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Wyrd Blood by Donna Augustine
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The Hundredth Queen
Emily R. King - 2017
He got a revolutionary.As an orphan ward of the Sisterhood, eighteen-year-old Kalinda is destined for nothing more than a life of seclusion and prayer. Plagued by fevers, she’s an unlikely candidate for even a servant’s position, let alone a courtesan or wife. Her sole dream is to continue living in peace in the Sisterhood’s mountain temple.But a visit from the tyrant Rajah Tarek disrupts Kalinda’s life. Within hours, she is ripped from the comfort of her home, set on a desert trek, and ordered to fight for her place among the rajah’s ninety-nine wives and numerous courtesans. Her only solace comes in the company of her guard, the stoic but kind Captain Deven Naik.Faced with the danger of a tournament to the death—and her growing affection for Deven—Kalinda has only one hope for escape, and it lies in an arcane, forbidden power buried within her.
Magic Forged
K.M. Shea - 2020
As someone with barely a flicker of magic, I've spent my life being mocked and surviving fights with bullies. But when my parents die in an accident, and I find myself responsible for our whole wizard house and family, I know my usual tactics aren't going to cut it.The situation veers from bad to catastrophic when my backstabbing cousin stages a coup and takes my family hostage. I barely manage to flee, but the only supernatural willing to help me is Killian Drake - the most feared vampire in the region, and a far more deadly villain than the jerk threatening my family.Is Killian sexy and charismatic? Heck yeah.He's also so powerful that my flight or fight instincts kick in every time our eyes meet. And he's definitely using me as his personal magic detector in his feud against the local fae.But Killian is also the first person to believe I might have more than just a scrap of magic. And if I can convince him to train me, I might get strong enough to free my family and get my house back.I'm not sure what happens when a scrappy wizard is taught how to fight by a hall of deadly vampires, but I'm about to find out.Magic Forged is the first book in the Hall of Blood and Mercy trilogy, which features vampires, wizards, fae, and werewolves. It's packed with humor, adventure, and a sweet, slow burn romance between a vertically challenged wizard and the most lethal vampire in town.
Until the End of the World
Sarah Lyons Fleming - 2013
After all, she’s been on a self-imposed losing streak since her survivalist parents died: she’s stopped painting, broken off her engagement to Adrian and dated a real jerk. Rectifying her mistakes has to wait, however, because Cassie and her friends have just enough time to escape Brooklyn for her parents’ cabin before Bornavirus LX turns them into zombies, too. This is difficult enough, but Cassie’s tag along ex-boyfriend and her friend’s bratty sister have a knack for making everything, even the apocalypse, more unpleasant. When the two attract a threat as deadly as the undead to their safe haven, Cassie’s forced to see how far she’ll go to protect those she loves. And it’s a lot farther than she’d anticipated. This, coupled with Adrian’s distant voice on Safe Zone Radio and, of course, the living dead, threaten to put Cassie right back into the funk she just dragged herself out of. Survival’s great and all, especially when you have leather armor, good friends and home-brewed beer, but there’s something Cassie must do besides survive: tell Adrian she still loves him. And to do that, Cassie has to find faith that she’s stronger than she thinks, she’s still a crack shot and true love never dies.
King Of Flames
Kathryn Ann Kingsley - 2019
Until the day I woke up with a mysterious symbol tattooed on my arm. Suddenly normal no longer existed. The barrier between Earth and a world called Under, dissolved... Now I’m trapped with dozens of other people. Held prisoner by the creators of myths and legends, where the realm is ruled by two masked kings who want to turn us into creatures like them. But even though I didn’t choose to be here, this new world manages to pull me deeper, affecting me differently than other humans. Unfortunately King Edu, also known as the King of Flames, notices this and I’m now considered a threat. If I want to survive King Edu and the dangers of Under, I need to escape. The only problem is, there’s another masked king who seems to have an interest in me. Aon, the King of Shadows, wants me here in this world, and he wants me alive. I just need to figure out why.
