from the lies in time to save herself.Second Stone - In the second installment in Souls of the Stones, the stakes are higher, the romance is hotter, and Emariya's power as a Cornerstone is growing.Determined to make sense of the betrayals, lies, and her undeniable attraction to Torian, Emariya and her prince begin the journey to Sheas to confront her uncle and bring her father home.Broken Stone - Unable to avoid her destiny any longer, Emariya has become the leader her mother always envisioned. Before she can focus on embracing her gifts to unify her three lands, she must first stop her own land from dissolving into civil war.
The Unseen
Thea Harrison - 2020
Rhyacia is paradisiacal. Accompanied by old friends and new allies, the future looks safe and bright for Dragos, Pia, and baby Niall.But strange things are happening beneath the picturesque façade. Items move unaccompanied, buildings collapse without justifiable cause, and even the most Powerful residents of Rhyacia can provide no logical explanation for the events transpiring. Whispered rumors point to something called the unseen.As Dragos and Pia investigate, they uncover a greater mystery than they could have imagined, and they realize the startling truth…They’re not alone in Rhyacia. The land Dragos had thought was uninhabited hides many secrets, a shocking history that’s not quite ready to be buried, and something more.Something ancient, evil, and hungry. Something that wants to consume Dragos and take everything he holds dear.Something that just may be powerful enough to overcome the dragon…
The Demon's Librarian
Lilith Saintcrow - 2009
But the books she finds in a secret cache don’t tell her the whole story. Chess has no idea what she’s just stepped into or just how special she is.Orion (Ryan) is Drakul, part demon, and a loyal servant of the Order. He doesn’t expect a motorcycle-riding librarian to be messing around with demonic forces, and he doesn’t expect her to smell so damn good. But Ryan’s got bigger problems. His partner has disappeared, and the forces of Darkness are rising.Now Chess is Ryan’s only hope of finding his partner, and Ryan is Chess’s only hope of survival because the demons now know Chess exists and that she is the heir to a long-lost power that could push back their dark tide. If Ryan can keep her alive long enough, she just might be the key to destroying the demons completely.But Ryan doesn’t know he’s been betrayed by the very Order he serves. And if Chess does, by some miracle survive, he won’t ever be able to touch her again. . .
The Demon Lover
Juliet Dark - 2011
My mouth opened, but I couldn’t draw breath. His lips, pearly wet, parted and he blew into my mouth. My lungs expanded beneath his weight. When I exhaled he sucked my breath in and his weight turned from cold marble into warm living flesh.
Since accepting a teaching position at remote Fairwick College in upstate New York, Callie McFay has experienced the same disturbingly sensual dream every night: A mist enters her bedroom, then takes the shape of a virile, seductive stranger who proceeds to ravish her in the most toe-curling, wholly satisfying ways possible. Perhaps these dreams are the result of her having written the bestselling book The Sex Lives of Demon Lovers. Callie’s lifelong passion is the intersection of lurid fairy tales and Gothic literature—which is why she’s found herself at Fairwick’s renowned folklore department, living in a once-stately Victorian house that, at first sight, seemed to call her name. But Callie soon realizes that her dreams are alarmingly real. She has a demon lover—an incubus—and he will seduce her, pleasure her, and eventually suck the very life from her. Then Callie makes another startling discovery: Her incubus is not the only mythical creature in Fairwick. As the tenured witches of the college and the resident fairies in the surrounding woods prepare to cast out the demon, Callie must accomplish something infinitely more difficult—banishing this supernatural lover from her heart.
Bite Me
Parker Blue - 2008
Her father was part incubus demon, and her mother's never forgiven her for that.Life after high school is tough enough without having to go 15 rounds with your inner demon. Thrown out of the house by her mother, Val puts one foot in front of the other and does the only thing that seems to make any sense - she takes aim at the town vampires. A stake a day, keeps the demon at bay. But don't call her Buffy. That makes Lola, her demon, very cranky.)Her dark side makes everyday life a roller coaster, but means she's perfect for her night job as a bounty hunter. San Antonio's vampires are out of control, and it's up to Val, her faithful hellhound Fang, and her new partner, a handsome San Antonio police detective, to get the deadly fangbangers off the city streets.Soon enough she finds herself deep in the underbelly of the city, discovering the secrets of the Demon Underground and fighting to save those she loves. Whether they love her back or not.