The Elementals


Michael McDowell - 1981
    Two of the houses at Beldame are still used. The third house, filling with sand, is empty...except for the vicious horror which is shaping nightmares from the nothingness that hangs in the dank, fetid air.The McCrays and Savages, two fine Mobile families allied by marriage, have been coming to Beldame for years. This summer, with a terrible funeral behind them and a messy divorce coming up, even Luker McCray and little India down from New York are looking forward to being alone at Beldame.But they won't be alone. For something there, something they don't like to think about, is thinking about them...and about all the ways to make them die.

Servant of the Bones


Anne Rice - 1996
    Azriel is a restless Jewish spirit, born almost 2500 years ago in Babylon, who can be called forth by whoever holds and understands the arcane mystery of the casket of golden bones he is tied to. Caught between heaven and earth, Azriel is forced to bear witness to the long and troubled history of Western civilisation, from the household of an ancient Greek philosopher and the deathbed of Alexander the Great, to the Mongolian Steppes and fourteenth century Strasbourg, where Jews were made scapegoats for the Black Death. And finally in the present, he is summoned to witness and avenge a brutal murder on Fifth Avenue. The dead woman is Esther, step-daughter of Gregory Belkin, fanatical messianic leader of a worldwide cult, the Temple of the Mind. Belkin is known to be the son of Holocaust victims, but he has a secret history which binds Azriel's fate to his. SERVANT OF THE BONES is as rich and terrifying, as sensual and violent as any novel by Anne Rice - an enthralling epic which conjures up more than two thousand years of Jewish history and penetrates the unfolding mysteries of evil, redemption, life and death.

The Watchers


Lynnie Purcell - 2011
    It focuses on 16-year-old Clare Michaels and her journey to her mom's hometown of King's Cross. Long aware of her heritage - that she is the daughter of a fallen angel - The Watchers focuses on her first interaction with the world she has always hidden from. Her first interaction comes in the form of a handsome, young high-schooler, Daniel Adams. He is her clue to the world she has always been afraid to face openly...but is he a danger as well?

The Darkening Dream


Andy Gavin - 2011
    God, demon, monster, and sorcerer alike plot to regain what was theirs.1913, Salem, Massachusetts – Sarah Engelmann’s life is full of friends, books, and avoiding the pressure to choose a husband, until an ominous vision and the haunting call of an otherworldly trumpet shake her. When she stumbles across a gruesome corpse, she fears that her vision was more of a premonition. And when she sees the murdered boy moving through the crowd at an amusement park, Sarah is thrust into a dark battle she does not understand. With the help of Alex, an attractive Greek immigrant who knows a startling amount about the undead, Sarah sets out to uncover the truth. Their quest takes them to the factory mills of Salem, on a midnight boat ride to spy on an eerie coastal lair, and back, unexpectedly, to their own homes. What can Alex’s elderly, vampire-hunting grandfather and Sarah’s own rabbi father tell them? And what do Sarah’s continuing visions reveal?No less than Gabriel’s Trumpet, the tool that will announce the End of Days, is at stake, and the forces that have banded to recover it include a 900 year-old vampire, a trio of disgruntled Egyptian gods, and a demon-loving Puritan minister. At the center of this swirling cast is Sarah, who must fight a millennia-old battle against unspeakable forces, knowing the ultimate prize might be herself.

The Man in the Picture


Susan Hill - 2007
    In the apartment of Oliver's old professor at Cambridge, there is a painting on the wall, a mysterious depiction of masked revelers at the Venice carnival. On this cold winter's night, the old professor has decided to reveal the painting's eerie secret. The dark art of the Venetian scene, instead of imitating life, has the power to entrap it. To stare into the painting is to play dangerously with the unseen demons it hides, and become the victim of its macabre beauty.By the renowned storyteller Susan Hill--whose first ghost story, The Woman in Black, has run for eighteen years as a play in London's West End--here is a new take on a form that is fully classical and, in Hill's able hands, newly vital. The Man in the Picture is a haunting tale of loss, love, and the very basest fear of our beings.