Mystic City
Theo Lawrence - 2012
Book One of the Mystic City Novels.Aria Rose, youngest scion of one of Mystic City's two ruling rival families, finds herself betrothed to Thomas Foster, the son of her parents' sworn enemies. The union of the two will end the generations-long political feud - and unite all those living in the Aeries, the privileged upper reaches of the city, against the banished mystics who dwell below in the Depths.But Aria doesn't remember falling in love with Thomas; in fact, she wakes one day with huge gaps in her memory. And she can't conceive why her parents would have agreed to unite with the Fosters in the first place.Only when Aria meets Hunter, a gorgeous rebel mystic from the Depths, does she start to have glimmers of recollection - and to understand that he holds the key to unlocking her past. The choices she makes can save or doom the city - including herself.
The Immortal Rules
Julie Kagawa - 2012
By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten. Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them—the vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself dies and becomes one of the monsters.Forced to flee her city, Allie must pass for human as she joins a ragged group of pilgrims seeking a legend—a place that might have a cure for the disease that killed off most of civilization and created the rabids, the bloodthirsty creatures who threaten human and vampire alike. And soon Allie will have to decide what and who is worth dying for
again.Enter Julie Kagawa's dark and twisted world as an unforgettable journey begins.
Here Be Sexist Vampires
Suzanne Wright - 2012
She finds that not only has the army never included a woman, but it has never included a Sventé vampire; a breed that is regarded by the super strong Pagori breed and the hypnotically beautiful Keja breed to be too tame and human-like. Most refuse to take her seriously, especially a Pagori commander named Jared who she craves in spite of herself.The Grand High Master, however, sees her potential and offers her the position of Jared’s co-commander to help train the newest squad in time for the impending attack on his home. Sam has to demonstrate to Jared and the squad of chauvinists why it is incredibly foolish to underestimate a wilful, temperamental, borderline-homicidal Sventé female. Warning: This novel contains an iron-willed female vampire with an energy whip, a sexist male vampire who is determined to have her, explicit vampy sex, and a romance story with real bite.
Year One
Nora Roberts - 2017
The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed--and more than half of the world's population was decimated.Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magic rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practicing in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river--or in the ones you know and love the most.As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, and with nothing left to count on but each other, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travelers are heading west too, into a new frontier. Chuck, a tech genius trying to hack his way through a world gone offline. Arlys, a journalist who has lost her audience but uses pen and paper to record the truth. Fred, her young colleague, possessed of burgeoning abilities and an optimism that seems out of place in this bleak landscape. And Rachel and Jonah, a resourceful doctor and a paramedic who fend off despair with their determination to keep a young mother and three infants in their care alive.In a world of survivors where every stranger encountered could be either a savage or a savior, none of them knows exactly where they are heading, or why. But a purpose awaits them that will shape their lives and the lives of all those who remain.The end has come. The beginning comes next.
The Hunt
Frost Kay - 2020
Driven by rage and an oath to avenge her mother's memory, Tempest throws herself into training.But becoming the first ever female assassin isn't enough. Now, she must obtain the heart of her kingdom's most feared enemy - the jester - a deadly shapeshifter hidden in a land twisted by myth and darkness.Revenge is never easy or cheap. Tempest is willing to sacrifice everything to see justice served. Even her own soul and freedom.Enter the world of the Twisted Kingdoms at your own risk where monsters wear pretty masks, good and evil are at war, and fairy tales don't exist. If you love fiery heroines, sexy villains, enemies-to-lovers romance, pulse-pounding action, mafia undertones, and dark fairy tales, you need to discover the new series readers are comparing to Holly Blacks's Cruel Prince and Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows.
Nobody's Hero
Bec McMaster - 2016
Can love heal them? Find out in the first book of this explosive, action-packed post-apocalyptic series.
First rule of surviving the Wastelands: don't be caught out after the sun sets...After her father was killed in a warg attack, Riley Kincaid was forced to stand on her own two feet in the brutal Wastelands she calls home. She knows how to survive, but when a lapse in judgment leaves her out after dark, Riley realizes she's in trouble. The sun has set, the monsters are out to play, and there's a band of reivers heading straight for her settlement. Riley needs to warn her people, but that's before she runs a handsome stranger down in her jeep. A stranger who might not be a man after all...Kidnapping her was the worst mistake he ever made.Dangerous outlaw, Lucius Wade, lives only for revenge. But when he kidnaps Riley in order to lure an old friend into a trap, suddenly the tables are turned. Riley has no intentions of being bait, and she tempts him in ways he hasn't felt for a long time. He's never played the hero, but suddenly a part of him wants to. Even as he knows there's no point. When dangerous secrets are revealed, and Luc realizes an old enemy is on his trail, he's forced to change his plans. The hunter is suddenly the hunted, and the only allies he has... is a stubborn blonde who thinks there should be more to live for than revenge, and the ex-friend who shoved a knife in his back ten years ago.
