The Raven Boys


Maggie Stiefvater - 2012
    Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

A Lesson in Vengeance


Victoria Lee - 2021
    Now, after a year away, she’s returned to graduate. She even has her old room in Godwin House, the exclusive dormitory rumored to be haunted by the spirits of five Dalloway students—girls some say were witches. The Dalloway Five all died mysteriously, one after another, right on Godwin grounds.Witchcraft is woven into Dalloway’s history. The school doesn’t talk about it, but the students do. In secret rooms and shadowy corners, girls convene. And before her girlfriend died, Felicity was drawn to the dark. She’s determined to leave that behind her now; all Felicity wants is to focus on her senior thesis and graduate. But it’s hard when Dalloway’s occult history is everywhere. And when the new girl won’t let her forget.It’s Ellis Haley’s first year at Dalloway, and she’s already amassed a loyal following. A prodigy novelist at seventeen, Ellis is a so-called “method writer.” She’s eccentric and brilliant, and Felicity can’t shake the pull she feels to her. So when Ellis asks Felicity for help researching the Dalloway Five for her second book, Felicity can’t say no. Given her history with the arcane, Felicity is the perfect resource.And when history begins to repeat itself, Felicity will have to face the darkness in Dalloway–and in herself.

Treasure


Kim Fielding - 2013
    That’s what the doctor had said. The sea air and the sun. “A few quiet weeks on the coast is what you need. Go for a swim. Explore the beaches and the caves. Maybe you’ll find a mermaid. Or…” he added with a wink, “some hidden treasure, like in your adventure books.”He was teasing me, I know, but a part of me burned with the idea that maybe… there would be something there, something special, something hidden.Of all the things to find washed up on the beach, I was not expecting this half-drowned man. Nor what followed after.Photo Description: A handsome blond wearing a cape and embroidered tunic is on one knee. He’s clutching a smaller man protectively to him. The smaller man is bound hand and foot and wears knee breeches and a long shirt. The blond wields a sword, which he has just used to cut the rope that is twisted around the smaller man’s arms.This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Love Has No Boundaries" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story.

Sawkill Girls


Claire Legrand - 2018
    He’ll follow you home, and he won’t let you sleep.Who are the Sawkill Girls?Marion: the new girl. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.Zoey: the pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken—or maybe everyone else is.Val: the queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives, a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires.Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight… until now.

One Last Stop


Casey McQuiston - 2021
    She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.

The Grimrose Girls


Laura Pohl - 2021
    and a dark fate that may leave them all doomed.After the mysterious death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki, and Rory are the talk of their elite school, Grimrose Académie. The police ruled it a suicide, but the trio are determined to find out what really happened.When Nani Eszes arrives as their newest roommate, it sets into motion a series of events they couldn't have imagined. As the girls retrace their friend's last steps, they uncover dark secrets about themselves and their destinies, discovering they're all cursed to repeat the brutal and gruesome endings to their stories until they can break the cycle.This contemporary take on classic fairytales reimagines heroines as friends attending the same school. While investigating the murder of their best friend, they uncover connections to their ancient fairytale curses and attempt to forge their own fate before it's too late.

Summer of Salt


Katrina Leno - 2018
    . . Georgina Fernweh waits with growing impatience for the tingle of magic in her fingers—magic that has been passed down through every woman in her family. Her twin sister, Mary, already shows an ability to defy gravity. But with their eighteenth birthday looming at the end of this summer, Georgina fears her gift will never come.An island where strange things happen . . . No one on the island of By-the-Sea would ever call the Fernwehs what they really are, but if you need the odd bit of help—say, a sleeping aid concocted by moonlight—they are the ones to ask.No one questions the weather, as moody and erratic as a summer storm.No one questions the (allegedly) three-hundred-year-old bird who comes to roost on the island every year.A summer that will become legend . . . When tragedy strikes, what made the Fernweh women special suddenly casts them in suspicion. Over the course of her last summer on the island—a summer of storms, of love, of salt—Georgina will learn the truth about magic, in all its many forms.

Where Death Meets the Devil


L.J. Hayward - 2018
    But “messy” takes on a whole new meaning when he finds himself tied to a chair in a torture shack, his cover blown wide open, all thanks to notorious killer-for-hire Ethan Blade.Blade is everything Jack doesn’t believe in: remorseless, detached, lawless. Yet, Jack’s only chance to survive is to strike a bargain with the devil and join forces with Blade. As they trek across a hostile desert, Jack learns that Blade is much more than a dead-eyed killer—and harder to resist than he should be.A year later, Jack is home and finally getting his life on track. Then Ethan Blade reappears and throws it all into chaos once more. It’s impossible to trust the assassin, especially when his presence casts doubts on Jack’s loyalty to his country, but Jack cannot ignore what Blade’s return means: the mess that brought them together is far from over, and Ethan might just bring back the piece of Jack’s soul he thought he’d lost forever.

