Book picks similar to
Playing with Fire by Gena Showalter


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Relentless


Karen Lynch - 2013
    Now at seventeen, she is still haunted by memories of that day and driven by the need to understand why it happened. She lives a life full of secrets and her family and friends have no idea of the supernatural world she is immersed in or of Sara’s own very powerful gift.In her quest for answers about her father’s death, Sara takes risks that expose her and her friends to danger and puts herself into the sights of a sadistic vampire. On the same fateful night she meets Nikolas, a warrior who turns Sara’s world upside down and is determined to protect her even if it’s the last thing she wants.Sara’s life starts to spin out of control as she is hunted by an obsessed vampire, learns that her friends have secrets of their own and reels from the truth about her own ancestry. Sara has always been fiercely independent but in order to survive now she must open herself to others, to reveal her deepest secrets. And she must learn to trust the one person capable of breaking down the walls around her.

Wild Rain


Christine Feehan - 2004
    Now, thousands of miles from home, under the lush canopy of the rainforest, she’s found sanctuary. But in this world teeming with unusual creatures walks the most exotic of them all. His name is Rio. A native of the forest imbued with a fierce prowess, he is something to be desired. Possessed of secrets of his own, he is something to be feared. As Rachel’s past looms as oppressively as the heat of the forest and Rio unleashes the secret animal instincts that course through his blood, Rachel fears that her isolated haven has become an inescapable hell...

Darkhouse


Karina Halle - 2011
    Though she’s been dealing with a quarter-life crisis and post-college syndrome like any other twenty-something, she’s still not what you would call “ordinary.” For one thing, there’s her past which she likes to pretend never happened, and then there’s the fact that she sees ghosts. Luckily for her, that all comes in handy when she stumbles across Dex Foray, an eccentric producer for an upcoming webcast on ghost hunters. Even though the show’s budget is non-existent and Dex himself is a maddening enigma, Perry is instantly drawn into a world that both threatens her life and seduces her with a sense of importance. Her uncle’s haunted lighthouse provides the perfect catalyst and backdrop for a horrific mystery that unravels the threads of Perry’s fragile sanity and causes her to fall for a man, who, like the most dangerous of ghosts, may not be all that he seems.

Eternal Hunter


Cynthia Eden - 2009
    Make that two. One: She’s not entirely human–she’s Other, desperately trying to keep her supernatural strength under wraps. Two: she’s got a killer stalking her–an Other rogue set on “gifting” her bloody corpses, not to mention nights lying awake in terror. Small wonder she’s been having bad luck with men.But the bounty hunter on her new case isn’t worried about any of that. Jude Donovan is a shapeshifter himself, and the new DA’s midnight hair and addictive scent tell him all he thinks he needs to know: She’s gorgeous, she’s definitely not human, and she’s bringing out the animal in him in a really good way. He might have to track a psychotic Other stalker through half of Louisiana. But he might also get the chance to watch Erin’s wild side come out and play.

Tall, Dark & Lonely


R.L. Mathewson - 2010
    After years of scraping just to get by she lands her dream job and finally has a decent down payment for a house so she can move her brother and sister into a real home. It's too bad nothing ever goes the way it's supposed to. When the mother that abandoned them years ago suddenly shows up and moves them to New Hampshire Madison has no choice but to go or lose her brother and sister. Shoving her dreams aside yet again, Madison tries to make things work. It's really cold, her fifteen year old sister acts like a hooker in training, men act funny around her, her boss is a real jerk, she feels like an outsider, her best friend turns out to be a sixteen year old punk, and the incredibly handsome guy renting the room adjoining hers not only hogs the bathroom, taking three showers a day leaving her with cold water, but he also has a secret. A secret that she becomes a bit obsessed with and can't let go no matter how many times she's warned off.Detective Ephraim Williams learned long ago not to show any emotion or allow himself to get attached to humans. What was the point? They came and went and he remained. This time wouldn't be any different or so he thought. When his landlady told him her grandchildren were moving in he didn't expect much, well other than to be left alone. What he didn't expect was to have to fight bloodlust every time he so much as caught a whiff of his delectable neighbor's scent or her bombarding him with questions every time she cornered him. If that's not bad enough a Master from his past has found him once again and is demanding his blood and is willing to do anything to get it, even using the exasperating neighbor that makes him feel more than pain for the first time in centuries.

Cursed


T.L. Brown - 2011
    The violent acts shroud the harbour town in mystery and fear. In a town where doors are left unlocked and everyone knows everyone else, Aimee James, the unlikeliest of them all, finds herself the next target. But as the stakes get higher and her body gets weaker, Aimee discovers there are worse things than dying. There is something called cursed. This is the YA version of The Devil's Roses.