Shadow's Edge
J.T. Geissinger - 2012
Bound together by ancient bloodlines and a ruthless code of secrecy that punishes traitors with death, the Ikati send their leader Leander on a mission to capture one raised outside the tribe before she can expose their secret. When Leander tracks the unsuspecting outsider to Southern California, the hardened warrior is prepared for a fight—but not for the effect the sensual young beauty has on his heart.Jenna spent her childhood in hiding, on the run from someone—or something—her parents refused to discuss. She trusts no one, not since her father’s mysterious disappearance, not since her mother’s sudden death, and definitely not since she began exhibiting strange, superhuman abilities. When handsome, enigmatic Leander appears, promising answers to the mysteries that shroud her past, she knows she shouldn’t trust him either. But their connection is undeniable, and as powerful as the enemy hell-bent on destroying every one of their kind…
The Vine Witch
Luanne G. Smith - 2019
Then the skill of divining harvests fell into ruin when sorcière Elena Boureanu was blindsided by a curse. Now, after breaking the spell that confined her to the shallows of a marshland and weakened her magic, Elena is struggling to return to her former life. And the vineyard she was destined to inherit is now in the possession of a handsome stranger.Vigneron Jean-Paul Martel naively favors science over superstition, and he certainly doesn’t endorse the locals’ belief in witches. But Elena knows a hex when she sees one, and the vineyard is covered in them. To stay on and help the vines recover, she’ll have to hide her true identity, along with her plans for revenge against whoever stole seven winters of her life. And she won’t rest until she can defy the evil powers that are still a threat to herself, Jean-Paul, and the ancient vine-witch legacy in the rolling hills of the Chanceaux Valley.
The Soul Mate
Madeline Sheehan - 2012
That is, until she barely escaped a worldwide apocalyptic plague that took her loved ones from her and transformed most of humanity into flesh-eating monsters.Gerik, her savior, a six-foot-four-inch Scandinavian Gypsy, takes her back to his magically protected Gypsy camp where she discovers a whole new way of life that she never knew existed – as well as a whole new set of problems.Gerik has power over her that she cannot begin to understand, and she is convinced he is using his magic on her. Through her journey of trying to understand her feelings and this new magic-filled life she’s been brought into, she begins an unlikely friendship that grows into having potential to be something more.While the remaining humans are fighting for their survival, Trinity is fighting a battle of her very own – the right to choose her own destiny.Is Gerik’s hold on her too strong? Or can new love set her free?
Phoenix Unbound
Grace Draven - 2018
For the last five years, one small village's tithe has been the same woman. Gilene's sacrifice protects all the other young women of her village, and her secret to staying alive lies with the magic only she possesses. But this year is different. Azarion, the Empire's most famous gladiator, has somehow seen through her illusion, and is set on blackmailing Gilene into using her abilities to help him escape his life of slavery. And unknown to Gilene, he also wants to reclaim the birthright of his clan.To protect her family and village, she will risk everything to return to the Empire and burn once more.
Talented
Sophie Davis - 2012
Talia Lyons has one goal at the McDonough School for the Talented: learn to use her Talent as a Mental Manipulator to kill the man who murdered her parents.Block out pain. She'll deal with anything. The brutal physical demands. The emotional toll. Whatever it takes to reach her objective.Block out friendship. With only one year left in the program, though, seventeen-year-old Talia is suddenly finding it harder than ever to ignore the rest of her life.Block out love.Even worse, she can't seem to turn off her psychic connection to her first love...or quit thinking about her fascinating new teammate.Feel only vengeance.Ian Crane. The man who destroyed Talia's life. The one she's determined to eradicate.Now focus.It's time to kill.THE TALENTED SAGA is a #1 Bestselling Dystopian Romance series about the life of a girl with extraordinary psychic powers, and what happens when a heart is torn between love and rage...