Reawakening


Amy Rae Durreson - 2014
    Determined to try again, Tarn takes human form and sets out to explore this new world, battling his grief and bewilderment as he realises all he once loved has faded into legend: his armies, his brothers and sisters, even the lover who grew old without him centuries ago. Posing as a caravan guard, he sets out across the Alagard Desert in search of the spirit who made him smile.But it isn’t just a single dragon who has woken again. As Tarn and his new friends press deeper into the desert, their path grows perilous, and it soon becomes obvious that something dark and terrible has returned to the world.The Shadow Tarn once defeated has woken before him and now he is the only one left to defend his new friends, his desert, and all that lies below the protective shadow of his wing.

Alias


Cari Hunter - 2018
    One of the young women inside it is dead, the other badly injured, with no memory of who she is or what just happened. All she has is a bus pass showing her photograph and a name she doesn’t recognise. As she struggles to recover from her injuries, a startling revelation shatters everything she thought she knew, forcing her into an uneasy alliance with Detective Bronwen Pryce. With danger closing in from all sides, the two women must work together to uncover the truth—even if it kills them

Legends & Lattes


Travis Baldree - 2022
    A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen.However, her dreams of a fresh start pulling shots instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners and a different kind of resolve.A hot cup of fantasy slice-of-life with a dollop of romantic froth.

Black Blade Blues


J.A. Pitts - 2010
    One of the extras, who claims to be a dwarf, offers to help. And that’s when things start to get weird. Could the sword really be magic, as the "dwarf" claims? Are dragons really living among us as shapeshifters? And as if things weren’t surreal enough, Sarah’s girlfriend Katie breaks out the dreaded phrase… “I love you.” As her life begins to fall apart, first her relationship with Katie, then her job at the movie studio, and finally her blacksmithing career, Sarah hits rock bottom. It is at this moment, when she has lost everything she has prized, that one of the dragons makes their move.And suddenly what was unthinkable becomes all too real…and Sarah will have to decide if she can reject what is safe and become the heroine who is needed to save her world.

A Lesson in Thorns


Sierra Simone - 2019
    It should be easy enough—keep her head down while she works in the house’s crumbling private library and while she hunts down any information as to why this remote manor tucked into the fog-shrouded moors would be the last place her mother was seen alive. But Thornchapel has other plans for her... As Poe begins uncovering the house’s secrets, both new and old, she’s also pulled into the seductive, elegant world of Auden and his friends—and drawn to Auden’s worst enemy, the beautiful and brooding St. Sebastian. And as Thornchapel slowly tightens its coil of truths and lies around them, Poe, Auden and St. Sebastian start unravelling into filthy, holy pleasure and pain. Together, they awaken a fate that will either anoint them or leave them in ashes… *** From the author of the USA Today bestselling New Camelot series comes an original fairy tale full of ancient mysteries, lantern-lit rituals, jealousy, money, murder, sacred torment, and obsessions that last for lifetimes... ***A Lesson in Thorns is the first of four books in the Thornchapel series.***

The Wrong Stars


Tim Pratt - 2017
    or awaken an ancient evil and destroy all life in the galaxy.The shady crew of the White Raven run freight and salvage at the fringes of our solar system. They discover the wreck of a centuries-old exploration vessel floating light years away from its intended destination and revive its sole occupant, who wakes with news of First Alien Contact. When the crew break it to her that humanity has alien allies already, she reveals that these are very different extra-terrestrials... and the gifts they bestowed on her could kill all humanity, or take it out to the most distant stars. File Under: Science Fiction

The Caphenon


Fletcher DeLancey - 2014
    Another decision to give it away. Captain Ekatya Serrado has spent her career fighting the Voloth, who view less advanced civilizations as fuel for their empire. The choice between saving her ship or a world under attack is easy. The choices that come after are harder. Lancer Andira Tal, the leader of Alsea, believes her people are alone in the universe until a gigantic spaceship crashes near her capital city. Now she is thrust into a struggle between two powerful forces, and her planet is the prize. With a civilization and the galactic balance of power at risk, friendships and alliances may not hold against betrayal. Honor is easy when the stakes are low.