Book picks similar to
Her Cross to Bear (House of Van Helsing, #1) by Erin Bedford
arc
fantasy
vampire
reviewed
Dragon Marked
Jaymin Eve - 2015
Contained within these fortresses are some of the deadliest criminals from the five supernatural races: vampire, shifter, fey, magic users and demi-fey.Jessa Lebron, twenty-two, has spent her entire life in Stratford, Connecticut, one of the gateway towns adjoining these prisons which protect the fortified borders. She’s a wolf shifter, and her father leads the town council. She learns that much of her life has been hidden from her, secrets which threaten to tear apart the very fabric of her world. Especially the biggest secret of them all.She is dragon marked.Jessa only knows what she’s been told about the dragon marked, that they are dangerous and must be eliminated to prevent the rise of the dragon king, the powerful warmonger who had his head removed a thousand years ago. So now Jessa's on the biggest hit list of all. Dragon mark hunters are lethal and her only hope to evade detection is to keep the energy contained.As more secrets unfold she finds herself locked up in Vanguard, the notorious American supernatural prison. Thankfully she’s not alone. Braxton, the dragon-shifter has her back. Together they must survive long enough to free themselves and the other dragon marked.Because it’s time for the dragon marked to rise.
War of Hearts
S. Young - 2019
Young.Thea Quinn has no idea what she is. All she knows is that her abilities have been a plague upon her life since she was a child. After years of suffering at the hands of a megalomaniac, Thea escaped and has been on the run ever since.The leadership and protection of his pack are of the utmost importance to Conall MacLennan, Alpha and Chief of Clan MacLennan, the last werewolf pack in Scotland. Which is why watching his sister slowly die of a lycanthropic disease is emotional torture. When Conall is approached by a businessman who offers a cure for his sister in exchange for the use of Conall’s rare tracking ability, Conall forges an unbreakable contract with him. He has to find and retrieve the key to the cure: dangerous murderer, Thea Quinn.Thea’s attempts to evade the ruthless werewolf are not only thwarted by the Alpha, but by outside dangers. With no choice but to rely on one another for survival, truths are revealed, intensifying a passionate connection they both fight to resist. At war with themselves and each other, Conall and Thea’s journey to Scotland forces them to face a heartrending choice between love and betrayal.War of Hearts is a standalone paranormal romance.
Death Becomes Her
Michael Anderle - 2015
For a thousand years, it has felt stifled by Michael's strictures, the rules they must follow on pain of death. As the first and most powerful vampire in existence, he has the power to keep the power struggles under the radar from the rest of humanity. Unfortunately that is changing.Someone has found the serum to make intelligent nosferatu, a type of vampire little better than blood sucking beasts who can change the power struggle significantly. Michael thought this serum safely lost in the bombing of Japan in 1945.The third effort to overturn Michael's decrees is about to take place, the problem is Michael is tired. After a thousand years of fighting and keeping the peace with his Family, the Unforsaken and the known supernaturals he is world weary and ready to sleep a final time.He needs to find a way to bring another to take his place, someone with the will and desire to make a difference. He finds Bethany Anne.The daughter of a General, she excels were others fear to go. She accepts the offer but doesn't realize she won't be transformed like any other vampire in history, even Michael. The problem? Even he didn't realize exactly how he was transformed and it completely throws the understanding of vampires and why they were created out the window.When she wakes up, nothing is going to go like she thought. The UnkownWorld is going to change, it just doesn't know whose beat they will dance to, yet.
Paranormalcy
Kiersten White - 2010
Evie’s always thought of herself as a normal teenager, even though she works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she’s falling for a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person who can see through supernatural glamours.She’s also about to find out that she may be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.So much for normal.