They Thirst


Robert R. McCammon - 1981
    Prince Vulcan and an army of vampires invade the city of Los Angeles, the first step in a plan to conquer the world

The Space Between


Brenna Yovanoff - 2011
    How can you love anything in a place like this?Daphne is the half-demon, half-fallen angel daughter of Lucifer and Lilith. Life for her is an endless expanse of time, until her brother Obie is kidnapped - and Daphne realizes she may be partially responsible. Determined to find him, Daphne travels from her home in Pandemonium to the vast streets of Earth, where everything is colder and more terrifying. With the help of the human boy she believes was the last person to see her brother alive, Daphne glimpses into his dreams, discovering clues to Obie's whereabouts. As she delves deeper into her demonic powers, she must navigate the jealousies and alliances of the violent archangels who stand in her way. But she also discovers, unexpectedly, what it means to love and be human in a world where human is the hardest thing to be.

Song of Kali


Dan Simmons - 1985
    At its decaying core is the Goddess Kali: the dark mother of pain, four-armed and eternal, her song the sound of death and destruction. Robert Luczak has been hired by Harper's to find a noted Indian poet who has reappeared, under strange circumstances, years after he was thought dead. But nothing is simple in Calcutta and Lucsak's routine assignment turns into a nightmare when he learns that the poet is rumoured to have been brought back to life in a bloody and grisly ceremony of human sacrifice.

The Daylight Gate


Jeanette Winterson - 2012
    Pendle Hill, Lancashire.A mysterious gathering of thirteen people is interrupted by local magistrate, Roger Nowell. Is this a witches' Sabbat?Two notorious Lancashire witches are already in Lancaster Castle waiting trial. Why is the beautiful and wealthy Alice Nutter defending them? And why is she among the group of thirteen on Pendle Hill?Elsewhere, a starved, abused child lurks. And a Jesuit priest and former Gunpowder plotter, recently returned from France, is widely rumoured to be heading for Lancashire. But who will offer him sanctuary? And how quickly can he be caught?This is the reign of James I, a Protestant King with an obsession: to rid his realm of twin evils, witchcraft and Catholicism, at any price...

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.

The Witch Hunter


Nicole R. Taylor - 2013
    The problem was, he didn't stay that way. Present day, he's just another vampire with another unremarkable story. That is, until he manages to provoke a two thousand year old witch named Katrin, who wants to make him pay in the most horrible way imagined.Along with his brother Sam, newly made vampire Liz and their only witch ally, Gabby, his only chance for survival is to summon the ancient and unpredictable vampire known as the Witch Hunter.Zac is just looking for a way out of his psychopathic witch problems, but instead will find himself falling head first into a blood feud that has stretched thousands of years.Aya has been asleep for the past 150 years, until she was awoken by a haunting call. The witch she has been hunting for thousands of years, Katrin, has resurfaced and marked a young, annoyingly arrogant vampire by the name of Zachary Degaud. Unless she does something, he will die a slow and painful death. He has given her an opportunity to end the witch, but does she want to help him or leave him to his fate? Zac will get under her skin like no one else has and she just might find herself making the ultimate sacrifice before he is gone forever.They will both have to choose sides and look deep within themselves before the end. But, what Zac learns about himself, will surprise him most of all.

Extinguish


J.M. Darhower - 2013
    As a Power, one of the warrior angels, she has spent her existence defending the innocent from evil. After tragedy strikes, tearing Serah's brother from her life, she's given the task of stopping the approaching apocalypse before it's too late.Only one thing, though: she has to venture to Hell to do it.Lucifer—or Luce, as he prefers to be called—has been biding his time in Hell, longing for revenge against those who oh-so-easily cast him into the pit. When the heavenly beauty shows up at his gate, he's just as captivated by her presence as she becomes of him. The attraction between them is palpable, and Serah's willpower slowly slips. How can this charming creature, this scarred Archangel, be the one annihilating the world she so loves?As the war wages on, the world entwined in chaos, Serah starts questioning everything she ever knew. When the light and dark, hot and cold, finally collide, she has to make a choice—a choice that sets her world on fire, black and white exploding into colorful flames.Serah has questions. She wants answers.Luce just wants to play a game.

