Book picks similar to
Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives by Justin GustainisRachel Caine
anthology
urban-fantasy
anthologies
short-stories
Wicked as They Come
Delilah S. Dawson - 2012
He’d cast a spell for her, but when she’s transported right to him, she’s not so sure she’s ready to be under the spell of another man. (It didn’t go so well last time with controlling, abusive, domineering Jeff.) If only Criminy wasn’t so deliciously rakish….Half the inhabitants of Sang are Pinkies—human—and the other half are Bludmen, who in Tish’s world would be called vampires. But they don’t mess with any of the bat/coffin/no sunlight nonsense. They’re rather like you and me, just more fabulous, long living, and mostly indestructible. (They're also very good kissers.) But when the evil Mayor of Manchester (formerly Bludchester) redoubles his efforts to rid Sang of the Bludmen once and for all, stealing Tish’s locket in hopes of traveling back to her world himself for reinforcements, Criminy and Tish must battle ghosts, sea monsters, wayward submarines, a secret cabal, and thundering Bludmares to get the locket back and allow Tish to return home…but has she found love with Criminy? Could she stay in Sang forever?
Nightwalker
Jocelynn Drake - 2008
But elemental mastery over fire sets her apart from others of her night-prowling breed . . . and may be all that prevents her doom.The foe she now faces is human: the vampire hunter called Danaus, who has already destroyed so many undead. For Mira, the time has come to hunt . . . or be hunted.
Under Wraps
Hannah Jayne - 2011
Her boss Pete is a handsome werewolf - missing. Her roommate Nina is a fashionista vampire with teen nephew Vlad. Her new partner gorgeous detective Parker Hayes is not what he seems. A killer takes eyes, blood, hearts - is Sophie next?
Dark Currents
Jacqueline Carey - 2012
Introducing Daisy Johanssen, reluctant hell-spawn… The Midwestern resort town of Pemkowet boasts a diverse population: eccentric locals, wealthy summer people, and tourists by the busload; not to mention fairies, sprites, vampires, naiads, ogres and a whole host of eldritch folk, presided over by Hel, a reclusive Norse goddess. To Daisy Johanssen, fathered by an incubus and raised by a single mother, it’s home. And as Hel’s enforcer and the designated liaison to the Pemkowet Police Department, it’s up to her to ensure relations between the mundane and eldritch communities run smoothly. But when a young man from a nearby college drowns—and signs point to eldritch involvement—the town’s booming paranormal tourism trade is at stake. Teamed up with her childhood crush, Officer Cody Fairfax, a sexy werewolf on the down-low, Daisy must solve the crime—and keep a tight rein on the darker side of her nature. For if she’s ever tempted to invoke her demonic birthright, it could accidentally unleash nothing less than Armageddon.
Demons Not Included
Cheyenne McCray - 2009
This half-human, half–Drow private eye investigates paranormal crimes by day and is an elite Tracker of demons by night. She prefers working solo—and playing rough. So when a terrifying force starts murdering innocent humans and paranorms, and leaving strange demonic symbols burned into their buildings, it’s a case Nyx takes very personally…
Meanwhile, Nyx’s fellow Trackers are being killed one by one—and a sexy new Tracker named Torin is shadowing her every move. Torin has powers Nyx can’t read, and sometimes she wonders whose side he’s on. Nyx’s instincts tell her something’s brewing in the city’s meanest supernatural streets, and that it’s ready to unleash hell on Earth. Who can she trust? Now it’s five minutes to permanent midnight…and Nyx’s last chance means risking everything—even her own life.
Discount Armageddon
Seanan McGuire - 2012
See also "Monster."Cryptozoologist, noun: Any person who thinks hunting for cryptids is a good idea. See also "idiot."Ghoulies. Ghosties. Long-legged beasties. Things that go bump in the night... The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity—and humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she'd rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending a year in Manhattan while she pursues her career in professional ballroom dance. Sounds pretty simple, right? It would be, if it weren't for the talking mice, the telepathic mathematicians, the asbestos supermodels, and the trained monster-hunter sent by the Price family's old enemies, the Covenant of St. George. When a Price girl meets a Covenant boy, high stakes, high heels, and a lot of collateral damage are almost guaranteed. To complicate matters further, local cryptids are disappearing, strange lizard-men are appearing in the sewers, and someone's spreading rumors about a dragon sleeping underneath the city...
Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales
Kelly LinkNalo Hopkinson - 2014
Welcome to a world where humans live side-by-side with monsters, from vampires both nostalgic and bumbling, to an eight-legged alien who makes tea. Here you'll find mercurial forms that burrow into warm fat, spectral boy toys, a Maori force of nature, a landform that claims lives, and an architect of hell on earth. Through these, and a few monsters that defy categorization, some of today's top young-adult authors explore ambition and sacrifice, loneliness and rage, love requited and avenged, and the boundless potential for connection, even across extreme borders.Moriabe's Children / Paolo Bacigalupi --Old souls / Cassandra Clare --Ten rules for being an intergalactic smuggler (the successful kind) / Holly Black --Quick hill / M.T. Anderson --The diabolist / Nathan Ballingrud --This whole demoning thing / Patrick Ness --Wings in the morning / Sarah Rees Brennan --Left foot, right / Nalo Hopkinson --The Mercurials / G. Carl Purcell --Kitty Capulet and the invention of underwater photography / Dylan Horrocks --Son of abyss / Nik Houser --A small wild magic / Kathleen Jennings --The new boyfriend / Kelly Link --The woods hide in plain sight / Joshua Lewis --Mothers, lock up your daughters because they are terrifying / Alice Sola Kim
Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions
Melissa MarrClaudia Gray - 2011
14 original teen paranormal short stories YA talent, united with the common theme of road trips.Contents:Introduction by Melissa Marr & Kelley Armstrong1 Giovanni’s Farewell by Claudia Gray2 Scenic Route (The Forest of Hands and Teeth #0.5) by Carrie Ryan3 Red Run by Kami Garcia4 Things About Love (Genies #1.5) by Jackson Pearce5 Niederwald (Soul Screamers #4.5) by Rachel Vincent6 Merely Mortal (Wicked Lovely #5.5) by Melissa Marr7 Facing Facts (Darkest Powers #3.6) by Kelley Armstrong8 Let’s Get this Undead Show on the Road by Sarah Rees Brennan9 Bridge (Shade #2.5) by Jeri Smith-ReadySkin Contact (The Body Finder #2.5) by Kimberly Derting10 Leaving by Ally Condie11 At The Late Night, Double Feature, Picture Show by Jessica Verday12 IV League by Margaret Stohl13 Gargouille by Mary E. Pearson14 The Third Kind by Jennifer Lynn Barnes15 Automatic (The Morganville Vampires: Extras) by Rachel Caine
Black Swan Rising
Lee Carroll - 2010
John Dee, the enigmatic shopkeeper, commissions her to open a vintage silver box for a generous sum of money. Oddly, the symbol of a swan on the box exactly matches the ring given to her by her deceased mother. Garet can't believe her luck and this eerie coincidence until she opens the box and otherworldly things start happening. . . .That evening, the precious silver box is stolen. When Garet begins to investigate, she learns that she has been pulled into a prophecy that is hundreds of years old, and opening the box has unleashed an evil force onto the streets of Manhattan and the world at large. Gradually, Garet pieces together her true identity--one that her deceased mother desperately tried to protect her from. Generations of women in Garet's family, including her beloved mother, suffered and died at the hands of this prevailing evil. Does Garet possess the power to reclaim the box and defeat this devastating force?On her journey, she will meet the fey folk who walk unnoticed among humans and a sexy vampire who also happens to be a hedge fund manager that she can't stop thinking about. But the fairies reveal a desire to overpower mere humans and the seductive vampire has the power to steal the life from her body. Whom can Garet trust to guide her? Using her newfound powers and sharp wit, Garet will muster everything she's got to shut down the evil taking over her friends, family, New York City, and the world.
By Blood We Live
John Joseph AdamsBarbara Hambly - 2008
And yet, there is an attraction, undeniable, to the vampire archetype, whether the pale European count, impeccably dressed and coldly masculine, yet strangely ambiguous, ready to sink his sharp teeth deep into his victims' necks, draining or converting them, or the vamp, the count's feminine counterpart, villain and victim in one, using her wiles and icy sexuality to corrupt man and woman alike... Edited and introduced by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams (Wastelands, The Living Dead), By Blood We Live gathers together the best vampire literature from the preceding three decades, authored by many of today's most renowned writers of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror.