Empyrean Witch
J.S. Malcom - 2019
Then again, I thought the same thing about witches. I'm no stranger to darkness. I've been dealing with it all my life. That's just part of being a "mutant psychic." I see things and know things that, most of the time, I'd be better off not seeing or knowing. But when my witch powers start to manifest, my life takes a new direction entirely. Suddenly, I’m recruited by the Shadow Order, a supernatural agency dedicated to the protection of the covens. My primary task? To read supernatural murder scenes. Trust me, at that point the word “dark” takes on a whole new meaning.When one of those crime scenes opens a door between me and a trio of dark goddesses hunting for a talisman, I seriously start to reconsider my life choices. Especially when those same goddesses start hunting me. Maybe it's a case of mistaken identity. I'd really like to think so. But the feeling I’m getting is that they know just who and what I am, while I'm still trying to figure that part out for myself. And when I meet an irresistibly alluring stranger who seems to know me better than I do, I really have to wonder. Because if what he tells me is true, I too carry the blood of the gods in my veins, and only I can unlock the magic needed to save the human race.
Blood Wager
Connie Suttle - 2011
Turned by rogues who wager her life, Lissa is running from her maker who is determined to kill her, hunted by the Council who has branded her a rogue and blackmailed by werewolves, who utilize her newly-developed talents for their own gain.
Something Secret This Way Comes
Sierra Dean - 2011
This Secret is deadly. For Secret McQueen, her life feels like the punch line for a terrible joke. Abandoned at birth by her werewolf mother, hired as a teen by the vampire council of New York City to kill rogues, Secret is a part of both worlds, but belongs to neither. At twenty-two, she has carved out as close to a normal life as a bounty hunter can. When an enemy from her past returns with her death on his mind, she is forced to call on every ounce of her mixed heritage to save herself—and everyone else in the city she calls home. As if the fate of the world wasn’t enough to deal with, there’s Lucas Rain, King of the East Coast werewolves, who seems to believe he and Secret are fated to be together. Too bad Secret also feels a connection with Desmond, Lucas’s second-in-command… Warning: This book contains a sarcastic, kick-ass bounty hunter; a metaphysical love triangle with two sexy werewolves; a demanding vampire council; and a spicy seasoning of sex and violence.This book was previously released by Samhain Publishing. The new edition contains minor word changes but no story changes.
Shift
Karina Espinosa - 2015
Add her now ex-boyfriend who recently dumped her for the school's resident bimbo—oh, and she's a werewolf. Mackenzie Grey meets her match when she is kidnapped by the Brooklyn Pack and tossed between Sebastian and Jonah—the Alpha and the Beta. Being a lone-wolf in the city is dangerous, and now that the Pack has found her, so can every supernatural being in the Tri-State area. And not even her sarcastic, smart mouth can get her out of this. When a string of kidnappings involves Mackenzie in supernatural politics, she questions her new acquaintances and finds unlikely allies. Can she escape Pack law and keep her freedom—or will she be condemned to an unwanted path?
New Beginnings
Brandy L. Rivers - 2013
Some Alpha’s just don’t know how to take care of their wolves. She had managed Gregory’s bar for years but she knew he would never sell it to her. After one giant mistake, he went from bad to worse. As a psychic, she knew it was a downward spiral. Taking her future in her own hands, she contacts the Alpha in Edenton. He is happy to sell the empty bar no one has the time, nor desire to renovate, much less run. Their attraction is unexpected and the last thing either want, but they find the only thing they need in each other. There is just one problem. Slater’s second in command is plotting against him. Liam will use anything to take over as Alpha. Plenty of werewolves, an old vampire flame, plus a paranoid second, and don’t forget the psychic with a whole lot of attitude.
The Dark Divine
Bree Despain - 2009
Despite promising Jude she'll stay away, Grace cannot deny her attraction to Daniel's shocking artistic abilities, his way of getting her to look at the world from new angles, and the strange, hungry glint in his eyes.The closer Grace gets to Daniel, the more she jeopardizes her life, as her actions stir resentment in Jude and drive him to embrace the ancient evil Daniel unleashed that horrific night. Grace must discover the truth behind the boy's dark secret...and the cure that can save the ones she loves. But she may have to lay down the ultimate sacrifice to do it--her soul.
Vampire Love Story
H.T. Night - 2010
Tonight is no different. Out for a simple jog, he happens upon a young woman who needs help. So Josiah does what he does best. He takes on her attackers...all five of them, in fact. Little does Josiah know that this one act of goodwill will introduce him to a very strange world, a world of dreams...and nightmares. For this woman, Lena, is not who she seems, and her friends are the stuff of legends. Worst yet, Josiah finds himself falling for not one, but two of these deadly creatures of the night. And as Josiah suffers a devesating loss that rocks his world, he will fight for what he believes in. And fighting is what Josiah does best.