The Witching Pen


Dianna Hardy - 2011
    It's even harder when you're a twenty-five year old virgin who'll lose all of that power the moment you sleep with someone ... that's why Elena's never slept with her best friend and flatmate, Karl, despite the true feelings they harbour for each other.Elena's about to discover that there are even more difficult things in life to deal with. One of them comes in the form of a pen she discovers one day, a pen that allows anything she writes to come to pass...Suddenly, it's not just her powers or her heart that's at stake, but her very soul, as a dream demon with a seductive pull uses the pen to try and turn her away from her reality, and from Karl.But the pen is just the beginning. Everything Elena has believed in is a lie, and her world is about to fall apart...(Book length: novella - over 37,000 words)

The Blood Series


Tamara Rose Blodgett - 2014
    Be Prepared to be EMOTIONALLY PULVERIZED ..." - ArielIndividual star rating - Singers: 3.9 Song: 4.3 Chosen: 4.1A Shade of Vampire meets Twilight in a dark tale of twisted loyalties, where one girl's blood is the salvation for both vampires and werewolves. From the New York Times bestselling author of, A Terrible Love, comes 3, full-length dark paranormal romance novels.Praise for BLOOD: "... I don't usually get into supernatural stories. But this is the best series I've ever read. I'm in the process of rereading it, only series of book I've ever done that to..." - Theresa872"...When I started reading the series I thought, " oh boy another vampire vs. were story." But I was definitely wrong!!! It was so much more that just that. Sometimes there is a lot going on I get lost and can't keep up......that's a good as you never get bored..." - MariaM" ... Excellent story. Most amazing characters and the twist and turns. You will laugh out loud! The sarcasm is great. The romances. And friendships. There is just so much in this three book box set that you won't be able to put it down till you finish!!!"- ab babyBLOOD SINGERS:A sub-species of human beings.Twenty-year old Julia Wade, a young woman tragically widowed, is in the middle of a bizarre bid between two mythical species who are vying for the unique properties she offers; her blood. The vampires need her to balance the food load of the human species and give them their coveted "Lightwalkers." The Were wish to be moonless changers; a Rare One can make that a reality.Julia wants to belong to herself.Can she free herself and begin a new life?BLOOD SONG:Julia has been ripped from the escape she'd planned for herself. When she awakens to discover that her reality has shifted to include a supposed soul-meld with a man she hates, and who hates her... she rebels. Julia doesn't want to be captive in a gilded cage.Broken from the horrific events surrounding her friends, Cynthia migrates to the very city that Julia resides, determining to find her as the police follow the bread crumbs she's left in her wake.The Feral has come full circle and must begin a new life from the shadow of the old. His placement in the hierarchy of the pack is uncertain when he finds that he has an integral enemy and a pack member to protect.Can the vestiges of Julia's former life be restored so she might reunite with her one true love or has that door closed forever because of supernatural circumstances beyond their control?BLOOD CHOSEN:Julia has Awakened and in so doing bound herself to her one true soulmate, the king to her queen. The blood-binding, which was foretold between fang and claw, ultimately rescued her from certain death and the Circle of Protection is now complete.Yet, another would-be queen vies for the position of ultimate ruler and believes she has found an ancient loophole that will upset the new balance of potential peace that has been put into play by Julia's prophesied reign. Jacqueline will stop at nothing to achieve her goals, even using the dreaded Were to further her victory.Cynthia and Adrianna form an unlikely alliance to survive against an enemy that now has help for her madness to take shape. Emmanuel, the Feral and Truman find themselves drawn to defend and protect a new order with a past that haunts their efforts.Can Julia and her one true mate bring peace to the species and rescue the ones they love? Will the Blood Singers fulfill their destiny to unite three groups of sworn enemies to come together as one?230,000 words/ nearly 1,000 pages.

Trolling for Trouble


Olivia Hardin - 2012
    I make my living at keeping the world from discovering magic, but tonight my best friend and I are trolling into territory we might not be able to escape from… My name is Lynlee, and I'm a Neutralizer. It's my job to keep magical and undead creatures out of sticky situations. What kind of sticky? The kind where humans find out that we really do exist. The kind that derails the great big train of our happy coexistence.It might sound like I'm complaining, but I love what I do. Still, sometimes a girl just needs a break from all of the supernatural chaos. Tonight, I want to collapse into my bed and forget the day… until I discover two little kids scavenging through my refrigerator. One look at the motley pair, and my heartstrings get a good, hard tug. Imagine my surprise when I discover that their father is the one human I've spent years trying to forget. This is the sort of trouble I certainly never bargained for. It might just change things forever…***My name is Rhiannon, and I might not be a Neutralizer like my friend Lynlee, but that doesn't mean I get to take it easy. When Magical And Undead Creatures cross paths with humans, sometimes they get hurt. That's when this doctor to the paranormal world, steps into action. What I never expected was to get an urgent call from my secret crush.Risking my life to grant Sandy a favor might not be the smartest decision I've ever made, but sometimes love means taking chances.