Contents:
(Author, title (type, year of first publication, beginning page in print edition))01 - Neil Gaiman, Snow, Glass, Apples (short story, 1995, p3)02 - Anne Rice, The Master of Rampling Gate (novelette, 1984, p13)03 - Harry Turtledove, Under St. Peter's (novelette, 2007, p33)04 - Tad Williams, Child of an Ancient City (novelette, 1988, p43)05 - Michael A. Burstein, Lifeblood (novelette, 2003, p75)06 - Barbara Roden, Endless Night (short story, 2008, p88)07 - Garth Nix, Infestation (novelette, 2008, p106)08 - Carrie Vaughn, Life Is the Teacher (short story, 2008, p120)09 - Nancy Kilpatrick, The Vechi Barbat (short story, 2007, p134)10 - Kristine Kathryn Rusch, The Beautiful, The Damned (short story, 1995, p148) 11 - David Wellington, Pinecones (short story, 2006, p161)12 - Norman Partridge, Do Not Hasten to Bid Me Adieu (novelette, 1994, p165)13 - Sergei Lukyanenko, Foxtrot at High Noon (short story, 2008, p180)14 - Michael Marshall Smith, This Is Now (short story, 2004, p189)15 - Nancy Holder, Blood Gothic (short story, 1985, p199)16 - Jane Yolen, Mama Gone (short story, 1991, p204)17 - Joe Hill, Abraham's Boys (short story, 2004, p209)18 - Tanith Lee, Nunc Dimittis (novelette, 1983, p224)19 - Gabriela Lee, Hunger (short story, 2007, p240)20 - Caitlín R. Kiernan, Ode to Edvard Munch (short story, 2006, p250)21 - L.A. Banks, Finders Keepers (short story, 2008, p256)22 - Brian Stableford, After the Stone Age (short story, 2004, p275)23 - Kevin J. Anderson, Much at Stake (short story, 1991, p286)24 - Elizabeth Bear, House of the Rising Sun (short story, 2005, p297)25 - Lilith Saintcrow, A Stand-Up Dame (short story, 2008, p302)26 - Kelley Armstrong, Twilight (novelette, 2007, p316)27 - Eric Van Lustbader, In Darkness, Angels (novelette, 1983, p333)28 - Barbara Hambly, Sunrise on Running Water (novelette, 2007, p355)29 - Bruce McAllister, Hit (short story, 2008, p372)30 - Ken MacLeod, Undead Again (short story, 2005, p385)31 - Robert J. Sawyer, Peking Man (short story, 1996, p388)32 - Ben Lumley, Necros (short story, 1986, p396)33 - Catherynne M. Valente, Exsanguinations: A Handbook for the Educated Vampire by Anna S. Oppenhagen-Petrescu (short story, 2005, p409)34 - Charles Coleman Finlay, Lucy, In Her Splendor (short story, 2003, p415)35 - John Langan, The Wide, Carnivorous Sky (short story, 2009, p426)36 - Stephen King, One for the Road (short story, 1977, p464)37 - Ross E. Lockhart, For Further Reading (By Blood We Live) (essay, 2008, p477)
Nolander
Becca Mills - 2012
They're wrong. Amateur photographer Beth Ryder is in trouble. She's taking pictures of things she can't see, things that aren't human. Beth has her own dreams, but people like her don't get to go free. She's seized by a dangerous organization dedicated to keeping Earth's shadow world -- and its frightening inhabitants -- a secret. Forced into otherworldly politics and uncertain whom to trust, Beth must come to terms with a radically altered future -- one in which her own humanity seems to be draining away.
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.
Monster Hunter International
Larry Correia - 2009
It turns out that monsters are real. All the things from myth, legend, and B-movies are out there, waiting in the shadows. Officially secret, some of them are evil, and some are just hungry. On the other side are the people who kill monsters for a living. Monster Hunter International is the premier eradication company in the business. And now Owen is their newest recruit. It’s actually a pretty sweet gig, except for one little problem. An ancient entity known as the Cursed One has returned to settle a centuries old vendetta. Should the Cursed One succeed, it means the end of the world, and MHI is the only thing standing in his way. With the clock ticking towards Armageddon, Owen finds himself trapped between legions of undead minions, belligerent federal agents, a cryptic ghost who has taken up residence inside his head, and the cursed family of the woman he loves. Business is good... Welcome to Monster Hunter International.
Born in Fire
K.F. Breene - 2017
Breene will take you on a magical joy ride you won't soon forget. Supernatural Bounty Hunter isn't the sort of thing you see on LinkedIn. But with a rare type of magic like mine, I don't have many options.So dangerous or not, the job is mine. And it was going fine, until an old as sin vampire stole my mark, and with it, my pay day.Knowing I'm poor and desperate, he has offered me a job. I'll have to work by his side to help solve a top secret case.Everyone knows not to trust vampires. Especially a hot elder vampire. But without any other jobs coming up, I'm stuck. As I uncover a web of lies and treachery, revealing an enemy I didn't know existed, the truth of my identity is threatened. I might make it out alive, only to end up in a gilded cage.
The Slaughtered Lamb Bookstore and Bar
Seana Kelly - 2020
I’m Sam Quinn, the werewolf book nerd in charge. I run my business by one simple rule: Everyone needs a good book and a stiff drink, be they vampire, wicche, demon, or fae. No wolves, though. Ever. I have my reasons.I serve the supernatural community of San Francisco. We’ve been having some problems lately. Okay, I’m the one with the problems. The broken body of a female werewolf washed up on my doorstep. What makes sweat pool at the base of my spine, though, is realizing the scars she bears are identical to the ones I conceal. After hiding for years, I’ve been found. A protection I’ve been relying on is gone. While my wolf traits are strengthening steadily, the loss also left my mind vulnerable to attack. Someone is ensnaring me in horrifying visions intended to kill. Clive, the sexy vampire Master of the City, has figured out how to pull me out, designating himself by personal bodyguard. He’s grumpy about it, but that kiss is telling a different story. A change is taking place. It has to. The bookish bartender must become the fledgling badass.I’m a survivor. I’ll fight fang and claw to protect myself and the ones I love. And let’s face it, they have it coming.