The Taker
Alma Katsu - 2011
. . but immortality comes at a price. . . .
On the midnight shift at a hospital in rural St. Andrew, Maine, Dr. Luke Findley is expecting a quiet evening--until a mysterious woman, Lanore McIlvrae, arrives in his ER, escorted by police. Lanore is a murder suspect, and Luke is inexplicably drawn to her. As Lanny tells him her story, an impassioned account of love and betrayal that transcends time and mortality, she changes his life forever. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Lanny was consumed as a child by her love for the son of St. Andrew’s founder, and she will do anything to be with him forever, but the price she pays is steep--an immortal bond that chains her to a terrible fate.
Hemlock Grove
Brian McGreevy - 2012
A manhunt ensues—though the authorities aren’t sure if it’s a man they should be looking for.Some suspect an escapee from the White Tower, a foreboding biotech facility owned by the Godfrey family—their personal fortune and the local economy having moved on from Pittsburgh steel—where, if rumors are true, biological experiments of the most unethical kind take place. Others turn to Peter Rumancek, a Gypsy trailer-trash kid who has told impressionable high school classmates that he’s a werewolf. Or perhaps it’s Roman, the son of the late JR Godfrey, who rules the adolescent social scene with the casual arrogance of a cold-blooded aristocrat, his superior status unquestioned despite his decidedly freakish sister, Shelley, whose monstrous medical conditions belie a sweet intelligence, and his otherworldly control freak of a mother, Olivia. At once a riveting mystery and a fascinating revelation of the grotesque and the darkness in us all, Hemlock Grove has the architecture and energy to become a classic in its own right—and Brian McGreevy the talent and ambition to enthrall us for years to come.
Menace to the Assassins
Stacey Brutger - 2021
IN TRUTH, IT’S A DAY WHEN THE GODS MEDDLE, PLAYING A DEADLY GAME THAT FEW HUMANS SURVIVE.When Morgan and her assassins return to the Academy, they learn they’ve been promoted. With graduation looming, their last days at the Academy are numbered.Morgan and the guys are ecstatic, more than ready to put their troubles behind them and start fresh. But when someone tries to kill her, Morgan fears their problems are far from over.If they want to make it back to their small coven alive, they must uncover the secrets of her birth before she’s silenced forever. Unfortunately, the answers might ultimately get them all killed.An Academy of Assassins Novel: Book 5 (Short Story)Meet the Assassins: Morgan, Kincade, Ascher, Ryder, Draven, and Atlas.**PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED in the Into The Dark Charity Anthology.
Shadow Caster
Debbie Cassidy - 2019
Doesn’t matter if you don’t remember doing the crime.I killed a human, and no, it wasn’t on purpose, but that shit doesn’t matter to the council. I’m facing death. So, when I’m offered a deal to avoid execution, I’d be a fool not to take it, even if it means leaving the human world and urban life behind to enroll in the Nightwatch Academy – a gothic monstrosity hidden from human eyes, located way too close to the largest tear in the fabric of our reality.It would be fun if I had any inclination of becoming a member of the Watch or supporting the shadow knights at keeping the Formorian threat at bay. But heck, the monsters beyond the mist aren’t my problem. I have personal demons to deal with.Once I’m out, the Watch can shove it.But one sip from the ceremonial goblet and my plans to coast are out of the window as my powers spark to life.I’m an anomaly, one the Watch won’t be letting walk any time soon.My only comfort is a man who prides himself on his ability to harness pain. Battle scarred and formidable, he’s my tutor, my mentor, and the object of some super saucy dreams. He’s completely off limits and my only hope of surviving my first test.I’ll need to harness my powers fast.There can be no distractions.But when my fellow cadets start going missing then returning with no memory of who they used to be and my best friend is taken, turning a blind eye is no longer an option.Allies are limited when you’re a freak. Luckily, I don’t need a cheer squad to get shit done. Whoever is responsible better watch out. I’m coming for them, and I’ll be bringing the pain.The Vampire Academy meets Game of Thrones in this kick-ass, supernatural academy, Urban Fantasy with a slow burn Why Choose Romance.