Blood Kiss


J.R. Ward - 2015
    Her strategy? Join the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s training center program and learn to fight for herself, think for herself…be herself. It’s a good plan, until everything goes wrong. The schooling is unfathomably difficult, the other recruits feel more like enemies than allies, and it’s very clear that the Brother in charge, Butch O’Neal, a.k.a. the Dhestroyer, is having serious problems in his own life. And that’s before she falls in love with a fellow classmate. Craeg, a common civilian, is nothing her father would ever want for her, but everything she could ask for in a male. As an act of violence threatens to tear apart the entire program, and the erotic pull between them grows irresistible, Paradise is tested in ways she never anticipated—and left wondering whether she’s strong enough to claim her own power…on the field, and off.

Taming Demons for Beginners


Annette Marie - 2019
    I was right about the sorcery, but wrong about everything else.Rule two: Don't listen to the demon.My uncle chose a far deadlier power. He calls creatures of darkness into our world, binds them into service contracts, and sells them to the highest bidder. And I'm supposed to act like I don't know how illegal and dangerous it is.Rule three: Don't talk to the demon.All I had to do was keep my nose out of it. Pretend I didn't find the summoning circle in the basement. Pretend I didn't notice the shadowy being trapped inside it. Pretend I didn't break the rules.But I did, and now it's too late.

Into the Mist


Maya Banks - 2008
    He was born a shifter. A freak of nature.While on a mission, Eli’s men and their mercenary guide are exposed to a powerful chemical agent, and suddenly his secret has become easier to hide. Now he’s not the only one with the gift. But for his men, this “gift” is becoming more and more of a curse.Tyana Berezovsky’s brother Damiano was the guide for Eli’s team and was the worst affected by the chemical. As he grows increasingly unstable, Tyana fears she’s going to lose him to the beast he is becoming.Tyana will do whatever it takes to help him, even if it means using her body to go after the one man she thinks holds all the blame—and possibly the cure. Eli Chance.Product Warnings: Violence, blood, guns, knives, ass kicking, people who do mean things, bad people dying, explicit sex and smart mouths.

Raphael


D.B. Reynolds - 2009
    . . and vampires.Powerful and charismatic, Raphael is a Vampire Lord, one of the few who hold the power of life and death over every vampire in existence. Thousands call him Master and have pledged absolute loyalty on their very lives. But when, in a brazen and deadly daylight attack, a gang of human killers kidnaps the one female vampire he'd give his life for, Raphael turns to a human investigator to find his enemies before it's too late.Cynthia Leighton is smart, tough and sexy, a private investigator and former cop who's tired of spying on cheating spouses and digging out old bank accounts. When Raphael asks for her help in tracking down the kidnappers, Cyn's happy to accept. But she soon realizes her greatest danger comes not from the humans, but from Raphael himself.Battling Russian mobsters and treacherous vampires, and betrayed by those they trusted, Cyn and Raphael find themselves fighting for their lives while caught up in a passion of blood and violence that is destined to destroy them both.

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…

Pride Mates


Jennifer Ashley - 2010
    But waiting within are passions that no Collar can contain.Like most Shifters, Liam Morrissey has learned that trusting humans leads to no good. But when a beautiful attorney enters Shiftertown alone, Liam's alpha nature leaves him no choice but to offer his protection.Tasked with defending a Shifter accused of murder, attorney Kim Fraser is completely out of her depth in the mysterious world of Shifters. To prove her client's innocence, Kim will need the help of someone on the inside, even though relying on Liam goes against everything society says about Shifters.And when an un-Collared Shifter threatens both Kim and Liam, the young attorney will have to learn to trust her unlikely protector and face the passion she feels for a man who can't be tamed.

Kiss of Midnight


Lara Adrian - 2007
    But nothing about this night—or this man—is what it seems. For when Gabrielle witnesses a murder outside the club, reality shifts into something dark and deadly. In that shattering instant she is thrust into a realm she never knew existed—a realm where vampires stalk the shadows and a blood war is set to ignite.Lucan Thorne despises the violence carried out by his lawless brethren. A vampire himself, Lucan is a Breed warrior, sworn to protect his kind—and the unwitting humans existing alongside them—from the mounting threat of the Rogues. Lucan cannot risk binding himself to a mortal woman, but when Gabrielle is targeted by his enemies, he has no choice but to bring her into the dark underworld he commands.Here, in the arms of the Breed’s formidable leader, Gabrielle will confront an extraordinary destiny of danger, seduction, and the darkest pleasures of all. . . .

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.

Shifter Wars


Kelly St. Clare - 2020
    Apparently, Mum’s other family play laser tag every Wednesday. Not even joking. Laser tag.What the hell is this place?In hindsight, the massive guy with honey irises was my first major clue. Unusual eyes for a human, right?Perfect eyes for a werewolf.But sexy supernaturals, thongs, and mounting financial strain aside, Mum’s past is buried somewhere in this valley, and I need to dig up the truth or find a way to live with her lies.What do you do when neither option will leave you unscathed?