Smoke and Shadows


Tanya Huff - 2004
    In an example of art echoing life, Tony landed a job as production assistant for the syndicated TV show Darkest Night, a series about a vampire detective. And except for his unrequited crush on the show's handsome costar, Lee Nicholas, Tony was pretty content.Until everything started to fall apart on the set.It began with shadows­­--shadows where they didn't belong, that almost had an existence of their own. Tony tried to ignore it--until he found Nikki Waugh's body, and felt the shadow's touch, and a stunt crash went wrong for no discernible reason--and Tony knew that he had to find out what was threatening everyone on the set.

The House On Gable Street: A Jack Nightingale Short Story


Stephen Leather - 2018
    The House On Gable Street is a fast-paced supernatural story about 30,000 words long, almost a novella. Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers, an ebook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan “Spider’ Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels.

Carpe Demon


Julie Kenner - 2005
    she used to be a Demon Hunter.Now retired, she's more interested in the domestic than the demonic. So when she catches sight of a demon in Walmart, she tells herself it's some other Hunter's problem. But when that demon attacks her in her kitchen, retirement is no longer an option.Now Kate has to kick a little demon butt, figure out why the creatures are trying to take her out and take over her home town, and at the same time take care of her 2-year-old, deal with a hormonal 14-year-old, get the family to Mass on time, and try to keep her past a secret from her daughter and her husband.She's a little out of practice, but hey ... if she can juggle two kids and an impromptu dinner party, ridding the town of demons should be a piece of cake. Like the saying goes, Carpe Demon ... and Kate intends to do just that.

Staying Dead


Laura Anne Gilman - 2004
    Normally her job is stimulating, challenging and only a little bit dangerous. But every once in a while...Case in point: A cornerstone containing a spell is stolen and there's a magical complication. (Isn't there always?) Wren's unique abilities aren't enough to lay this particular case to rest, so she turns to some friends: a demon (minor), a mage who has lost his mind, and a few others, including Sergei, her business partner (and maybe a bit more?).Sometimes what a woman has to do to get the job done is enough to give even Wren nightmares....

Dying Bites


D.D. Barant - 2009
    And real is getting stranger every day…Jace has been ripped from her reality by David Cassius, the vampire head of the NSA. He knows that she’s the best there in the business, and David needs her help in solving a series of gruesome murders of vampires and werewolves. David’s world—one that also includes lycanthropes and golems—is one with little knowledge of mental illness. An insane serial killer is a threat the NSA has no experience with. But Jace does. Stranded in a reality where Bela Lugosi is a bigger box office draw than Bruce Willis and every full moon is Mardi Gras, Jace must now hunt down a fellow human before he brings the entire planet to the brink of madness. Or she may never see her own world again…

Alex


Adam J. Nicolai - 2011
    A bereaved father. Alone with his loss, Ian Colmes has driven away everyone he loves. But when he begins to see his dead son again, is it because the boy is reaching out from beyond? Or has Ian's anguish finally given way to dementia?With a masterful hand, suspense newcomer Adam J Nicolai paints a picture of grief, madness, and the furious strength of a father's love for his son.

Lost Soul


Adam J. Wright - 2016
    I’m the guy who knows how to save your ass when an evil sorcerer casts a curse on it. At least, I was that guy until the Society of Shadows sent me to Dearmont, Maine, a sleepy town that had a zero rating on the supernatural occurrences scale. My plan was to spend my days sitting in the office with nothing to do except drink coffee and eat apple bakes made by Felicity, my new assistant. But when a woman hires me to find out if her son has been possessed by a demon at a rich kids’ party, and a young man comes to the office insisting he’s been bitten by a werewolf, Dearmont goes from zero to hero. Oh, and did I mention that someone in the Society wants me dead? Time to sharpen the swords and go to work…

The Becoming


Jeanne C. Stein - 2004
    I am a vampire. How I became one is the reason for this story. I tell it all the way it happened. It may not be what you expect.She's a bounty hunter--tough, beautiful, and trained for the unexpected. Until the night she's attacked and left closer to death than she can imagine. She awakens to an indoctrination into a dark new world where vampires walk among us. But this time, a tight grip on a .38 won't stop what she's hunting for.Existing between the worlds of the living and the dead, Anna is torn by her love for two very different men. Max, a DEA agent, all too human, and vulnerable. And Avery, a Night Watcher who's joined Anna in pursuit of the rogue vampire who changed her life that terrifying night. Now, as her two worlds collide, fate plunges Anna into the ultimate battle between good and evil where survival is not just for the living...

Deadly Curiosities


Gail Z. Martin - 2014
    Dangerous magical and supernatural items sometimes find their way into mortal hands or onto the market, and Cassidy is part of a shadowy Alliance of mortals and mages whose job it is to take those deadly curiosities out of circulation.Welcome to Trifles & Folly, an antique and curio shop with a dark secret. Proprietor Cassidy Kincaide continues a family tradition begun in 1670—acquiring and neutralizing dangerous supernatural items. It’s the perfect job for Cassidy, whose psychic gift lets her touch an object and know its history. Together with her business partner Sorren, a 500 year-old vampire and former jewel thief, Cassidy makes it her business to get infernal objects off the market. When mundane antiques suddenly become magically malicious, it’s time for Cassidy and Sorren to get rid of these Deadly Curiosities before the bodies start piling up.

Crimson City


Liz Maverick - 2005
    The angels are no longer in charge. From the extravagant appetites of the vampire world above, to the gritty defiance of the werewolves below, the specter of darkness lives around every corner, the hope of paradise in every heart. All walk freely with humans in a tentative peace, but to live in Los Angeles is to balance on the edge of a knife. One woman knows better than most that death lurks here in nights of bliss or hails of UV bullets. She’s about to be tested, to taste true thirst. She’s about to regain the power she’s long been denied. And Fleur Dumont is about to meet the one man who may understand her: a tormented protector who’s lost his way and all he loved.

Right Hand Magic


Nancy A. Collins - 2010
    As Tate is drawn into Hexe's fascinating world, they both find that the right hand does not always know what the left hand is doing-and avoiding darkness is no easy trick...

Child of Fire


Harry Connolly - 2009
    He's the driver for Annalise Powliss, a high-ranking member of the Twenty Palace Society, a group of sorcerers devoted to hunting down and executing rogue magicians. But because Ray betrayed her once, Annalise is looking for an excuse to kill him - or let someone else do the job.Unfortunately for both of them, Annalise's next mission goes wrong, leaving her critically injured. With the little magic he controls, Ray must complete her assignment alone. Not only does he have to stop a sorcerer who's sacrificing dozens of innocent lives in exchange for supernatural power, he must find - and destroy - the source of that inhuman magic.

Magic of the Gargoyles


Rebecca Chastain - 2014
    But when a panicked baby gargoyle bursts into her studio, insisting Mika is the only person she’ll trust with her desperate mission, Mika’s carefully constructed five-year plan is shattered. Swept into the gritty criminal underworld of Terra Haven, Mika must jeopardize everything she’s worked so hard for to save the baby gargoyle from the machinations of a monster—and to stay alive…

Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper


J.L. Bryan - 2014
    Part detective, part paranormal exterminator, Ellie operates out of Savannah, Georgia, the most haunted city in the United States.When a family contacts her to deal with a disturbing presence in the old mansion they’ve recently purchased, Ellie first believes it to be a typical, by-the-book specter, a residual haunting by a restless spirit. Instead, she finds herself confronting an evil older and more powerful than she’d ever expected, rooted in the house’s long and sordid history of luxury, sin, and murder. The dangerous entity seems particularly interested in her clients’ ten-year-old daughter.Soon her own life is in danger, and Ellie must find a way to exorcise the darkness of the house before it can kill her, her clients, or their frightened young child.

Better Off Dead


H.P. Mallory - 2013
    Killed in a car accident before it’s her time to go, Lily learns that the hereafter isn’t exactly what she hoped it might be. First, there’s AfterLife Enterprises, the company responsible for sorting out the recently dead and sending them on their way to the Kingdom, (aka happily ever after,) or to the Underground City, (not so happily ever after.) Learning that Lily’s death was indirectly their fault (her guardian angel, Bill, was MIA during her accident and was one of their employees,) Afterlife Enterprises offers Lily the chance to live again. But, as with most things involving the afterlife, beware the fine print. Most notably, Lily will have to become a soul retriever, venturing into the bowels of the Underground City to retrieve souls that were mistakenly sent there by Afterlife Enterprises during a Y2K computer glitch. Second, there’s angel Bill. As if risking her second life in the Underground City wasn’t enough, Lily’s guide to the Underground is none other than her incompetent, alcoholic, womanizing guardian angel, Bill, the antithesis of anything wholesome. With only Dante’s Inferno and Bill to help her in her quest, Lily’s future isn’t looking bright.Finally, there’s the legendary bladesmith, Tallis Black. As Scottish as his kilts and heavy brogue, Tallis Black is a centuries-old Celt who, for reasons only known to him, offers to train Lily and act as her escort into the depths of the Underground City. Dark, brooding and definitely dangerous, Lily knows she shouldn’t trust Tallis, but she also can’t deny her attraction to him. Between soul retrieving in hell, dealing with Bill and trying to figure out what’s in it for Tallis, Lily wonders if maybe she would’ve just been better off dead.